Herbarius Patauie impressus Anno domi[ni] [et]cetera lxxxv [1485]. by HERBARIUS LATINUS - 1485

Passau,: Johann Petri, 1485., 1485. Small quarto. 212x160 mm. Collation: many irregularities in the folation, or perhaps bound out of order: [4], cl, [18 of 20] ff. = 172 of 174 ff. Lacks last 2 leaves (supplied in photocopy). Note: f. [156] is a blank. Gothic letter, with plant names given in both Latin and German. WITH 150 WOODCUTS OF PLANTS IN CONTEMPORARY COLORING. Maximum: 33-34 lines per page. Not rubricated. Staining throughout, worm holes present on the first & last few leaves, diminishing to nearly non after 5 leaves, a few minor marginal tears (esp. lxxvii + lxxviii), title-pages soiled. Nineteenth century quarter olive-green/brownish morocco, raised bands, gilt-stamped spine, mauve cloth, marbled endsheets. Some early manuscript annotations on the title-page: ?. . . habuit f Adamus Tobin[?] dono gratuito . . . de vergeon sacrista[?] . . . Ambroniaii 1618? and ?Voyez Brunet la letter H page 159 du supplement 1848.? Ink manuscript notation ?1485? on title. Very good. THE PASSEU HERBAL WITH 150 HAND-COLORED PLATES - THE FIRST BOOK DATED FROM JOHANN PETRI?S PRESS. The ?first edition of the Passau Herbarius, and the first dated book from the press of Johann Petri at Passau, Germany. The ?lxxxv? on the title is for the imprint date [14] + lxxxv. ?The text and arrangement are identical with the Schöffer edition, only the German names of the plants are sometimes spelled differently on account of the varying dialects, a fact which gives a special interest to this edition. / ?The woodcuts are copied from those in the Mainz edition, but they are slightly different and usually reversed. Two of them – 96 and 148 – are printed upside down. These mis-prints seem to be found only in the first copies which left the press; they are not mentioned by Hain, Pellechet, Schreiber or the British Museum.? – Lathrop Harper, Incunabula (1930), no. 905. / The volume starts with a preface and the index capitulor, followed by the main body of the work which is arranged in 150 chapters, each with a woodcut of the plant and all hand-colored in a contemporary hand. Under each figure is a description of the plant in Latin and in German. After there are 16 of 18 leaves containing Sec particulae de simplicibus laxativis. Agnes Arber states, in this period of printing, ?Soon after the appearance in Italy of the first printed edition of the Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus, three works were published at Mainz in Germany. These were the Latin Herbarius (1484), the German Herbarius (1485), and, derived from the latter, the Hortus or Ortus sanitatus (1491). The Latin and the German Herbarius, together with the Herbarium of Apuleius, may be regarded as the doyens among printed herbals.? This issue follows the 1485 German Herbarius folio. PROVENANCE: Adamus Tobin[?]; Andre Couriol. REFERENCES: British Museum Catalogue, II, p. 616 (imperfect); Brunet III, p. 106; Goff, H-64; Hain *8445; ISTC (RLIN) ih00064000; Klebs: 506.6; Klebs(H) ‘Dated, c?; Early Herbals 7; Maggs 520 [1929], no. 15; Mead, Incunabula in the Huntington Library, 1668+ [1486 issue]; NLM ; Pellechet 1312; Proctor 2829; Schramm XVI p.17; Schullian & Sommer, Incunabula . . . in the Army Medical Library, 236; Stillwell H58; Walsh 997; Wellcome-Poynter 285. Not in the Hunt Botanical catalogue.