ALPINI, PROSPERO. 1553-1617.


De medicina Aegyptiorum, libri quatuor. Venice: Franciscus de Franciscis Senensem, 1591. 4to (235 x 176 mm). Later lithograph portrait bound in at front, woodcut vignette on title page, woodcut illustrations in text. Front hinge cracked, dampstaining to a few page margins, browning.Provenance: A. Bernardes de Oliviera (bookplate).The "first important work on the history of Egyptian medicine" (Garrison-Morton). Alpini was a professor of botany at the University of Padua, who lived in Egypt for 3 years between 1580 and 1583. There he observed the sexual differentiation of date palms, and introduced a number of plant species to European botanists that were previously unknown. This work contains the first known account of the coffee plant published in Europe. The Norman copy of this book reproduces the woodcut that appears on the verso of leaf 101. It is more detailed than the woodcut that is depicted with the first edition described in detail by Mortimer; this copy conforms to Mortimer's description. She notes that the British Museum has a variant copy that would seem to be the same printing as the Norman copy. Durling 178; Garrison-Morton 6468; Hunt 161; Mortimer/Harvard Italian 16; Norman 39.