MALPIGHI (Marcello). La Structure du ver à soye, et de la formation du poulet dans l'œuf. Paris, Maurice Villery, 1686. In-12, fawn-coloured basane, spine decorated, spotted edges (Binding of the period). First French edition, translated by Sauvalle, of these two major treatises, which mark the beginnings of both microscopic anatomy and embryology: De Bombyce (1669), the first monograph ever devoted to an invertebrate, and De formatione pulli in ovo (1673), on the chicken embryo. The illustrations include 5 intaglio plates. Marcello Malpighi's (1628-1694) research on the silkworm is one of the most interesting studies he produced, and his dissections under the microscope, four years after Robert Hooke's famous publication, led to extraordinary developments in this area of entomology. His histological investigations rank him among the fathers of microscopic anatomy. Heads and corners roughly restored, scattered foxing and spotting, angular lack on p. 165.