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SÉGUIER, J.F : Bibliotheca botanica, sive Catalogus auctorum et librorum omnium qui de Re Botanica, de Medicamentis ex Vegetabilibus paratis, de Re Rustica, & de Horticultura tractant. Accessit Bibliotheca botanica Jo. Ant. Bumaldi [...]

Hagae-Comitum [The Hague]: Jean Neaulme, 1740.

4to, 25cm. Pp. 16,450,66, indices. Old plain grey boards, backstrip covered later with marbled paper, printed title label. Partly rather (but evenly) browned, waterstain through upper margins, locally extending into text but mostly less visible, good otherwise. - Jean François Séguier (1703-1784) was a French botanist, historian, bibliographer and archeologist who had, i.a., studied botany with Antoine de Jussieu at Paris, and traveled extensively in Europe. The present work is the very rare first edition (a reissue was made by Haak in Leiden in 1760) of one of the earliest and best comprehensive botanical bibliographies. "The coverage of the book is excellent, due to the fact that Séguier saw an unusual number of libraries on his European tour. He furthermore consulted as many catalogues of private libraries as possible. With the major Paris and London libraries accounted for, with the information obtained from Gronovius in Holland, and with his careful scanning of the liter-ature, Séguier achieved a very high degree of coverage." (Stafleu & Cowan). - The affixed bibliography by Bumaldus (pseudonym and anagram of Ovidius Montalbanus (1601-1671), professor at Bologna) is a reissue of the original edition of 1657. "Bumaldus' Bibliotheca botanica was undoubtedly a significant bibliographical effort from which his most important followers, Séguier and Haller, derived much bene-fits." Its bibliographical list concerns books dealing with grasses, with indication of the described or depicted species, and thus it is, probably, the the first published agrostological bibliography. Both works are descibed and discussed at length in Stafleu & Cowan's 'Taxonomic literature', under nr. 11.624 (vol. 5, pp. 485-488).

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