Schmidel, Casimir Christoph | A visually engaging treatise on petrifactions

Schmidel, Casimir Christoph

Vorstellung einiger merkwürdiger Versteinerungen mit kurzen Anmerkungen versehen. Erlangen: Johann Jakob Palm, 1793

4to (approx. 261 x 192 mm; varying sizes, uncut and partially unopened). Engraved text vignettes, 24 engraved plates; occasional light spotting, margins lightly dust-soiled. Marbled boards; light wear, bumped at corners.

Scarce second edition of Schmidel’s lesser-known but visually engaging treatise on petrifactions, first issued 1780–82. A physician, natural historian, and professor at Altdorf, Casimir Christoph Schmidel is primarily remembered for his botanical work, particularly Icones plantarum et analyses, and for editing the posthumous publications of Conrad Gesner. His Vorstellung einiger merkwürdiger Versteinerungen is one of his only works devoted to fossils and mineral curiosities, aside from his Fossilivm Metalla et Res Metallicas (lot 193). The illustrations were executed by the Nuremberg engraver Valentin Bischoff, who had previously collaborated on the continuation of the Icones.

REFERENCES

Nissen 3727; Engelmann 604; cf. DSB XII, 185 (first edition); not in Schuh