Michael Bernhard Valentini - Set of 16 1719 Engravings Viridarium Reformatum

Description

Michael Bernhard Valentini - Set of 16 Original 1719 Engraving. Set of 16 double sided pages from the Viridarium Reformatum by Michael Bernhard Valentini, 1719. Each page contains a hand coloured copper-plate engraving (plate size 12.5 x 11 cm). Unsigned. On laid. Age toning, minor foxing and discolouration as shown in photos.

Michael Bernhard Valentini (26 November 1657 – 18 March 1729) was a German doctor and a collector. After obtaining his doctorate in 1686 in Giessen he became Professor of Medicine in that city and personal physician to the Margrave of Assia. He had an important Cabinet of curiosities and was the author of Museorum Museum, the first study of collections in Europe. In 1720 he published a work on the comparative anatomy of vertebrates. He was elected a Member of the Royal Society on 10 November 1715 and was also a Member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher (Leopoldina) and the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin.

Size

34.3 x 21cm (13.5" x 8.3")
Plate: 12.5 x 11cm (4.9" x 4.3")

Collection Information

From Viridarium Reformatum, seu Regnum Vegetable: Krauter Buch (Newly Revised Garden of the Plant Kingdom: Herb Book), Michael Bernhard Valentini (1657-1729) editor. Frankfurt, Anton Heinscheidt, 1719. The Viridarium Reformatum is an important collection of botanical illustrations by a number of artists, Johann Theodor de Bry most prominent among them. It is thought that Valentini, a physician, professor of medicine and collector of natural history specimens, had acquired de Bry's plates from his famous Florilegium renovatum et auctum of 1641, done in collaboration with son-in-law Matthäus Merian. It was Valentini's desire that this collection serve as a "botanical library".