Anthologia magna, sive florilegium novum & absolutum.
Information
Title
Anthologia magna, sive florilegium novum & absolutum.
Publication Date
1626
Record type
Book
Shelf mark
945 Bry
Author or creator
Bry, Johann Theodor de (1561-1623).
Scope & content
Defective copy of an enlarged edition of the Florilegium of 1612-14, lacking the preliminary letterpress and certain plates.
A rare edition, not in the libraries of the British Museum, Natural History Museum or the V. & A., but a copy does appear in the Supplementary Catalogue of the Arnold Arboretum, 1933. The absence of certain plates makes it impossible to make sure whether, for instance, Ficus Indica (pl. 116 of the 1641 edition) is a new plate or not. And the alternation of certain engraving numbers on the plates of both the 1626 and 1641 editions makes comparison by plate numbers apt to be misleading.
Fifty-five plates in Bry contain plant illustrations copied from Vallet's Jardin du Roi Tres Chrestien Henri IV, which had appeared in 1608. These are copied with right-to-left reversal, with occasional alterations: in the case of the auriculas the plants are systematically given different leaves from in Vallet. For details, see the accompanying document "Vallet-Sweerts-de Bry comparison". - A similar reliance on Vallet is shown by Sweerts's Florilegium (1612), and the question of who copied from whom has been debated inconclusively. Copies exist of a 1611 trial edition of Bry's work, so Sweerts could have had access to it before his own was published; on the other hand, Sweerts's imprimatur dates from 1609, so his work might already have been partly completed in time for Bry to copy from it. However, two plates in Sweerts (I no. 7, and II no. 4) are closer to Bry than to Vallet in detail, and do not show reversal in relation to Vallet, so the likelihood is that those two plates were copied from Bry's copies.
The plates are numbered in two series. The first series (nos. 1-116) comprises the numbered plates 1-78 and the unnumbered [79-86] of the 1612-14 edition (but lacking plate 87), followed by new plates 88-116; these in turn are followed by a new unnumbered plate (which has been numbered 117 in ink), and by plate 83 of the Augmentatio, truncated and lacking its printed number (numbered 118 in ink). The second series is numbered 1-23, and is followed by plates bearing the numbers 44 and 87. - Of the first series the following nos. are missing:- 3, 8, 17, 23, 32, 33, 35, 56, 91, 94 and 111. But 56 is supplied by Iris Susiana Major (plate 50 of the earlier edition, with the plate number amended to 56 in ink, and the number 50A pencilled at the lower corner) and a new Iris plate (Iris Dalmatica with others) appears as plate 50. Between plates 37 and 38 is a mutilated print of the Viola plate (plate 87). Plates much mutilated: colouring coarse, and sometimes badly executed.