THE MOST COMPLETE ATLAS OF MUSHROOMS
WITH 1323 COLOURED PLATES REPRESENTING ALL THE VARIETIES KNOWN AT THE AUTHOR’S TIME

Bresadola, Jacopo (abbot). Iconographia mycologica in XX partes […]. Mediolani, Societate Italica Botanicorum et Museo Municipali Tridentino, MCMXXVII [Milan, Italic Society of Botanists and Town Museum of Trento, 1927-1941].

29 carpets containing loose sheets (240x165 mm), green half cloth binding with black letterings at spine and covers, each mushroom has a dedicated issue containing a leaf with a coloured representation of it. 26 parts of the Iconography and three folders containing Supplement I in three parts. Text and notes in Latin. Complete in itself (There are two following supplements not included).

Black and white portrait of the author pasted at first issue.

1323 coloured plates representing all the varieties of mushrooms known at Bresadola’s time after his personal watercolours.

Scarce Italian first edition of Bresadola’s «Iconographia Mycologica», the most renowned and complete atlas on mushrooms of the 20th century.

The present set includes the original corpus of the Iconography, printed between 1927 and 1933 with 1250 plates, and the first supplement in three parts (1941) containing 73 more species, and then, plates. The work was edited and completed by G.B. Traverso, L. Fenaroli, G. Catoni e G.B. Trener.

First scarce edition of this monumental work, one of the most complete and influential on the matter. Each representation of a mushroom is equipped with a descriptive text and the complete list of the scientifical names by with the species is known. The mushrooms included come not only from Italy, but from every part of the world: Bresadola got images and information about the international varieties by renowned collegues as Quélet, Patouillard and Sydow, with whom he was in epistolar contact.

In his bio-bibliography of Bresadola, Catoni counts 1017 new species described by the Italian mychologist. The great value of this work lies not only in the accurate description, that includes as well polite revisions of the previous doctrines on the matter, but specifically in the precision of the images, the majority of them coming form Bresadola’s own watercolours. Each picture, in fact, represents the mushrooms in their different degrees of development, underlining specific features and diversifying aspects.

Giacomo Bresadola (Ortisè, 1847 – Trento, 1929) was the most important Italian mychologist and a priest. After been ordained, he was sent to a mountain village in Val di Sole, near Trento and then he became fond of botany and started his studies on the local vegetation. He observed mosses and lichens and just in second moment he devoted his attention to the mushrooms, under the supervision of father Giovanella from Cembra. The first work that made him famous in the European scientifical societies was the Fungi tridentini novi vel nondum delineati (first volume published in 1881, the second in 1892), a good atlas collecting 281 Trentine varieties. In 1885, he was sent to Trento at the Diocesan Administration and there remained until 1910 when, retired, he continued his activity as a mycologist. After reading the works by Venturi and Vittadini on the matter, abbot Bresadola wrote a letter to prof. Saccardo, asking for his works and declaring his will of helping him research the area near Trento. From that moment on a profitable cooperation started, that let Bresadola come in contact with the most prominent specialists of the world (Lucien Quélet, Patouillard, Sydow, Henning, Barla and Massalongo) and write on the most important botanical reviews. When he died, in 1929, the Italian Botanical Society and the Natural Science Museum of Trento completed and published in his memory the Iconographia Mycologica.

References: IT\ICCU\SBL\0527683. For more information about the life and works by Giacomo Bresadola, see C.A. Bauer, Frammenti inediti di una vita, Trento, Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali, 1979. A digital reproduction of the Iconographia Mycologica can be consulted on the website of the Natural Science Museum of Trento at www.mtsn.tn.it/bresadola/iconographia.asp.

Minor traces of dumpness at the folders, but otherwise original edition in fine condition.