"Holland with translations doth so fill us, He will not Lett Suetonius be Tranquillus" - contemporary doggerel.
First edition in English, translated by Philemon Holland, with engraved emblem on title pages, and engraved initials and borders throughout text. The work was originally printed at Venice in 1469.
The Natural History of Pliny the Elder is more than a natural history: it is an encyclopedia of all the knowledge of the ancient world... It comprises 37 books with mathematics and physics, geography and astronomy, medicine and zoology, anthropology and physiology, philosophy and history, agriculture and mineralogy, the arts and letters... The Historia soon became a standard book of reference; abstracts and abridgements appeared by the third century. It was translated into English by Holland in 1601, and twice reprinted (a notable achievement for so vast a text) - Printing and the Mind of Man.
Pliny's series of digressions on painting, sculpture in bronze, and sculpture in marble, has provided art historians with what amounts to the earliest surviving history of art... As a purveyor of information both scientific and nonscientific, Pliny holds a place of exceptional importance in the tradition and diffusion of Western culture - (DSB XI: 39-40).
Pliny discusses such diverse subjects as "Why the sea is salt," "Meremaides," "How Starrie skies presage future weather," "Soules-whether immortal," "Women with a double apple in their eye-witches," wines, skin care, swimming, herbal medicines, plants and trees, birds and beasts, and aphrodisiacs ("if the seed of that Mallow that runneth up in one stalke; bee reduced into powder and strewed upon that part of a woman which Nature hath hidden, shee will bee so wood after the companie of a man, as she will never be satisfied nor contented with embracing").
Most of Holland's translations were issued in heavy folios such as this, leading Pope to describe the "groaning shelves" bending under the weight of Holland's works.
Pagination: [58], 614, [42]; [12], 632, [86]. Second volume with separate dated title page. Large woodcut devices to title pages, dec. initial letters and dec. head and tail pieces. Signatures: pi6 [par.]4 a-b6 A8 B-3I6 3K4; A-3G6 3H4 3I-3O6 3P8. This copy lacks blanks [pi]1 and Ppp8. Includes indexes. With final errata leaf. A clean, fresh copy of this massive and fascinating classic.