This emblem book contains an unusually large number of botanical and zoological illustrations, copies in reduced size of those in the 16th century editions of this work. Andersen gives a detailed description of them in Der Deutsche Peintre-Graveur (II, 385), assigning them to Hans Sibmacher. He praises their elegance and finds the animal pictures most noteworthy. As from the 1697 edition the book has a different title: Symbolorum ac Emblematum ethico-politicorum centuriae quatuor.

As a physician Joachim Camerarius (1534-1598) specialised in cures based on plants and herbs. He chose the medium of the emblem book to propagate his teachings and to record his considerable knowledge. The son of the famous humanist of the same name, he received his degree in medicine at Bologna, made the acquaintance of Aldrovandi, and returned to Nuremberg to become State Physician. Camerarius founded the Nuremberg Collegium Medicum. He owned and cultivated a large garden of rare plants in Nuremberg, some of which he supplied to travelling merchants; in 1588 he published a catalogue of his plants, the Hortus Medicus.

Some catalogues describe this edition as lacking a frontispiece, which is incorrect.

- Literature: Landwehr (German) 171; Praz 296; Andersen II, 409; Brunet I, 1513; Caillet 1077 (ed. Munich 1668); Chatelain 28; Emblem Books in Leiden 87; Faber du Faur 668; Fabula docet 78 (1st ed. 1595); Graesse II, 25 (different editions); Nissen ZBl 793; Volkmann 48.

- Condition: Two wormholes in upper and lower paste down and the end leaves, one small wormhole in the title page. Waterstain in upper margin from the beginning until ca. p. 85. Else a fine copy with attractive engravings.