Manetti, Saverio

5 volumes, folio (18 1/4 x 14 1/2 in.; 466 x 370 mm.), 5 engraved titles, second letterpress titles in Italian and Latin with engraved vignettes, 2 engraved dedications, engraved portrait of Giovanni Gerini, 600 hand-colored engraved plates; vol. 1: some light foxing, marginal dampstaining not affecting the illustrations; vol. 2: small repair on Italian title page, dampstaining in lower inner corner, more pronounced at the end of the volume; vol 3: spotting on plate 288; vol. 4: light foxing; vol. 5: dampstaining with repairs on the first leaves and small repairs to tears on last leaves. Nineteenth century half-vellum.

Fine Bird Books, p.10; Nissen IVB 558; Wood, p.450

"Storia naturale degli uccelli... was one of the finest bird books issued to that date and one of the most sumptuous publications of the Eighteenth century in Italy" (Christine Jackson, Dictionary of Bird Artists of the World). "Impressive, too, was... Manetti's Ornithologia methodice digesta, the flamboyant forerunner of the splendid ornithological folios which were to appear in the nineteenth century. The production of its five massive folio volumes must have been one of the most remarkable publishing ventures ever undertaken in Florence. Begun in 1767 and completed ten years later, it was larger, better engraved and more vividly colored than any previous book on birds" (S. Peter Dance, The Art of Natural History, p.70).