Jean Fabien Gautier d'Agoty,
Histoire Naturelle (1781)

This book is interesting not only because it is the first time that minerals have been depicted in color printing, but also because of the combination of these images as realistic as possible with accompanying texts by Romé de l'Isle.

This book was issued in "décades" (sets of 10 plates with accompanying text by Romé de l’Isle). We examined several copies and translated the French texts into English.

• General introduction (8 MB)
  
• Examination of the work (770 KB)
  
• Decade 1 (47 MB)
  
• Decade 2 (43 MB)
  
• Decade 3 (36 MB)
  
• Decade 4 (40 MB)
  
• Decade 5 (28 MB)
  
• Decade 6 (30 MB)
  
• Decade 7 (7 MB)
  

Histoire Naturelle (1781), title page