Small 8vo. lx, 511 pp., [4], frontispiece portrait, numerous folding maps, half-title, contemporary full calf, rubbed round edges, title gilt on raised decorated spine, all edges red, marbled endpapers, previous owner’s inscription on title page, small smudge affecting 93-96 without loss to text, otherwise ccopy in very condition, chez les Frères Estienne, Paris, 1772.

Synopsis

Noël-Antoine Pluche, known as the abbé Pluche, was a French priest. He is known for his Spectacle de la nature, a most popular work of natural history.
Pluche, son of a baker, was born in Rheims, in a street now named after him. He became a teacher of rhetoric. The Bishop of Laon made him head of the town’s college, a post he accepted to escape judicial consequences of opposing the papal bull Unigenitus (1713). He withdrew in 1749 to La Varenne-Saint-Maur, near Paris, where he died.
His Spectacle de la nature …. was published in 1732, and widely translated all over Europe. Although it influenced many to become naturalists, it was a work of popularization, not of science.
Bibliographic references: ITICCULO1E39193 (2 soli esemplari presso la Biblioteca Civica Ricottiana – Voghera – PV e presso la Biblioteca del Seminario vescovile – Casale Monferrato – AL). OCLC, 3997734.