RONDELET (Guillaume) - L'Histoire entière des poissons. Lyon - Lot 260

RONDELET (Guillaume) - L'Histoire entière des poissons. Lyon, Macé Bonhomme, 1558; 2 parts bound in one volume in-4, 6 ff.n.ch. + 418 pp. (actually 420 as pages 274-275 are printed in duplicate) + 7 ff.n.ch. table + 2 ff.n.ch. + 181 pp. + 4 ff.n.ch. table + 1 pp.n.ch., full contemporary soft vellum with flaps, smooth spine with handwritten title (some stains on covers). First edition of the French translation of the most complete ichthyological catalog of its time. The translation is probably by Rondelet's pupil Laurent Joubert. This French edition is much more highly prized than the original Latin edition, which came off the presses of the same Lyon printer in 1554-1555, although both editions are, according to Brunet, "equally remarkable for the fine execution of the woodcuts". The illustrations include a portrait of the author set in a scrolled frame attributed to Pierre Eskrich, repeated at the head of the second part, and some 420 fine woodcut figures of aquatic animals, sea and freshwater fish, crustaceans, mollusks, batrachians and zoophytes, whose fine composition Baudrier attributes to the Italian Giorgio Reverdi. A copy with a few defects: old angular wetness over almost the entire volume, crumpled top outer corner paper of the first three leaves, one leaf of the table of contents detached with small paper tears. Despite these signs of use, the copy is attractive and complete, in its first strictly contemporary binding.