Description
Letter Signed as Secretary of the Institut de France, thanking Monsieur G.Fiorelli for the work he has presented to the library. In French. 1 page 10 x 8 inches, with the address leaf, fine. Paris, 15 June 1843. Charles Athanase Walckenaer (1771-1852), French scientist and author, In 1839 he was appointed conservator for the Department of Maps at the Royal Library in Paris and in 1840 secretary for life in the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. He was one of the founders of the Société entomologique de France in 1832, and a “resident member” of the Société des observateurs de l’homme. He discovered the map of Juan de la Cosa, the oldest extant map that shows the American continent, and published La monde maritime (4 vols., 1818), Histoire générale des voyages (21 vols., 1826–1831) and Géographie ancienne, historique et comparée des Gaules (3 vols., 1839, new ed. 1862). He was also an entomologist and arachnologist who published, among other things, the Histoire naturelle des insectes (4 vols., 1836–1847) together with Paul Gervais. He was also the scientist who transferred the black widow to its current genus.