History of the Fungi of the Kingdom of Naples

...the delineations of the images from the tables of nurturing and open Nature. I have even seen to it that quite a few of the rarer ones are fashioned in wax, if anyone finds it pleasant to examine them with more certain eyes (1). It has been quite difficult, however, to keep such plants in herbaria or to cultivate them in private gardens, for it is clear to everyone that as soon as they are plucked from the native bosom of the earth, they immediately lose their form and color due to their overly soft substance and extremely delicate structure.

First, therefore, I will deal with those rare fungi that presented themselves to me during the previous autumn season in the Citeriori Principatu Principato Citeriore, where I was primarily rusticating, in addition to several found in Calabria, Abruzzo, and the neighborhoods of Naples, which fully complete the total of three specimens. These, however, will not remain with me for long, but will be set out in such a way that this first one and the second, which I now present to You, will be followed shortly by the third. I will present some species found at the same time, but still doubtful to me, only later, once they have been re-evaluated by me in their native places in subsequent efforts. This earlier harvest of fungi would have been richer had I not been forced to return to the city due to my duties, and especially if the sad destruction of the recent Vesuvius eruption had not hindered me from undertaking other excursions during the end of my rustication, and had not exchanged those leisure hours for greater anxieties of the mind. Although I was more than seventy miles away from the fire-vomiting mountain, and the mountain itself did not present itself to our eyes...

(1) Many of these preparations are not only stored in my mycetoideo mycological treasury, but some are also displayed to spectators in the Royal Museum of Materia Medica.