From "Index Testarum Conchyliorum", first edition.

Giuseppe Menabuoni and Antonio Pazzi were both Italian painters and printmakers and Niccolò Gualtieri was a medical doctor and professor at the University of Pisa, whose avocation was the study of molluscs. He devised a system of classification of the shells for this book, which was admired by the zoologists, such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Menabuoni's splendid plates reproduce specimens of Gualtieri's shells, some of which are still in the collection of the Museum of Natural History and the Territory in the Certosa di Calci, operated under the auspices of the University of Pisa.
They are at once scientific studies, and also decorative works of art exhibiting the interplay of the natural colors, textures, and shapes of the shells in an Italianate arrangement.

Hand-coloured engraving. some potting but otherwise good condition. Dimensions: 380 x 250mm. (15 x 10 inches).