Detail book

Pomologia, dat is beschryvingen en afbeeldingen van de beste zoorten van appels en peeren, welke in Neder-en Hoog-Duitschland, Frankryk, Engeland en elders geagt zyn, en tot dien einde gecultiveert worden. Beschreven, door Johann Hermann Knoop.-

Orticultura

Johann Hermann Knoop published the "Pomologia" in Dutch in 1758 for the first time, while the reprint dates from 1790. There also exists a 1768 edition in French and a 1760 edition in German. Interestingly in the frontispiece the author calls himself a mathematician, a lover of science and a "hortolanus in tempore." There is an encyclopedic survey of pears and apples in the first part of the work, and of almost all the other known fruits in the second part, which is called, appropriately, a "Fructologia." The fruits are rendered in verisimilar fashion by the engravers Folkema and Philips, who work from drawings by Knoop himself: shadowing on the bottom suggests a type of three- dimensionality. This was the moment in Europe in which various national Pomonae or Pomologiae were being published, such as those in Britain and Italy, all of which enjoyed great success. The numerous copper engraved plates, splendid rendered in the soft coloring of the period, provide an accurate descriptive iconography. Regarding the work’s scientific value, we observe the citation of synonyms in French, German and, rarely, in Italian, followed by a series of suggestions on the proper seasons for cultivation.

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