Milestones of Science Books

FUCHS, Leonhart.

New Kreüterbuch, in welchem nit allein die gantz histori, das ist, namen, gestalt, statt und zeit der wachsung, natur, krafft und würckung. .

Basel: Michael Isingrin, 1543.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good / No Jacket. Item #002771

Folio (375 x 240 mm). 444 unnumbered leaves. Signatures: (pi)-2(pi)6, 3(pi)4, (a-z)6 (A-Zz)6, AA6 BB8. Full-page woodcut portrait of Fuchs on title verso, 517 (7 hand-coloured) botanical woodcuts by Viet Rudolph Speckle after Heinrich Füllmaurer and Albert Meyer, woodcut portrait of the three artists with woodcut number 100 "Traubenkraut" on recto, and leaf with printer's device on verso bound at the end, woodcut historiated initials in several sizes. One manuscript leaf with coloured illustration inserted before a1 and further two with a coloured illustration of a peanut plant before BB7. Bound in contemporary German blind-stamped vellum over wooden boards, brass catch plates, dark-blue dyed edges (old rebacking, slight cracking of joints, some spotting and soiling, clasps missing, stub of leather one band present). A few corrections of text in old hand, occasional ink smudges, some spotting and browning (confined mainly to outer blank margins), light waterstain to lower blank margin of several gatherings, soiling to leaf Hh4. Provenance: Monogrammed bookplate to front pastedown. A fine copy with ample margins in contemporary binding, except for the old rebacking completely untouched, rarely found complete and without supplied leaves as here. ----

Nissen, BBI 659; VD 16 F 3243; Pritzel 3139; Stafleu/Cowan 1910; Wellcome 2443; PMM 69 (Latin edition). - FIRST EDITION in German of "perhaps the most celebrated and most beautiful herbal ever published" (PPM). The woodcuts are those used in the 1542 edition, plus an additional five, depicting Hunerbis, Spitziger Wegerich, klein Schlangen Kraut, Knabenkrautweible, das Mittel, and Kuchenschell. The Latin and German editions are closely associated: printed at the same press, on the same paperstock, and with the same fine woodcut botanical illustrations. As Fuchs explains in the preface to this German edition, he wished to reach an audience broader than the Latinate scholar or physician for whom herbals had been a necessary medical tool throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Fuchs realized that his own herbal could provide that knowledge not only to the specialist but also to the layman interested in plants and the popular remedies derived from them, or simply interested in the natural world surrounding him. In preparing the German edition, Fuchs took the opportunity to augment his text with an index of illnesses treatable with herbs, enhancing its usefulness and popular appeal. The illustrations depict over 400 German and 100 foreign plants (including the first description of some recently discovered American plants). In contrast to many of the crude herbals which preceded this work, Fuchs' botanical descriptions are very accurate and mark a significant advance in medical botany. His detailed plant-portraits were highly influential: they were reused in all later editions, copied in the works of Bock, Dodoens, William Turner, and others. It was also one of the first herbals that also recognized the artists for their contributions and whose work influenced botanical illustration for many years. The drawings were made from life by Albert Meyer, largely based on plants in Fuch's medicinal garden at Tübingen. - Visit our website for additional images and information.

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