Rerum medicarum Novae Hispaniae thesaurus seu Plantarum animalium mineralium Mexicanorum historia

Hernandez, Francisco

1651. Rome. Vitale Mascardi. Folio, (335 x 240 mm). 4 ff. (including engraved title page), 950 pp. (plate inserted at f. 212 and f. 300, additional appendix leaf inserted between pp. 918-919), 1 f., 16 ff., 90 рр., 3 ff. Contemporary Italian stiff vellum, boards with double gilt fillet and inner simple gilt fillet, arabesque center piece, raised bands to spine, also tooled in blind, hinges somewhat weakened but holding firm, some scratches or staining but overall very good. As always some light foxing, mainly to engraved title, paper repair to p. 31, closed tears to the margins of p. 125, p. 417 and p. 525, not affecting text, marginal loss to p. 321, light dampstain along top margin running throughout most of the volume, scattered foxing, staining and wormholing, with a few pages more browned than others, however overall a fine example.

A fine copy in the contemporary binding of the so-called ‘Mexican Treasury’, a remarkable achievement comprising the totality of European knowledge of the Natural History of Mexico, illustrated with approximately 800 woodcuts in text, and this copy with the more desirable engraved title (some copies contain the letterpress title); “a monument of industry and erudition, the more remarkable as being the first on the subject, and even today it still holds its place as a book of the highest authority” (Hunt).

 

“The work is a monumental 17th century compendium of the botany, zoology, and mineralogy of the New World, the result of teamwork over many decades between scientists and travelers.” (LoC note).

 

Hernandez was the royal physician to Philip II of Spain, as interest in the American colonies grew, he was sent in 1570 to Mexico to study the flora and fauna and to prepare an inventory of the natural products of New Spain, with a focus on the medical applications of its yet unknown plants. Hernandez stayed in Mexico for about 7 years. His research was only published after his death by his successor, Nardo Antonio Recchi, who also died before completion of the work. A first editorial attempt occurred in 1615 in Mexico City, it was an incomplete and unillustrated edition, which is of course, extremely rare, and has the honor of being the first book of its kind to be published in the Americas.

 

This Latin translation, complete and more organized, was composed in Rome at the famed Accademia dei Lincei, here it received its copious illustrations; it was first published in 1628 in an edition that . The history of its publication is nothing short of an odyssey, as Hernandez’ research was a complex and huge manuscript, it was edited and organized first by Lenorado Recchi and later by Federico Cesi (the main contributor), Johannes Faber, and others.

 

The book is a bibliographical nightmare, most copies are different in one way or another; the present copy contains the unsigned and unpaginated leaf bound between pages 918 and 919, and contains the complete index, often missing 2 leaves. This copy contains the engraved title page by Johann Friedrich Greuter, and not the letterpress title, most copies have either one or the other, very few contain both.

 

Provenance: Il Polifilo, Italy.

 

Sabin 31516; Palau 113538. John Carter Brown Cat., I,49; Hunt 247; Medina, Hispano-Americana 1157.

1651

$40,000.00