Beschreibung:

CRESCENTIIS, PETRUS DE. Ruralia commoda. [Augsburg:] Johann Schüssler, "circiter" 14 March 1471. Folio, 251 x 179 mm. (9 7/8 x 7 in.), early twentieth-century vellum over pasteboard, smooth spine lettered in gilt, edges stained red, upper inner joint split, lacking 3 final blank leaves, fol. [95] with 3-inch tear entering text block, fols. [60-61], [110] and [120] with a few small tears at gutters, crease to fol. [152] obscuring a few letters . Collation: [1-18 10 19 12 20-21 10]. 209 leaves (of 212, lacking blank leaves 21/8, 9 and 10). Type: 1:117. 35 lines. Capital spaces. Unrubricated, with the exception of the opening page (1/1r): 8-line initial U crudely supplied in red with blue and brown penwork, capital strokes and paragraph marks in red. HC 5828*; Klebs 310.1; BMC II 328 (IB 5615); GW 7820; Stillwell Science , III, 350, IV, 615; Goff C-965. FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST PRINTED BOOK ON AGRICULTURE. Written about 1300 by the Bolognese lawyer Pier de' Crescenzi (1233-1321) this popular treatise on rural economy, frequently reprinted (GW lists 13 fifteenth-century editions), "relates to the multitudinous problems of husbandry and agriculture incident to the management of a great estate. Based upon various traditional works on husbandry but written critically, from experience gained on Crescenzi's country place, the Villa d'Olmo... Includes sections on hunting and fishing, the making of wine, and the diseases of animals, as well as on the cultivation of cereals, trees and plants" (Stillwell Science , p. 193). Provenance : Francis Hopkinson bookplate and annotations on front flyleaf, presentation inscription in pencil to -- Earl Beauchamp, armorial bookplate.