Description
Description of Francis Willughby's De Historia Piscium Libri Quatuor
These strong, uncolored engravings are from Francis Willughby's De Historia Piscium Libri Quatuor. This first edition work was published by the Royal Society in 1686 largely by the members’ subscriptions. The work contained 187 full page engravings of fish. Willughby was one of the original members of the Royal Society. He died before the work was completed, and naturalist John Ray finished the editing of the work for publication. Ray has often been "regarded as the father of natural history in [his] country." The work has been described to be mostly the work of John Ray taken from Willughby's notes. Ray also used the works of Rodolet and Salviani for inspiration. Ray was one of the first to discuss a more modernized definition of the fish. He rejected the idea that fish are all creatures which live in water, stated they could hear, and defeated the idea that fish can reproduce through spontaneous generation. The prints have been expertly hand-colored recently in London.