Institutiones Rei Herbariae by Tournefort, Joseph Pitton de - 1719

Paris: E Typograpia Regia, 1719. Third edition. leather_bound. Contemporary mottled calf. 3 vols. Very good. 25 x 19 cm. Vol.1 text. [A3, *-***4, E4, I4, A-Ssss4, A4, A-G4, H2.] Engraved title and 252 plates; Engraved title and 237 plates. Illustrated with 3 copper-engraved titles, copper-engraved title-page emblem, copper-engraved initials and headpieces, woodcut tailpieces, and 489 full-page copper-engraved plates. First published in French as Elemens de botanique in 1694, this edition was published in the year that Tournefort embarked on his travels to the East to collect plants and make other observations, spending two years travelling through the islands of Greece, Constantinople, the Black Sea, Armenia and Georgia. This work however is based on his western European tours and experience. Claude Aubriet...attracted the attention of Tournefort, who commissioned him to make the engravings for his celebrated Elemens de botanique, 1694 which in its later Latin version Institutiones  rei herbariae 1700 had so far-reaching an effect on plant classification by defining the genera. These illustrations, made no doubt under  Tournefort's direct supervision, are remarkable for the accuracy of their dissections." - BLUNT, p. 124. This is the final edition of the work and has more plates than the two preceeding ones." NISSEN p.1997. Bookseller label of W. Junk, Berlin. Text and plate volumes clean, toning to endpapers, modest extremity wear, spines gilt with six compartments.