Fungi

Seventeenth century Italian scholar and patron of the arts Cassiano dal Pazzo purchased the scientific library of Federico Cessi upon the latter's death, including some 600 watercolor drawings of fungi native to southern Umbria and the vicinity of Rome. These scientific drawings, which had been produced with the aid of a microscope given to Cessi in 1624 by its inventor, Galileo, were discovered in the library of the Institut de France in the 1980s and are here presented in this three-volume set in color plate reproductions, accompanied by text that provides information on the various species depicted. In addition to the drawings found in the library of the Institut de France, drawings of fungi from the Cassiano collection of Britain's Royal Library and Royal Botanic Gardens are also included. Editors Pegler (retired head of mycology at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, UK) and Freedberg (history of art, Columbia U., US) further present introductory essays on the scientific activities of Federico Cessi and Cassiano dal Pazzo and on the place of the reproduced drawings in the history of science and art. The final volume includes a mycological glossary, a bibliography of species authorities, a general bibliography, a general index, and an index of scientific and common names. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Company. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

David Pegler retired in 1998 as Head of Mycology at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. His taxonomic research has specialized in tropical and temperate Basidiomycetes, for which he received a Science Research Council individual merit promotion, and he has published 16 books and over 300 scientific papers. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society, London, of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and Centenary Fellow of the British Mycological Society. He has held visiting professorships at the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Lodz, Poland, the Instituto do Botanica, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the University of Jilin, China.David Freedberg is Professor in the History of Art at Columbia University, New York, and Director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies. He has written extensively on the art and culture of the seventeenth century, including the intersection of art and science in the age of Galileo, most notably in The Eye of the Lynx (Chicago, 2002).