Ricreatione dell’occhio

Starting price
$ 100
Auction dateClassic
19.10.2023 10:00UTC -04:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
USA, New York
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ID 1032668
Lot 16 | Ricreatione dell’occhio
Filippo BUONANNI (1638-1725). Ricreatione dell’ occhio e della mente nell’ osservation’ delle chiocciole, proposta a’ curiosi delle opere della natura. Rome: il Varese, a spese di Felice Cesaretti, 1681.

A fine and remarkable copy of the first edition, with extensive manuscript commentary, of the first significant book devoted to conchology and the first iconography of shells. Buonanni, a disciple and successor of Athanasius Kircher at the Collegio Romano, believed in the spontaneous generation of mollusks, and the publication of this work revived the controversy on this subject that had begun between Kircher and Redi in 1671. The fine plates are divided into three classes: the non-turbinate univalves, the bivalves, and the turbinate univalves.

This copy has extensive marginal commentary in Italian in a fine contemporary hand, summarizing the text, adding notes (sometimes contradicting the text), and citing sources such as Agostino Stella and Lana Terzi. There is a lot of emphasis on the composition of shells and their origin, and on their use in art. One passage refers to experiments conducted in Modena in 1668. In the plate volume, most of the engravings are annotated by the same hand with vernacular names (often differing from those given in the text). There is one full page of manuscript on the verso of the Classe terza plate of two images both labelled ‘31’, describing printing errors that led to mistakes in the iconography, the mismatch between text and illustrations, and the problems in printing the volume. Dance Shell collecting p 43; Cobres 418.5; Nissen ZBI 753.

Two volumes, text and plates bound separately, quarto (238 x 174mm). Engraved additional title in vol 1, engraved title and engraved section title in vol 2, 4 engraved plates bound in the text volume and plate volume with 3 engraved subsection titles and 449 figures engraved on 106 plates. Contemporary Italian vellum, title in ink on spine. Modern slipcase of decorated paper with shell design. Provenance: significant marginalia both to the text and plate volumes, with one full page of manuscript writing on reverse of plate in vol 2 – “Della Libraria di S. Spirito di Reggio” (inscriptions on the blank versos of the frontispieces).
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