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IMPERATO, F. Historia Naturale... nella quale ordinatamente si tratta della diversa condition di Minere, Pietre pretiose, & altre curiosita. Con varie Historie di Piante, & Animali, sin' hora non date in luce... Venice, Combi and La Noù, 1672. Folio (350 x 243mm). pp. (viii), 696, (8),title in red and black with large engraved vignette, double-page engraved plate showing the interior of Imperato's museum, and 126 woodcuts in the text. Contemporary publisher's boards (new spine).

(USD $ 8,800)    EUR 7.000

An uncut large-paper copy of the second edition (first 1599) of this beautiful catalogue of the 'Museo' of the Neapolitan apothecary Ferrante Imperato (1550-1625) and his son Francesco. This edition was prepared by Giovanni Maria Ferro who added new material and also new illustrations to the final chapter. Imperato's collection of natural history specimens was one of the earliest of its kind in Italy and the catalogue was the first to contain both plants and animals. "The museum of Ferrante and Francesco Imperato of Naples was as famous as Calceolari's and in Ferrante's 'Historia Naturale', ... several pages are devoted to molluscs and some of the shells illustrated are easily indentifiable" (Dance pp. 15-16). "The catalogue is divided in 28 books with substantial sections on mining (5 books) and alchemy (9 books), the remainder being devoted to animals and vegetable specimens. Ferrante Imperato took a scientific interest in his collection and was one of the first people to recognise the mysterious 'bronteae' and 'ombriae' as meteoric stones and proved that 'Jew stones', a popular 'Wunderkammer' specimen, were in fact the pertified points of an 'echinus'. In G.M. Ferro's addenda to the catalogue is an interesting description and illustration of red and black indian ink in a Chinese ink bottle and decorated vase (p. 677)" (Grinke, From Wunderkammer to museum n. 22). Besides Ferro's added illustrations and text, the second edition differs in having an engraved view of the museum interior, whereas in the first edition the scene is represented in a much cruder woodcut. The vignette on the title depicts hills, the shore, and the sea with a variety of plants, sea and land creatures, and minerals arising under the astral influence rained down from the heavens, with the motto 'ab uno'. Cobres I, p. 165 n. 16; Hunt 321; Murray I, p. 85.; Nissen BBI, 2111.
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