KLOBIUS, Justus Fidus

by Justus Fidus Klobius

£3,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

First edition of this curious and charmingly illustrated work on the natural history and medicinal properties of amber, ambergris, musk and guano. The plates depict a frog and lizard trapped in amber, a civet and musk deer, a man harvesting guano, and a world map including a significant portion of Australia or 'Terra Incognita', which had been most extensively documented only very recently by the Dutch cartographer Johannes Blaeu in his map of 1663. It is evident that Klobius was not sure precisely what amber is. He puts forward several theories from other authors: that it is sea foam, the liver of fishes, the sperm of sea-monsters, the fruit of submarine trees, and produced in the stomach of whales (really ambigris), etc. Klobius argues for its putative origin in bird excrement, or guano, produced by a particular bird, called in Madagascan the Aschibobuch and in Maldivian the Anacangrispasqui, which was in fact completely mythical. Klobius arrived at this conclusion from a number of sources attesting the existence of amber-producing exotic birds in countries and islands of the Indian and Pacific oceans. One plate depicts large, dangerous-looking birds with spoon-like bills, tufted heads and large talons. Klobius admits that he struggled to confirm the truth of these reports, and instead provides a catalogue of his sources, including the atlases of Ortelius, Visscher and Blaeu, hence the accompanying world map. Also included in this section are anecdotal accounts of the wondr

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.