Plantarum seu Stirpium Historia [Bound with]: PENA, PIERRE and MATTHIAS DE LOBEL. Nova stirpium adversaria. 

Antwerp: Christopher Plantin, 1576.
Folio (315 x 225 mm). 2 parts in 1. Title within woodcut architectural border, woodcut illustrations by Antonii van Leest, Gerard Janssen van Kampen, et al. throughout, pasted-in illustrations on R3r and R4v, second work with 2 pasted-in illustrations on X6v and Ll2v, and 3 slips with woodcut illustrations tipped onto A6, C5 & N4. Contemporary blind-tooled pigskin over beveled wooden boards, roll-tooled roundels of Luther, Erasmus and Melancthon on upper and rear boards, , metal clasps, minor repairs to title.

FIRST EDITION OF LOBEL’S STIRPIUM OBSERVATIONES AND THE SECOND, ENLARGED ISSUE OF NOVA STIRPIUM ADVERSARIA. The first work is a companion to the Nova Stirpium Adversaria, “one of the milestones of modern botany” (DNB), first published in London 1570-1 by Thomas Purfoot. Plantin purchased 800 copies of the London printing, re-issuing the original sheets with a new title page and expanded end matter and publishing it together with the first edition of De Lobel’s Plantarum seu Stirpium Historia. “The chief importance of this herbal lies in its system of classification which is better than that used by any contemporary botanist” (Hunt I, p 28). Hunt 126-7; Nissen BBI 1218; Pritzel 5548.

Lobel’s efforts towards developing a system of plant classification, which was far in advance of other systems then in use. Plants in herbals had until then been arranged either alphabetically or by the symptoms they were appropriate to or other medicinal characteristics. Lobel sought to classify plants according to botanical criteria only; the system he alighted on was based on leaf form. This resulted in a formative distinction of monocotyledons and dicotyledons, and some other approximations of natural taxa. Although his system was not satisfactory, and exerted an inhibiting influence on the development of botany, it nonetheless pointed the way to the future, and was instrumental in the emergence of botany as a discipline in its own right, distinct from its medical precedents. This work utilises the corpus of woodcuts from the Plantin studio that were used to illustrate the works of L’Ecluse and Dodoens. According to Nissen, Antonii van Leest cut 708 and van Kampen was paid for cutting 74. The armorial insignia of the author has the initials Ahasuerus van Londerseel(Johnston). This features a woman standing between two trees, within an oval frame surrounded by fruits and flowers, and the motto Candore et Spe.

Adams L1382 ; Durling 2829; Hunt 126 ; Johnston 114; Nissen BBI 1218; Stafleu and Cowan 4907; Voet 1578 

Provenance: ink drawing of palm tree with ms notes by an early owner on rear paste-down; “Kroeber” (signature to front free endpaper); Naturforschende Gesellschaft (ink stamp on title).