BOCCONE, Paolo. Icones & descriptiones rariorum plantarum Siciliae, Melitae, Galliae, & Italiae.

With 52 Botanical Illustrations, Arranged ‘Promiscuously and Indiscreetly’

BOCCONE, Paolo. Icones & descriptiones rariorum plantarum Siciliae, Melitae, Galliae, & Italiae. Oxford: ‘E theatro Sheldoniano’ . 1674.

Modern vellum, spine and upper board lettered in gilt; pp. [15], [1 (blank)], 96; copper-engraved vignette of Sheldonian Theatre to title, 52 numbered copper-engraved botanical illustrations in the text, woodcut headpieces; unobtrusive early marginal repair to title, modern reinforcement to inner margin of a2–a4, *1, and last few ff., last quire somewhat soiled with small dampstain to inner margin, slight browning to first and final ff., sporadic light spotting; otherwise internally clean and bright.

First edition of this pre-Linnean illustrated account of the flora of Sicily, Malta, southern France, and Italy by the Sicilian botanist Paolo Boccone (1633–1704), illustrated with fifty-two copper-engraved plates depicting a rich variety of rare plants and fungi.

Born in Palermo, Boccone travelled extensively throughout southern Europe in pursuit of botanical knowledge, gaining the patronage of Ferdinando II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1610–1670). Boccone published on a range of natural phenomena in his Recherches et observations naturelles (Paris, 1671; Amsterdam, 1674), discussing inter alia coral, fossils, and the eruption of Mount Etna; the work also made significant contributions to the fields of palaeontology, medicine, and toxicology.

The publication of the present work in Oxford was facilitated by the Scottish botanist Robert Morison, then professor of botany at the university, who wrote its preface and revised Boccone’s text. The cost of printing was met by Captain Charles Hatton, a wealthy amateur naturalist and former pupil of Morison, who also funded seven additional illustrations prepared under Morison’s direction from dried plant specimens. The resulting volume describes one hundred and nineteen plants, illustrated on fifty-two engraved plates, including such curiosities as the Malum Aurantium malo Citrio praegnans , an orange in which a second citrus fruit appears to grow encased within the larger fruit (plate II).

In preparing the illustrations, Boccone experimented with a method of transferring the forms of dried and pressed plants directly onto damp paper, using the resulting impressions as models for the printed illustrations. Although this offered an unusually immediate means of recording specimens, the technique could produce indistinct results. Morison voiced reservations about the quality of many of the original illustrations, and seven were consequently redrawn and engraved at Hatton’s expense.

Reviewing the work for the Royal Society in 1698, the naturalist John Ray criticised the arrangement of the plants, observing that the species had been placed ‘promiscuously and indiscreetly’ as they came to hand, ‘without any Order or Connexion’. He also faulted Boccone for omitting synonyms and references to earlier botanical literature, omissions which the author attributed to a lack of time and books. Boccone states in the work that it is intended for readers already ‘advanced in the knowledge of botanick’, to whom lengthy descriptions would be superfluous, rather than for ‘novices’ ( Correspondence of John Ray , p. 353).

His interest in botanical study, however, extended beyond established practitioners, and he actively encouraged women to pursue the subject. In a notice posted in Paris around 1670, he invited the city’s ladies to emulate two gentlewomen whom he had instructed in Lyon, claiming that in just three months they had learnt to recognise almost every plant native to the surrounding region. The present copy belongs to the issue without the additional bookseller’s line on the title-page, but retaining the place of publication. Printed at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, just four years after its opening in 1669, the volume is among the early works issued by the university’s new printing house. The title-page features a view of the building, designed by Christopher Wren.

Our copy has been annotated in a nineteenth-century hand, identifying a number of the plants by later botanical names, many following the Linnaean system of nomenclature. Examples include Apocynum androsaemifolium and Erigeron canadensis , both published by Linnaeus in 1753, The annotations reflect a retrospective effort to identify Boccone’s plants using the botanical classifications established after the book’s publication.

ESTC R6118; Hunt 329; Madan 3003. Nissen BBI 179; Pritzel 859; Stafleu p. 243. See Lankester ed. The Correspondence of John Ray ( 1848 ).

SKU: 2126710