[Two engraved illustrations pasted to a single leaf, one of a clematis, the other of a mutant baby]
Mallery, Karel van,1571-1635?
[France? s.n.,
1630?]
First illustration of the clematis is captioned: Granadillus frutex indicus Christi passionis imago.
The 17th-century herbalist John Parkinson notes in his 'Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris' that the clematis, "may be called in Latine, 'Clematis Virgiana': in English, The Virgin or Virginian Climer; of the Virginians, 'Maracoc': of the Spaniards in the West Indies 'Granadille', because the fruit (as before said) is in some fashion like a small Pomegranate on the outside; yet the seede within is flattish, round, and blackish. Some superstitious Jesuite would faine make men beleeve, that in the flower of this plant are to be seene all the markes of our Saviours Passion; and thefore call it 'Flos Passionis'".
Second illustration is a baby covered with fish-like scales with a cross superimposed on the chest and is captioned in French: Ce monstre nasquit en Lisbone en Portugal le 14me. de Avril 1628 [etc].  The caption notes that the scales were reddish in colour and that the baby lived for four days.
The first illustration is engraved by Karel van Mallery.
NLS copy is bound together with 10 other items with a collective title page in MS, enclosed in ornamental border: Les raretés de terre, & de mer, coquilles, pierres, fruicts, & autres choses monstreuses.
Curiosities and wonders