Acquisitions

McINTOSH, Charles,

The Practical Gardener and Modern Horticulturist
London, Thomas Kelly 1828- 1829
First edition: a comprehensive guide to fruit, vegetable and ornamental horticulture; including a number of trees and flowering shrubs from Australia.

The Practical Gardener and Modern Horticulturist

Faujas-de-St.-Fond cit. (Barthélemy), 1741-1819.

Recherches sur les volcans éteints du Vivarais et du Velay : avec un discours sur les volcans brûlans, des mémoires analytiques sur les schorls, la zéolite, le basalte, la pouzzolane, les laves & les différentes substances qui s'y trouvent engagées, &c.
Grenoble : chez Joseph Cuchet, 1778.

The folio edition of probably the most attractive work published on volcanology. The work established once and for all that basalt, a rock important scientifically because of its distinctive characteristics, its widespread occurence, and the manner of its association with other kinds of rocks, was the product of volcanic action. Beautiful woodcuts of volcanoes.
Purchased in memory of the husband of a Friends member, the money was donated to the Friends who purchased this book.

Piranesi, Giovanni Battista

View of the Pizza di Spagna (Veduta di Piazza di Spagna) (c.1761)

An etching from a fine and early collection of Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s Views of Rome (Vedute di Roma). This collection of his etchings comes from a set purchased from Piranesi in Rome in 1761. The etching is on an uncut sheet that has been stitched down the left-hand side, printed on thick Roman laid paper which has wide margins. It is an important 'lifetime impression.'

View of the Pizza di Spagna (Veduta di Piazza di Spagna) (c.1761)

Mattioli, Pietro Andrea, 1500-1577.

I discorsi
Venetia : appresso Vincenzo Valgrisi, MDLXVIII [1568]

Woodcut illustrations of plants and animals throughout main text.

Italian physician and botanist. He was born in Siena, studied in Padua, and travelled widely in Italy to collect plants. His lengthy Commentarii on the Herbal of Dioscorides were intended as practical advice for physicians. The book was first published in Venice in 1544 and went into many editions and translations, the first in Latin, following three Italian ones, in 1554.

[MYERS, Francis] Telemachus’

Albury.

Albury, 1891.

Rare work promoting Albury as a site for the federal capital, with fine autotype

photographic plates

Francis Myers wrote drama, short stories and novels as well as numerous non-fiction works. He used the pseudonym ‘Telemachus. Among Myers’ more notable non-fiction publications are Albury (a pictorial history of the area). ' I have been instructed by the Editor of 'The Argus’ to Visit, Investigate, Discover, and Describe Whatever There May Be of Beauty and Advantage Within What May Some Day Become the Albury Territory - the Governing Centre of Australia'.

Ray, John

Historia Plantarum: 1st Ed. 3 Vols.; ,

London, Sam, Smith & Benj. Walford, 1686-1704.

Vol. I: Historia Plantarum Species hactenus editas aliasque insuper multas noviter inventas & descriptas complectens. In qua agitur primo De Plantis in genere, Earumque Partibus, Accidentibus & Differentiis; Deinde Genera omnia tum summa tum subalterna ad Species usque infinas, Notis suis certis & Characteristicis Definita Methodo Naturae vestigiis insistente disponuntur; Species singulae accurate describuntur, obscura illustrantur, omiffa supplentur, superflua relecantur, Synonyma necessaria adjiciuntur; Vires denique & USUS recepti compendio traduntur.

Considered Ray's most famous work, his magnum opus was not just to be an alphabetical catalogue of British and European plants, but also to contain, as far as possible, descriptions of all known plants of the world, arranged in an updated and expanded version of his method. A very fine set.