CRESCENS Pierre de Le Bon mesnager. Au present volume des prouffitz champestres et ruraulx est traicté du labour des champs, vignes, jardins, arbres de tous espèce. De leur nature et bonté, de la nature & vertu des herbes, de la manière de nourrier toutes les bestes, volailles, et oiseaulx de proye… Dudit livre et adjousté oult les précédentes impressions la manière de Enter et nourrier tous arbres selon maistre Gorgole de Corne.

Schwerdt, 127 ; Thiebault, 228 ; Bechtel, C-888 ; Brunet, II, 417 ; Moreau, IV, 651. Simon, Bacchica, 32-35 (other editions).

First edition of this new translation, published for the first time as Bon Mesnager. The author of the translation remains anonymous.

Pietro de’ Crescenzi (Bologna, 1230-c. 1320), a writer and magistrate, can be considered the father of modern agronomic literature.

“A most interesting treatise on the art of cultivating vines and making wine, the author of which, known as Petrus de Crescentiis or Pierre Crescenzi, refers to himself as follows: ‘Petrus ex Crescentia natus, civis Bononiensis’. ‘Book IV is devoted entirely to vines and wine: “De vitibus et vineis et cultu carum, ac natura et utilitate fructus ipsarum” (see Simon).

Drawing his inspiration from the great Latin authors – Cato, Varro, Palladius and Columella – as well as from medieval authorities, Crescenzi included in his treatise on rural economics the fruit of his own observations as well as information provided to him by scholars at the University of Bologna.

Written with great care and reviewed by a number of scholars, including Fra Amerigo da Piacenza, the work was an immediate success and soon spread throughout Europe. Charles V had it translated into French in 1373, and it was one of the first texts to go to press after the invention of printing, which shows the esteem in which it was held in humanist circles (the first edition appeared in Augsburg in 1471).

When it was published in 1471, it was also the first printed work to contain a section devoted entirely to hunting, while the other chapters dealt with all aspects of rural life: agriculture, ploughing, gardening, edible and medicinal plants, animal husbandry, vine-growing, bee-keeping, food, and so on.

Of particular interest are chapter 4 (vine cultivation, wine making) and chapter 10, devoted entirely to the breeding and care of birds of prey.

This edition contains for the first time Gorgole de Corne’s botanical treatise.

The work is decorated with three woodcuts, the first of which shows the printer offering his book to King François I. This woodcut is by Geofroy Tory and is signed in the woodblock with the Croix de Loraine. The second woodcut (beginning of the second chapter) shows a farmer sowing seeds; the large printer’s mark is placed on the last leaf.

A very good copy, very carefully washed at the time of binding.

Provenance : unidentified bookplate.