Ferrari - Flora & Hesperides

Giovanni Battista Ferrari (1584-1655) - Jesuit scolar and professor of Hebrew and rhetoric at the University of Rome was also a passionate gardener and responsible for the gardens at the palace of Cardinal Baberini. He filled this garden with new and rare flowers and plants imported from distant parts of Asia, Africa and America. He published several books and two exclusive illustrated works in Latin on citrus fruits & gardens. The library has these books in the original editions. 

De Florum Cultura, 1633 - also published in Italian 1638

The book is about design and planting of gardens with a focus on growing of new exotic flowers, which he classified and named for the first time, The book has a number of fine copper engraved plates depicting flowers, garden plants and mythological scenes as the book also contains several fascinating stories of ancient gods in flora context and other fantasies - for example a thievish gardener being transformed into a snail. 

Hesperides sive de malorum aureorum cultura, 1646

This work is a thorough description of all the known citrus fruits of that time - opening with the myth of the Hesperides - goddesses guarding the golden fruits of immortality in a garden of the far west, where the sun sets. The work contains 100 copper engraved plates, where the fruits are depicted in natural size in the pompously staged style of the Baroque, bordered by meandering ribbons. These plates are as in the Flora book executed by the graphic artists Johann Friedrich Greuter (1590-1662) and Cornelis Bloemaert (1603-92) based on some of the leading artists of the time.