Paris, Briasson, etc. 1768. Folio (40.2 x 26.3 cm). Half-title to the plates, drophead title to the Histoire naturelle; 13 pp.; 29 engraved plates. Contemporary marbled wrappers.

This is a complete copy of the separate, comprehensive folio atlas of the mammals and herpetology part of the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, a massive work, edited and partly written by Diderot, d'Alembert and Voltaire, being the first true encyclopaedia, epitomizing the age of Enlightenment. Published between 1751 to 1772 it synthesized the knowledge of the time. The Encyclopédie became not only a source of knowledge, but also a political weapon on the a battle ground for power between secular and ecclesiastical thinkers and writers. This section was written and illustrated by the French naturalist and engraver François Nicolas Martinet (1731-1800 or 1804). The year of Martinet's death in uncertain. The plate section comprises five herpetological plates; all others show mammals, including, e.g., whales. The text contains a description of all 29 plates, and a comparative table linking the illustrations of the first 24 plates of this atlas, to the same - or similar - illustrations earlier published irregularly on scattered other plates. The last five plates (i.e., the complete herpetology) show new illustrations. Spine a bit cocked; general title with a few creases in the right top and at the bottom of the front wrapper plus first few pages; otherwise a very good, clean, unmarked copy. Nissen ZBI, 4622; PMM 200. D'Alembert, Diderot, and Martinet not (yet) in Adler, Contributions to the History of Herpetology.