Insectorum sive minimorum Animalium Theatrum

Description:

First Edition. Text Latin. This book is the first dealing entirely with entomology to be published in the British Isles. It originated with a manuscript by the Swiss physician and naturalist Conrad Gesner (1516-1565), which remained unpublished. The manuscript passed to the English scholar Thomas Penny (c.1532-88), who spent fifteen years bringing together additional material for the book, a task which remained incomplete at the time of his death in 1588. Penny bequeathed the manuscript to Moffet, who added further new material, chiefly taken from Edward Wotton's "De Differentiis Animalium Libri Decem", and eventually completed the manuscript in 1589. It remained unpublished when Moffet himself died in 1604. Sir Theodore Mayerne, a physician and scholar eventually acquired the manuscript and published it, with the addition of a dedication, in 1634. The work was illustrated with 580 woodcuts. The illustration of the American Swallowtail butterfly on p 98 is notable as the first representation in print of an American butterfly.

The work also includes spiders, with notes about their many 'virtues', such as swallowing spiders to prevent gout, or that spiders can foretell the weather. One theory suggests that Moffet's daughter, Patience is the person referred to in the English nursery rhyme, 'Little Miss Muffet'.

Lisney 3; Nissen ZBI 2852. Bibliographical note: According to Lisney there are three variant imprints, or 'issues' of this book - the title page here corresponds to his second issue with the name of the bookseller Guiliel. [William] Hope following that of the publisher, Thomas Cotes. However, there are a number of errors in pagination, listed by Lisney, including page 48 numbered 52, which he states is corrected in the second issue (it is not corrected in this copy, nor in several others we have seen; Lisney also mentions copies of the first issue with the error corrected). There is a ten digit jump where page 286 is numbered 296 without any corresponding break in the text, an error which then continues to the end of the volume.

Condition

Sm. folio, recased in orig. mottled calf boards, rebacked in matching style, raised bands, leather title pieces, marbled endpaper. Minor wear to corners of boards. Occasional light browning/foxing, but this is less than often found with this work. Final page just cropped at outer edge with slight loss to two figures. Bookplates of two previous owners to endpapers.