Mattiolus, Petrus Andreas Gregorius [Pietro Andrea Gregorio Mattioli]
[Portrait by Jan Melantrich von Aventin]
[Prague, Melantrich von Aventin, 1561?]. Single leaf, 8vo-sized (20.0 x 15.1 cm). Printed on one side. Framed. Frame size 45.6 x 43.1 cm.
A nicely engraved portrait of the important pre-Linnean Italian botanist Pietro Mattioli or Matthioli (1500?-1577), with the text "Nec igne nec ferro". The portrait possibly comes from the author's "Epistolarum Medicinalium libri quinque". Mattioli was a physician of Ferdinand of Tyrol in Prague from 1554 onward, and this work contained several medical discoveries. The artist, Melantrich, made a new device, stating, in Latin, "neither by fire nor by iron". Cut short, without margins. Otherwise good, clean.