A 1578 first English edition of Rembert Dodoens’ 'A Nievve Herball, or Historie of Plants' – £3000 at Toovey's.
Part of a sale held by Toovey’s (24.5% buyer’s premium) of Washington, West Sussex, it is a woodcut-illustrated translation by Henry Lyte from a French edition of a work that is said to be the most frequently translated book of the Renaissance period – the Bible excepted, of course.
Though the imprint states London, my references say that this edition was actually printed in Antwerp.
Born in Mechelen, which was at the time the capital of the Spanish Netherlands but is now in Belgium, Dodoens (1517-85) was court physician to two Holy Roman Emperors, Maximilian II and his successor, Rudolph II, in Vienna and later became a professor of medicine at Leiden.
