Book doesn’t really do justice to this latest offering from the house of Gucci, this time in collaboration with IDEA Books. Books are everywhere – address, guide, cook – and this particular publication does not deserve to be lumped in with that monotonous lot. It’s got gold-gilded page edges for god’s sake. So we’ll call it a tome. An opus? And, alongside Gucci and IDEA books, the third piece of the puzzle is the legendary Derek Ridgers, whose photographs of punks in the 1970s and 1980s defined the era. He’s awful good (and he’s shot for 10). The name? Hortus Sanitatis, which, for those of you who weren’t privately educated either, is Latin for ‘The Garden of Health’. Dreamy. Wonder if it’s south or north facing?
Hortus Sanitatis is the name of the first ever natural history encyclopaedia, which was published in Germany in 1485. And inside, Gucci’s Pre-Fall 2017 collection, shot by the masterful Mr. Ridgers on models accompanied by big cats and snakes (real ones). Set in Rome, the photographs offer a window into historical spaces that have remained untouched for centuries; Antica Spezieria di Santa Maria della Scala, an old apothecary and Biblioteco Angelica, an old library filled with rare ancient manuscripts. Hortus Sanitatis could probably slot right in there and nobody would notice.
Hortus Sanitatis is limited to 1,000 copies, priced at £75, and will be sold as of 5th July at selected IDEA Books stores
