Jonston, Joannes; Ioh. Ionstoni. Thaumatographia Naturalis, In decem classes distincta, in quibus Admiranda I Coeli.  II Elementorvm.  III Meteororvm.  IV Fossilivm. V Plantarvm. VI Avivm.  VII Qvadrvpedvm.  VIII Exangvivm.  IX Piscivm.  X Hominis. Amsterdami, Apud Gvilielmvm Blaev, 1632. Small octavo, pp. 12, 501, 3.
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This rare work is complete and in a late 19th century full calf with stamped borders, gilt spine bands and gilt titles. Text block edges in gilt with marbled end sheets, book plate of the Swiss  physician, anthropologist and explorer Alexis George Montandon. He was born in Cortailod Switzerland in 1879. He settled in Paris in 1925. When Germany conquered France he became a collaborator, supporting eugenics and He became an avid supporter of the extermination of the Jews and other “undesirables”. Montandon was executed along with his wife by the French Resistance in 1944 in Clamart France. The text is bright and clean with wide page margins. In very good condition.
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Joannes Jonston (1603-1675) was a Polish naturalist and doctor. He studied at the University of St. Andrews and Cambridge University in England, lived for a time in London, received an M.D. and opened a medical practice in Leyden. Throughout his life he travelled extensively in Europe recording his observations on various subjects in the natural sciences and earth sciences and published these observations in several works.
Jonston’s Thaumatographia Naturalis, first published in Latin in 1632 is his most popular and important work. Thaumatographia is a collection of observations and references of natural marvels, retrieved from all ancient and contemporary literature, and organized by the author into a series of ten distinct sections or classes that describe: the heavens, the elements, meteors, minerals, plants, birds, quadrupeds, insects and bloodless animals, fish and men. The second on fossils and minerals is quite extensive with references to Albertus Magnus, Pliny and Theophrastus. A section within the class of plants, discusses tobacco and includes early references to nature in America.