Paradisus Batavus, continens plus centum plantas affabrè aere incisas & descriptionibus illustratas: Cui accessit catalogus plantarum, quas pro tomis nondum editis, delineandas curaverat

First edition - large paper copy. 'A review of the main plant collections in the Netherlands' (The Anglo-Dutch Garden), illustrated with fine engravings after the author's own drawings. Paul Hermann, director of Leiden Botanic Garden from 1679 to 1695, collected specimens whilst travelling in Ceylon, India, and Africa. The drawings made of these plants were acquired by Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) for the British Museum, and have been the source of important research since; they also 'inspired Linnaeus to write his Flora Zeylanica (1747), the description of a tropical flora he had never seen' (Plesch). Johanne Burman's (1707-1780) Thesaurus zeylanicus (1737) was also based on a Hermann herbarium, housed at the Institut de France (Stafleu & Cowan). Following the author's death in 1695, William Sherard (1659-1728) edited the book for his widow who paid the expenses for its publication. The dedication is to Henry Compton (1632-1713), Bishop of London, the great plant collector, and 'patron of botanophiles'; the book was promoted in England by Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753). The engravings are exquisite as well as being of the utmost documentary value; they include the illustration of the Epidendron Curassavicum (now Brassavola nodosa), 'the first record of a tropical orchid that flowered in cultivation...in the glasshouse of Gaspar Fagel (1634-1688) at the Leeuwenhorst' (The Anglo-Dutch Garden). Kuiljen, Paradisus Batavus, 1983, no. 115, p. 163; Stafleu & Cowan 2687, listing '110 plates [sometimes 111]'; The Anglo-Dutch Garden in the Age of William and Mary, (edited by John Dixon Hunt and Erik de Jong), Journal of Garden History, volume 8, nos. 2 and 3, 1988, no. 143, p. 291; both Nissen BB (860) and Pritzel (3994) list this edition, though erroneously quote title-page of the 2nd, 1705 edition; Plesch 339, 2nd edition.