CRESCENS Pierre de Le Livre des Prouffitz Champestres et Ruraulx. Touchant le labour des champs, vignes et jardins. Pour faire puys, fontaines, cysternes, maisons, et autres edifices.

See Bechtel, C-88; Schwerdt, I, 128 (similarly built editino but printed much later in 533); Brunet, II, 417 (without any detail); also the Huzard copy (Huzard, sale II, lot 678).

Very rare, undated, edition of the French versino of Ruralium Commodorum Opus or Profits Champestres, also known as the Bon ménager. This is an undated edition by the two printers Jehan Petit and Michel le Noir. The only edition printed by both of the before-mentioned printers listed by Bechtel is dated 1516 – he mentions another with an almost identical collation, printed by only P. le Noir and which he dates to around 1518.

This fine edition is illustrated with a large vignette on the title, followed by the text, divided into 12 chapters, each of which is decorated with a woodcut vignette (repeated 4 times, notably at the beginning of chapters 1, 4, 8 and 11). The repeted vignettes are very xclose to the cuts already used earlier in the 1486 edition.

Like the edition described by Schwerdt, this edition includes the fine woodcut on folio 118 announcing the chapter devoted to birds of prey, their breeding and the care to be taken with birds of prey. This great English collector posessed no French edition of Crescens published before 1533.

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.

Leaves ɲ1 & 4 supplied at an earlier stage from another copy, some occasional staingin or spottting.

Provenance : Bibliotheca J. Richard (rubber stamp repeated on title, first leaf of table, and first text leaf).