Aristotelis Historia de Animalibus, Ivlio Caesare Scaligero Interprete, cum Ejusdem Commentariis.

ARISTOTLE. TRANSLATED BY JULIUS CAESAR SCALIGER,.

$3,500.00

Item Number: 133054

Tolosae [Toulouse]: Apud Dominicum & Petrum Bosc, 1619.

First Scaliger edition of Aristotle’s pioneering work on zoology which had a powerful influence on zoology for over two thousand years. Folio, bound in full contemporary vellum-covered boards, engraved vignette title page, in-text woodcut illustrations, and numerous woodcut initials throughout. Julius Caesar Scaliger was an Italian scholar and physician, who spent a major part of his career in France. He employed the techniques and discoveries of Renaissance humanism to defend Aristotelianism against the New Learning. In spite of his contentious disposition, his contemporary reputation was high. Jacques Auguste de Thou claimed that none of the ancients could be placed above him and that he had no equal in his own time. In very good condition. Repair and ownership name to the title page.

Written in the fourth century B.C.E., Aristotle's History of Animals had a powerful influence on zoology for some two thousand years. Generally seen as a pioneering work of zoology, Aristotle frames his text by explaining that he is investigating the what (the existing facts about animals) prior to establishing the why (the causes of these characteristics). The book is thus an attempt to apply philosophy to part of the natural world. Throughout the work, Aristotle seeks to identify differences, both between individuals and between groups. The work contains many accurate eye-witness observations, in particular of the marine biology around the island of Lesbos, such as that the octopus had color-changing abilities and a sperm-transferring tentacle, that the young of a dogfish grow inside their mother's body, and that the male river catfish guards the eggs after the female has left. Some of these were long considered fanciful before being rediscovered in the nineteenth century. It continued to be a primary source of knowledge until in the sixteenth century zoologists including Conrad Gessner, all influenced by Aristotle, wrote their own studies of the subject.