Mercati, Michele | First edition of Metallotheca. Opus Posthumum...

Mercati, Michele

Metallotheca. Opus Posthumum... opera autem, & studio Joannis Mariae Lancisii... illustratum. Cui accesit appendix cum XIX recens inventiis iconibus. Rome: Giovanni Maria Salvioni, 1719 (colophon 1717)

Two parts in 1 volume, folio (376 x 255 mm). Half-title, engraved frontispiece, title and section title printed in red and black with engraved vignettes, engraved portrait of the author, 6 engraved plates, 2 of which double-page, engraved initials and headpieces, engraved illustrations; scattered and faint foxing, occasional browning and offsetting, small marginal repair to O1. Contemporary French calf, marbled endpapers, edges stained red; spine rebacked with original spine laid down, sections of the covers neatly repaired.

First edition, second issue. Mercati was personal physician to Gregory XIII as well as curator of the Vatican botanical garden. He started his mineralogical collection in the early 1570s and began this catalogue shortly afterwards.

PROVENANCE

Chalette (signature on title) — Christie's London, 8 July 1993, lot 179