BOCK Hieronymus De stirpium, maxime earum quae in Germania nostra nascuntur, usitatis, nomenclaturis, propriisque diferentiis neque non temperaturis ac facultatibus Commentariorum libri tres… interprete Davide Kybero… His accesserunt praefationes duae : altera Conradi Gesneri… adjectus est Benedicti Textoris Segusiani de Stirpium differentiis, ex Dioscoride secundum locos communes.

Durling 597; Hunt 66; Nissen BBI, 183; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 576; Wellcome 911; Pritzel, 867.

First Latin edition of bock’s famous herbal, with 38 woodcuts newly added, and the first edition with the additions by Gesner and Tessier.

The first illustrated German edition of Bock, was published in 1546, and contained 468 woodcuts (enlarged to 530 in the 1551 edition) by David Kandel. Kandel for the most part based his woodcuts on those of Fuchs and Brunfels, but some one hundred are entirely original, and include several with charming genre scenes accompanying the plant depictions, many with his initials.

Woodcut portrait of Bock and 568 woodcuts in text.

Bock was one of the ‘Fathers of German Botany’, the triumvirate that included Brunfels and Fuchs. As a botanist Bock was their decided superior. He was not shackled to the classical authority of Dioscorides and Pliny, and therefore could recognise new plants without his perception being clouded by supposed classical precedents. He pioneered descriptive botany, giving a detailed developmental history of each plant in its stages of growth, and was the first to discuss plant communities, thus foreshadowing the science of ecology. Gesner’s contribution to this edition comprises a preface to the work and a 50-page bibliography of botanical writers, constituting the first botanical bibliography. Tessier provided a commentary on Dioscorides.

A beautiful copy in its contemporary blind tooled binding, a few wormholes on last pages. Signatures on title (one dated 1556); Gloucestershire library’s stamp.