De honesta voluptate & valitudine vulgare

SAMMELBAND WITH PLATINA AND CRESCENZI IN EARLY ITALIAN EDITIONS
4to. [4], XCV, [1] leaves. Collation: A4 a-m8. The title page consists of two lines only. Colophon at l. m7v. The last leaf is a blank. Large historiated initial on l. a1r and several decorative initials on black ground. Roman and gothic type. A few manuscript marginal notes on the first three leaves after the title page (index).
Fourth edition in Italian, the first printed in the sixteenth century, of the first book on gastronomy ever published. The De honesta voluptate et valetudine ('On Right Pleasure and Good Health'), a manual on how to live serenely, wisely and healthily, is (truncated) the result of the collaboration between Platina and Mastro Martino de' Rossi, cook to the Chamberlain and Patriarch of Aquileia Ludovico Trevisan in Rome and author of the Libro de arte coquinaria. First appeared in Rome around 1474 in an undated edition, the De honesta voluptate et valetudine was immediately reprinted in Venice the following year. The first vernacular edition dates from 1487. In addition to translating parts of Martino's book into classical Latin, Platina placed the recipes in a medical-philosophical context, considering the role that each vivanda could play in the culinary system from a dietary and convivial point of view. His main focus was on the products with numerous references to local practices.
"Platina deserves praise for several reasons, one of which was that he set a good example for all subsequent cookery writers (and one which some of them have followed) in stating clearly the source of most of the recipes which constituted the latter part of his book. This source was 'Maestro Martino, former cook of the Most Reverend Monsignor Chamberlain Patriarch of Aquileia', as his 15th-century manuscript, only discovered in the 1930s, describes him" (A. Davidson, The Oxford Companion to food, Oxford, 1999, p. 408).
Divided into ten chapters according to the classical tradition, the De honesta voluptate et valetudine is an invaluable source of information about Italian life and cuisine in the fifteenth century: from tips on sport activities to the importance of choosing a cook, from how to set the table to the ideal time to eat and the best way to cook each food (cf. M.E. Milham, ed., De Honesta Voluptate et Valetudine/On Right Pleasure and Good Health, Tempe AR, 1998; see also B. Laurioux, Gastronomie, humanisme et société à Rome au milieu du XVe siècle. Autor du De honesta voluptate de Platina, Florence, 2006, s.v.; C. Benporat, Cucina e convivialità italiana del Cinquecento, Florence, 2007, p. 10; and E. Faccioli, Introduzione, in: "Il piacere onesto e la buona salute di Bartolomeo Platina", Turin, 1985, pp. I-XXXIII).
Bartolomeo Sacchi, born in Piadena (in Latin Platina) near Cremona, was in the service of the Gonzaga family from 1453, then in 1457 he went to Florence to take classes from Argiropulo. In 1461 he moved to Rome, where he was appointed as chancellor and stenographer at the papal court during the reign of Pius II. Linked to the circle of Pius II's closest collaborators (Francesco Gonzaga, who had been his pupil in Mantua, Jacopo Ammannati Piccolomini, and Cardinal Bessarione), Platina found himself directly involved in the conflict that, after Pius II's death in 1464, pitted the group of Pius' cardinals against the new pontiff Paul II Barbo. Platina lost the office of abbot and, for his fierce protest, was imprisoned first in 1464, then again in 1468, this time for having participated, together with the group of Roman academics gathered around Pomponius Leto, in a conspiracy probably plotted against Paul II; and on this occasion Platina and the other humanists were also accused of heresies of an epicurean nature.
A leading figure of Roman humanism in the second half of the fifteenth century, Platina embarked on an intense literary production in which he used autobiographical material as a means to confront the values of the society he faced and to assert his own cultural and political identity. The result was a series of highly cohesive writings that follow a coherent ideological path: the dialogue De falso et vero bono (first drafted during his imprisonment in 1464), the Contra amores (first titled De amore), the De honesta voluptate et valetudine, and the letters written during his imprisonment in 1468 and collected in his epistolary.
