The Oldest Treasures From 12 Great Libraries - Atlas ObscuraIncluding:
Chicago Botanic Garden
Theophrastus, Historia Plantarum
1483, Treviso, Italy
Synopsis: Back in the third century B.C., Theophrastus, one of the first botanists of the Western world, set out to catalogue the the plants of ancient Greece and created the first known classifications of plants in his part of the world. He covered a range of trees, shurbs, dwarf shrubs, and herbs and examined how they grew and were used in his own time.
Provenance: This Latin translation of the original text was printed in northeast Italy in the 15th century, making it an incunable, or a printed book that predates 1501. In 1664, the then-owner added a title page and doodles that Leora Siegel, the library’s senior director, describes as “a woman’s anatomy, but poorly done.” In the early 20th century, it was owned by an orchid specialist who donated it to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The Botanic Garden purchased the society’s rare book collection in 2002.
