DE CRESCENZI Pietro.
Piero Crescientio de agricultura vulgare.
Impessun Venetiis die nonomésis lulii anno dni M.D.XIX. (colophon)
Venice. 1519
In-4, 216 x 152 mm. 235 ff., [6] ff. 2 columns. 38 woodcut figures, some repeated.
Binding signed by J. & J. Leighton in full tan morocco à la Du Seuil, with panel decoration and gilt fleuron on the covers. Spine with decorative raised bands, gilt fillets and blind-tooled compartments. Gilt title, place and date on the spine.
Bookplate of Sir Dodgson Hamilton Madden (1840–1928), Irish judge and politician, member of the Privy Council, on the front cover. Bookplate of André Louis Simon (1877–1970) on the free endpaper. A wine merchant and gastronome, André Louis Simon wrote numerous books on gastronomy and founded the International Wine and Food Society. He assembled one of the most prestigious private libraries devoted to the history of gastronomy, viticulture and agriculture.
Pietro de' Crescenzi (c. 1230 – c. 1320) was an Italian magistrate, lawyer and agronomist born in Bologna. After a legal career that took him across northern Italy, he retired to his country estate. It was there that he wrote his major work, the Ruralia commoda (or Ruralium commodorum opus).
This treatise had a major impact in the Middle Ages and well into the Renaissance. It sheds light on medieval agriculture and fills the silence of notarial deeds and account books, which are often far too vague about the daily work of the land. Written in the early 14th century, the text owes its richness to the diversity of its sources. It brings together the ancient teachings of classical authors, direct observation of the farming practices of northern Italy, and the distant Eastern knowledge of the Byzantine Geoponika.
Our book, Piero Crescientio de agricultura vulgare, is the Italian translation of the Ruralium commodorum opus into the "vulgare" (the vernacular, Italian, intended for Venetian readers). A magnificent copy.
Graesse II, p. 299; MS Lat 243 (Harvard); EDIT16 CNCE 13735
GAULIN Jean-Louis. Sur le vin au Moyen Âge. Pietro de' Crescenzi lecteur et utilisateur des Géoponiques traduites par Burgundio de Pise. 1984
Condition: Light rubbing to the surface of the covers; a small wormhole running through the first 20 leaves. Bookseller's pencil note on the inside of the back cover. Very few defects overall.
