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This book from 1715 is the first illustrated monograph solely on elephants in Latin by the German physician and naturalist Georg Christoph Petri von Hartenfels (1633-1718). The book brings together all the knowledge and conceptions of that time about the largest land-based mammals from Asia and Africa. There are both relatively reliable facts about anatomy, characteristics and way of life, but also a range more freely imaginative and curious ideas about elephants concerning virtues and vices as piety and wisdom, but also of violent aggression. There is much on the use of elephants for human purposes such as draught and transport and participating in war and battles - sometimes only for entertainment in arenas.
The many plates in the book are a cornucopia of spectacular scenes with the giant animal in focus. Copperplates by Jakob Petri after drawings by T.J. Hildebrandt.
The book originally came to the library from the Classen Collection.
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