Description
Jacques Barrelier's Icones Plantarum per Galliam...
These quaint engravings are from the work entitled, Icones Plantarum per Galliam, Hispaniam et Italiam Observata ad Vivum Exhibitarum… published in Paris in 1714. Jacques Barrelier was a French biologist educated in medicine, and monk of the Dominican Order. He lived for some time in Rome, where he dedicated his free time to the study of botany and grew a botanical garden. It was during this time that he kept diligent records and created detailed illustrated copper plates of the plants he grew and encountered. In 1672 he returned to Paris, only to die a short year later due to asthma. Shortly after his death, a fire consumed the monk’s notes, but the copper plates survived. Fellow Frenchman, Antoine de Jussieu published them posthumously under this title. In all, there are over 1300 different plants depicted, of which about 100 were new species at the time.