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Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
ALDROVANDI, ULISSE. Monstrorum historia. Over 450 woodcut illustrations of monsters, prodigies, portents, etc. [8], 748, [28]; 159, [9] pages, including engraved title by Giovanni Battista Coriolano with portrait of the dedicatee, Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and final blank. 2 parts in one volume. Folio, 357x240 mm, 17th-century blind-tooled pigskin over wooden boards with metal catches, lacking clasps, somewhat soiled and worn overall, endpapers renewed; occasional toning or browning and mostly marginal foxing and dampstains, genitalia inked out on most woodcuts where they appear, ink blot over illustration on verso of D3 oxidized with resulting small holes slightly affecting text on recto. Vienna apothecary inscription dated 1658 on title. Bologna: Nicolò Tebaldini (for Marco Antonio Bernia), 1642
first edition; with colophon dated 1642. "Aldrovandi assembled a large collection of specimens and notes on monsters which were published posthumously by Bartholommeo Ambrosini (1588-1657), who added a number of personally observed cases. Among the latter is the first detailed description of bladder exstrophy. Valuable case descriptions are mingled with fictitious ones, including specimens of false chimeras apparently created to please Aldrovandi's patrons"--Garrison-Morton 534.53. Alden 642/2 (for New World curiosities); Heirs of Hippocrates 330; Nissen ZBI 74.
