A Avignon, Chez Louis Chambeau, 1765, 12mo., viii - 9 - 252 pp. - 2 ff., nineteenth century stiff boards with marbled paper.
Second edition, absolutely identical save for the date (1760 instead of 1765). This book is the second treatise dedicated exclusively to tulips, the first being an anonymous counterfeit appeared in 1678 of the section on tulips drawn from "Le floriste françois" by Charles de Monstruel, sieur de la Chesnaye. Jean-Paul Rome d'Ardène (1698-1769) was a French priest and botanist who"...retired, about 1750, from his duties as "Supérieur" at the college of Marseille to the "Château" of Ardenne...where he created a botanical garden and gave himself to the study of flowers" (Hunt). J.P. de Rome d'Ardene was in some sense an Einzelgänger, developing techniques of cultivation and race differentiation which followed independant pathways with respect to the techniques then in common use, mostly of Dutch origin. The book opens with a general bibliography of the authors who have written on tulips. This list comprises virtually all writers of some importance on agricultural matters, including the book of the same d''Ardene on different species of flowers, appeared in 1754 and which contains also a section on tulips.The other chapters contain a detailed list of the jargon used by tulip planters, a history of the tulips since their introduction to Europe, guidelines on how to evaluate tulips, instructions on how to cultivate them starting from seeds or bulbs, their diseases and means to preserve them. The plates (Duflos sc.) show different varieties of flowers and their organs seen under the microscope. Some leaves slightly browned and dusty in the margins, ininfluent marginal waterstain on title and the illustrations, but a good, completely uncut copy. Cfr. Hunt 587 (this edition, also an uncut copy), not in Pritzel, Nissen and Plesch.