Milano 1940-1953. Four volumes in five. Large 4to (43.1 x 24.2 cm). Titles to the volumes and half-titles to the families treated. 1319 pp.; One coloured frontispiece and 74 plates of which 53 in full colour. Uniform near contemporary full cloth. Spines with black morocco label with giltfloral bands and title. Marbled endpapers. Speckled edges. Original soft covers with mounted full-colour illustrations bound in.

Rare in complete state. One set out of 800 to 1000 numbered copies (editions varied depending on the volume number), but hardly ever on the market - a highly peculiar fact. Written by the Anglo-Italian medical doctor and entomologist Roger "Ruggero" Verity (1883-1959). "He was responsible for the naming of two to three thousand butterflies, his collection of close to 250,000 butterflies ... together with his library is now in La Specola museum in Florence (Wikipedia). The first volume contains a portrait of the author, and his wife, Donna Giulia dei Principi Gallarati-Scotti (1887-1938). This set consists of four volumes, of which the atlases to the third and fourth volume were issued separately, but het bound together into a fifth volume. A concluding volume was published later. This set is numbered as follows: I: 571; II: 278; III: 775; IV: 270; III Tavole 761 and IV Tavole 761: 717. With a single exception, the plates with arabic numbers are in full colour and show whole butterflies, whereas plates with anatomical details are in black and white, with roman numbers. A detailed collation is as follows: I (1940): fc frontispiece with printed tissue-guard; xxxiv, 131 pp.; six plates (I-4, I-II) with printed overlays, of which four plates in full colour; II (1943): xii, 401 pp.; plates 5-19, III-IX; III (1947): xvi, 318, [i] pp.; IV (1950): xxv, 380, [i] pp.; III Tavole (1950): plates 20-37, X-XIV; IV Tavole (1951): plates 38-54 (54 b/w), XV-XX. All with Verity's stamp on the title page verso. A fifth and last volume was published in 1953. Not in Nissen.