Extremely rare wood engraving of the Philomela Nightingale and the orange-bibbed flycatcher taken from the famous work by Pierre Belon dating from 1557 “Portraits of birds, animals, serpents, grasses, trees, men and women of Arabia & Egypt. » published in Paris by Guillaume Cauellat in front of the college of Cambrai under the sign of the fatty chicken.
This is the very first graphic representation of these birds.
Rare copy. This page is taken from the ornithological and naturalist treatise by Pierre Belon, one of the most famous scientists of the 16th century.
Pierre Belon is considered the father of ornithology in France.
Size: 21/16 cm
Exceptional old document, good condition for a document that is almost 500 years old, see photo
Magnificent historical document
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Source WIKIPEDIA
Pierre Belon born in 1517 at a place called La Souletière in Cérans-Foulletourte near Le Mans and died in April 1564, is a French naturalist. A mind far ahead of his time, he is considered one of the greatest scientists in the world. xvith century.
Biography[edit | change the code]Of modest origin, Belon became an apothecary to eminent ecclesiastics: the bishop of Le Mans, René du Bellay3, Guillaume du Prat4 and the Archbishop of Lyon, François II de Tournon. This allows him to devote himself to his scientific research.
He followed the botany classes of Valerius Cordus in Wittenberg and traveled with him to Germany. It is said that he was arrested on his return, suspected of Lutheranism; but an admirer of Ronsard freed Belon, friend of the poet5. He was also interested in ichthyofauna and wrote one of the first illustrated treatises on the fish of the rivers of France.
In 15386, he takes care of the Toouvoie garden “a vast nursery of exotic trees and shrubs7 », one of the first botanical gardens in France.
Also before his trip, he wrote an abridgement of Leonhart fuchs 's The History of Plants, which would be translated into Spanish8.
Journey to the Levant[edit | change the code]The city of Alexandria, illustration of Observations of several singularities, 1553Belon then accompanies two ambassadors from Francis I near Soliman I the magnificent. He traveled the Levant from 1546 to 1549. This trip to Greece where he visited Mount Athos, to Turkey, to Egypt, where he explored Alexandria and Cairo, to Judea, Arabia and Palestine via the Isthmus of Suez, allowed Belon, curious about everything, to report a large number of observations on natural history as well as archeology and the customs of the inhabitants. Thus, he is interested in the processes used for the mummification of bodies. He is particularly interested in the use of opium by the Turks.
This is one of the first naturalist journeys in history. He thus stops in the Greek Islands, in search of the plants described by Dioscorides. He returned to France in 1549, and obtained a pension of two hundred crowns from King Henry II, which allowed him to continue his research. He relates his trip in Voyage au Levant, the observations of Pierre Belon du Mans, of several singularities and memorable things, found in Greece, Turkey, Judea, Egypt, Arabia and other foreign countries, published in 15533.
End of life[edit | change the code]Belon made another trip, in 1557, to Italy, Savoy, Dauphiné and Auvergne9.
Charles IX provided him with accommodation at the Château de Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne.
He died mysteriously at the age of 49, undoubtedly murdered by a prowler in April 1564, while crossing the Bois de Boulogne.
Submissions[edit | change the code]Marine animals[edit | change the code]He published remarkable studies on marine animals: The natural history of strange marine fish, with the true painting and description of the dolphin, and several others of its species, in 1551, and The Nature and diversity of fish, with their traits represent as close as possible to the natural, in 1555. The term fish includes all marine animals: from the whale to the sea lion, from the crustacean to the anemone, including the hippopotamus or the otter. It seems likely that he gathered there the animals considered by the Catholic Church to be edible on lean days. But this hypothesis does not explain why he even mentions the chameleon. Despite this, he attempts to establish an embryonic classification, in particular by evoking real fish and their subdivisions based on anatomical observations: cartilage or bone skeleton, oviparous or viviparous. His classification is better than that of Guillaume Rondelet (published three years after his) and better observed. Pierre Belon describes, for the first time in Europe, many animals that were then unknown.
Birds[edit | change the code]Plate comparing the skeleton of a human being and that of a bird, extracted from the History of the nature of birdsHis History of the nature of birds, with their descriptions and naive portraits taken from the natural of 1555 is superior. In this 381-page treatise, he describes all the birds he knows. He groups them according to their behavior and anatomy: birds of prey, waterbirds, omnivores, small birds, subdivided in turn into insectivores and granivores. The work includes 14 engravings.
Belon knows fewer languages than Conrad Gessner, but his observations are much better, supported in particular by observations in nature, as well as anatomical descriptions clearly resulting from numerous dissections. He compares beaks and claws, tries to bring together common anatomical shapes. He compared the skeleton of a human being and a bird, which was the first attempt at comparative anatomy10. This idea would only be taken up a few hundred years later by Félix Vicq d'Azir and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. But Belon himself makes very little use of his observations on the similarities between these two skeletons and does not draw any practical conclusions from them. In addition, he makes notable errors, such as placing bats in the category of birds.
His book was praised many times in the following centuries, yet it remained almost ignored by his contemporaries because, in the same year, Conrad Gessner's Historia animalium appeared.
His second ornithology book is Pourtraicts d'oyseaux published in Paris in 1557. It features 174 engravings, most made from Belon's own drawings.
plants[edit | change the code]Pinus, De Arboribus Coniferis (1533). He is also interested in botany and, in particular, in the acclimatization of exotic plants. In 1553, he published a treatise on conifers and other evergreen plants (De arboribus coniferis, resiniferis, aliisque, nonnullis sempiterna frond virentibus...), one of the first treatises on these plants. In 1558, he advocated in Les Remonstrances on the default of plowing and cultivation of plants and the knowledge of them... acclimatization of exotic plants; Moreover, it was he who was the first in France to sow plane trees. We owe him the introduction into France of the Judas tree, the cork oak, the pistachio tree, the cedar, the jujube tree, the oriental juniper, and the myrtle. In his descriptions of botany, undoubtedly influenced by his knowledge as an apothecary, he pays great attention to the therapeutic properties of the plants he cites.
He is the first to cite numerous plants from the Middle East such as Platanus orientalis, Umbilicus pendulinus, also known as cotyledon, Acacia vera, Caucalis orientalis, etc. He will be interested in the acclimatization of the Anatolian plane tree in the Touvoie domain, which will only succeed when Buffon has it planted in the King's garden.3.
works[edit | change the code]Portraits of birds, animals, serpents, grasses, trees, men and women, from Arabia and Egypt, 1557Original works[edit | change the code]The natural history of strange marine fishes, with the true painting and description of the Dolphin, and several others of its species, observed by Pierre Belon of Le Mans [archive], Paris, R. Boiler, 1551
| Nom | Rossignol Philomèle |
| Reliure | Désassemblé |
| Langue | Français |
| Nom de publication | Ficedula |
| Date de publication | 1557 |
| Époque | Jusqu'au XVIIème siècle |
| Auteur | Belon |
| Lieu de publication | Paris |
| Objet modifié | Non |
| Caractéristiques spéciales | Édition originale |
| Particularités | 1 ère édition |
| Sujet | Mathématiques et sciences |