[History/Chile] Molina, Giovanni Ignazio: Essay on the natural history of Chile. Masi Brothers and co., Bologna 1810

Format in-4°, mm. 305x225, pp. (6), V, (1), 306, (2). With 1 chalcographic portrait of the author on the frontispiece engraved by Francesco Rosaspina based on a drawing by Giovanni Battista Frulli. Finally, a folding map of Chile, with slight foxing. Contemporary half-leather binding with gold titles and decorations on the spine, marbled paper boards. With slight foxing on the leaves and slight peeling on the spine.

Second edition printed in Bologna in 1810 (the first 1782) enriched with text and the addition of the folding map. Work of the Chilean naturalist and botanist Juan Ignacio Molina (1740-1829), a Jesuit, who became curator of the library of the "house" (logistical and administrative headquarters) of the Jesuits in Santiago, Chile. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from South America by the Spanish government in 1774, Molina moved to Imola, where he began to practice private teaching. An erudite naturalist already in Chile, Molina condensed his memories of the fauna, vegetation and minerals of his home country in this famous and fundamental Essay on the natural history of Chile, later also translated into French and Spanish.