MATTIOLI (PIETRO ANDREA)
De i discorsi di... nelli sei libri de Pedacio Dioscoride Anazarbeo, della materia medicinale, 2 vol., third Italian edition, title with woodcut printer's device, full-page woodcut portrait of Mattioli within an elaborate border on k8v, over 900 large woodcuts of plants, herbs, animals, fish and insects, many by Giorgio Liberale and Wolfgang Meyerpeck, varying degrees of browning and staining, especially to volume 1, occasional small ink/oxidisation spots throughout, volume 1 with some repairs to worming (affecting text and illustration in one section), title and 2 other leaves repaired (former with some letters supplied in manuscript), volume 2 with final a1 and a6 repaired in margins, early vellum, some stains, spine ends and edges restored [Nissen BBI 1304; Pritzel 5988; Wellcome I, 4137], folio (350 x 240mm.), Venice, Bartolomeo de gli Alberti, 1604
Footnotes:
The scarce and well regarded third Italian language edition of the 'great Mattioli', with the full series of magnificent large woodcuts. Mattioli (1500-1577) was a Sienese physician and distinguished phytologist, and, ostensibly translating Dioscorides, filled in the gaps, adding a vast commentary along with hundreds of new medicinal plants. The botanical cuts first appeared in the 1562 Herbar (in Czech), and the 1563 New Kreuterbuch printed in Prague, but this edition includes the equally fine cuts from the 1565 edition of the enlarged work which include zoological subjects. Included at the end is the 12-page Del modo di distillare le acque da tutte le piante et come vi si possino conservare i loro veri odori & sapori.

Provenance: 'Ex libris Fisici [-Physici] Palearii', ownership inscriptions on title-page and front free nedpaper of volume 2.
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The damp and other staining more prevalent in volume 1, but both with the small scattered black spots (usually just one per page here and there); a few leaves cleaned
Volume 1: repairs to h6, DD6 (tape);
worm repairs: z5-Bb2 affecting text/illustration, others such as Ff5-Kk6 mostly marginal but occasionally affecting text.
Binding: solid, spine bands exposed through cut outs in vellum. Some worming at foot of upper cover to volume 1.