Botanicon, continens herbarum, aliorumque simplicium, quorum usus in Medicinis est, descriptiones, & iconas ad vivum Effigiatas; ex praecipuis tam Grecis quàm Latinis Authoribus iam recens concinnatum. Additis etiam, quae Neotericorum observationes & experientiae vel comprobarunt denuo, uel nuper invenerunt. . . / De Medicinali Materia Libri Sex, Ioanne Ruellio Suessionensi interprete. Singulis cum stirpium, tum animantium. Accesserunt priori editioni, Valerii Cordi Simesusii annotationes doctissimae . Euricii Cordi Simesusii iudicium de Herbis & Simplicibus Medicinae. Remedia morborum, miro ordine complectitur. . by DORSTEN, Theoderic / DIOSCORIDES, Pedanius - 1540

Frankfurt am Main: Christian Egenolph, 1540. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Folio - over 12 - 15" tall. DORSTEN, Theoderic. Botanicon, continens herbarum, aliorumque simplicium, quorum usus in Medicinis est, descriptiones, & iconas ad vivum Effigiatas; ex praecipuis tam Grecis quàm Latinis Authoribus iam recens concinnatum. Additis etiam, quae Neotericorum observationes & experientiae vel comprobarunt denuo, uel nuper invenerunt. . . Frankfurt: Christian Egenolph, 1540. Folio (302 x 191 mm). [10], 306 leaves. Signatures: *6 **4 A-Z6 a-z6 2A-2E6. Title-page showing three woodcuts of plants, over 300 woodcut illustrations in text, woodcut initials and tailpieces, colophon on f. 306 recto. Large engraved portrait of Georg Marius with text in German, Latin & Greek, pasted to the verso of the title-page. Text with light even browning, occasional minor spotting; title repaired at gutter, little soiled and brown-spotted at margins; f.172, 232-233 with brown staining at margins, two small wormholes to the inside margin of preliminaries up to f. 18. Occasional manuscript ink corrections and annotations in contemporary hand. [Bound with:] DIOSCORIDES, Pedanius. De Medicinali Materia Libri Sex, Ioanne Ruellio Suessionensi interprete. Singulis cum stirpium, tum animantium. Accesserunt priori editioni, Valerii Cordi Simesusii annotationes doctissimae . Euricii Cordi Simesusii iudicium de Herbis & Simplicibus Medicinae. Remedia morborum, miro ordine complectitur. . . Frankfurt: Christian Egenolph, April, 1549. With numerous woodcut illustrations in text. [36] (of [40]), 554, [2] pp. Signatures: 2a-2b6 2C4 *4 A-Z6 a-y6 z8. Lacking 4 leaves of preliminaries (aa2-5). Gathering * bound after title. Text with light even browning, occasional minor spotting; repaired clean tear at top of f. c3; some small wormholes to final gathering. Bound in contemporary blind-stamped pigskin over beveled wooden boards, spine with 4 raised bands, single brass catch present only, front board dated 1569, original endpapers present (head of spine chipped, upper joint cracked at top, inner hinges repaired, leather soiled, extremities worn, corners scuffed). Provenance: The Horticultural Society of New York (bookplate with entry "Bequest of Kenneth K. Mackenzie" to front pastedown); old ink ownership inscription on first title canceled. A very good, wide margined copy, well preserved internally. ----

I. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. The work is a Latin adaptation of Rösslin's Kreutterbuch von aller Erdtgewächs (1533). Egenolff had suggested the translation in order to also open up the foreign market for the book, using stronger paper and with the woodcut plant illustrations closer to nature. Further, with its Latin text, and plant captions in Greek, Latin and German, the edition was intended for a more scholarly audience than Egenolff's usual vernacular editions. The Latin translation appeared only once, the German version, on the other hand, had a tough life; in 1557 the newly elected Frankfurt city doctor and son-in-law of Egenolf, Adams Lonicer, took over the revision of this work (see Schmid).
References: VD 16 D 2442; Nissen 522; NLM/ Durling 1203; Wellcome I, 1861; Schmid, Kräuterbücher p. 100.
II. SECOND EDITION of Ryff's Dioscorides edition, the best of the 16th century, much improved compared to the first of 1543. The woodcuts are largely re-uses from Rösslin's herbal book, including some animals and illustrations of chemical-pharmaceutical apparatus. The edition comprises Jean de la Ruelle's Latin translation of the Aldine Greek edition of 1499 (first published in Paris in 1516), and adding the commentary of Ryff, first published by Egenolph in 1543. The text of the 1543 edition is extended by the addition of Valerius Cordus's Annotationes (pp. 449-533), Euricius Cordius's Iudicium de herbis et simplicibus medicinae (pp. 534-541), and Conrad Gesner's Herbarum nomenclaturae variarum gentium (pp. 541-554). These additions and the indices in five languages, provided most of the necessary apparatus to make de la Ruelle's translation a work of the greatest use to contemporary readers. Nissen notes that the majority of the illustrations - 786 woodcuts, rather than the 595 of Egenolph's 1543 edition - are taken from Rösslin's Kreutterbuch (which was also published by Egenolph).
References: VD 16 D 2005; Eimas, Heirs of Hippocrates 30; Adams D 664; Nissen, BBI 496; NLM/Durling 1152; Wellcome I, 1788; Benzing, Ryff 134.