Exceptional French Royal binding with the coat-of-arms and the crowned cipher of Louis XIII

PLINIUS SECUNDUS, Gaius.

Secundi Historiae mundi libri XXXVII. .

Geneva: Sumptibus Iacobi Crispini, 1631.

Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002694

Two parts in one volume. Folio (350 x 216 mm). [36], 746 (i.e. 744), [160] pp. (index); 173 [1] pp., some mispaginations. Signatures: [par]-3[par]⁶ a-z⁶ A-Qq⁶, a-m⁶ n-o⁴, [par]⁴ AA-BB⁶ CC⁴ DD-PP⁶. Title page printed in red and black and with large woodcut device, woodcut head-pieces and initials, text printed in two columns, leaves partly untrimmed. Bound in fine contemporary calf with boards and spine richly gilt-decorated with fleurs de lys and alternating crowned "L" cipher, the boards with an additional central gilt-stamped coat of arms of Louis XIII, the spine with 6 raised bands, gilt-lettered in first compartment (joints split at upper and lower spine, corners bumped, extremities rubbed), all edges gilt. Internally little browned only, occasional spotting, vertical crease to title-leaf, faint dampstaining to lower gutter of first leaves, little wormin in blank inner margins, a few paper flaws in blank margins. An exceptional royal calf-gilt binding, unrestored and remarkably well-preserved. ----

Dibdin II-323; Graesse V-341. An excellent edition of Pliny's Natural History, edited and commented by Jacques Dalechamps (1513-1588), physician, naturalist, botanist and author of the 'Historia generalis plantarum' (1586). The commentary by Sigismond Gelenius, a Czech scholar and friend of Erasmus and Fer Pintianus is added to this Geneva edition.

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