Historia naturalis (1472) — Gallery of Early Printed Books

Dedicatory preface with d'Asquier ownership inscription — The first printed leaf, opening with Bussi's prefatory matter "CAIVS PLYNIVS MARCO SVO SALVTEM" and the dedicatory letter "PEregrinam est mihíque tam diligenter libros aiunculi mei lectitas…," set in Jenson's roman; the humanist hand at the head records the early ownership of the imperial interpreter "Michaelis d'Asquier," and the Boston Public Library stamp appears at the foot (view 6).

Illuminated opening of Book I with white-vine initial — The opening of the text proper, headed "CAII PLYNII SECVNDI NATVRALIS HISTORIAE LIBER .I." and beginning "[L]IBROS NATVRALIS HISTORIAE…," where the printed initial space has been filled by hand for this copy with a large interlaced white-vine (bianchi girari) initial in blue and red on a coloured ground — the kind of humanist illumination that completes Jenson's even page (view 10).

Text page in Jenson's roman type — A typical interior leaf showing the unbroken single column of Jenson's 1472 roman — the wide, evenly inked letterforms that give the admired large even-coloured page and that fixed the model for humanist book design (view 11).

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Jenson's monumental folio of Pliny's Natural History, edited by Giovanni Andrea Bussi, bishop of Aleria. Following Johannes de Spira's 1469 editio princeps, it is among the most admired examples of Jenson's roman type — a large, even-coloured page that helped fix the model for humanist book design. Jenson also issued the work in Cristoforo Landino's Italian translation in 1476, "the most significant and best documented publication" of his press.

The linked facsimile is the Boston Public Library copy, formerly owned by the imperial interpreter Michel d'Asquier.

Historia naturalis

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