Bibliotheca Boerhaaviana, sive catalogus librorum instructissimae bibliothecae virum summi D. Hermanni Boerhaave

Boerhaave’s library contained about 3,300 volumes on a wide range of subjects, including many outstanding illustrated works in botany and fine illustrated works on anatomy. As one would have expected, Boerhaave, the editor of a new edition of the writings of Vesalius, owned a first edition of the Fabrica. What one might not have expected was that he also owned all of the rare first editions of Berengario da Carpi, whose anatomical works prior to Vesalius would certainly have had no practical scientific value by the eighteenth century. Boerhaave also owned a fifteenth-century edition of Mondino, confirming that he was a book collector as well as a scholar. At the end of the catalogue is a group of “Libri Prohibiti” including first editions of Spinoza. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.