Released from prison in 1569, he was rehabilitated by Pope Sixtus IV, who appointed him director of the Vatican Library in 1478. During these years he published the Vitae Pontificum (1479), an extraordinarily successful work that was reprinted countless times in both Latin and Italian versions until the seventeenth century. Platina died in Rome in 1481 (cf. A. Campana, ed., Bartolomeo Sacchi il Platina (Piadena 1421-Roma 1481), Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi per il V centenario (Cremona, 14-15 novembre 1981), Padua, 1986, passim).
Edit 16, CNCE47444; Westbury, 4; Vicaire, 697.
(bound with:)
CRESCENTIUS, Petrus (Crescenzi, Pietro de', c. 1233-c. 1320). De agricultura vulgare. Colophon: Venice, [Albertino da Lessona & Brothers], 6 September 1511.
4to. 235 [i.e. 234], [6] leaves. Leaf 201 omitted in numbering. Collation: a-z8 &8 [con]8 [rum]8 A-D8. The title page consists of three lines only. On the title-page verso is a full-page woodcut of a lecturer surrounded by students. The block is signed "L" and was already used by Giovanni Tacuino for his 1507 edition of the Synonima. Thirty-six small woodcut illustrations in text, including 11 repetitions, mostly from the 1495 Venice edition of Crescenzi assigned to Matteo Capodecasa. The block on leaf g2r of this edition is signed "b" and is from the Malermi Bible of 1490 printed by Giovanni Ragazzo for Lucantonio Giunta. The block on leaf [rum]1r is signed "F". There is a Venice edition of 1504, without the name of the printer, that made use of the same blocks (Essling, no. 843). White initial A with cherubs and a lion, white floral and foliated initials, white on black, in two sizes. Roman letter. Text printed in two columns. Colophon at l. D2v. Some manuscript marginal notes on l. n5r.
Fifth edition in Italian of Pietro de' Crescenzi's popular text on agriculture, printed in nearly 60 editions in various languages between 1471 and 1602. The present 1511 edition attributed to the brothers da Lessona was reissued by Alessandro Bindoni in 1519. The first printing of the Latin text as Ruralia commoda was at Augsburg by Johann Schüssler in 1471. The Italian version was first printed at Florence by Nicolaus Laurentii in 1478.
The Opus ruralium commodorum is undoubtedly the most important agricultural treatise of the Middle Ages. Widely circulated at first in manuscript form, it became the most successful printed agricultural manual of the 15th and 16th century. The work had no less than 23 Italian editions before 1600; 15 French editions from 1486 to 1540; 12 German editions between 1490 and 1602; and even two Polish editions in 1549 and 1571. A total of 15 incunable editions alone are recorded.
The Opus ruralium commodorum can be considered as the first relevant European text on the subject after those of Roman authors such as Columella, Palladius and Varro. In the twelve books that make up the work, the author deals in detail with everything related to the cultivation of land and the breeding of animals, not limiting himself to repeating the opinions of the ancients, but also passing on his own experience gained from daily practice and travel. What is striking about him is his practical sense, his rationality and his willingness to experiment, which put him ahead of his time. In addition to discussing fishing, hunting, wine-making, bee-keeping, animal diseases, farm management, the caretaking of pleasure gardens and meadows, etc., Crescenzi describes over a hundred species of medicinal plants and introduces new techniques of crop rotation and alternation (cf. L. Olson, Pier de' Crescenzi: the Founder of Modern Agronomy, in: "Agricultural History", XVIII, 1944, pp. 35 ff.).
The Opus ruralium commodorum is a practical encyclopaedia that clearly differs from the specula naturalia in circulation in the author's time. This character is all the more evident when one analyzes the structure of books 1 to 10, in which the various rural activities are never separated from the practical framework in which they must take place. The most original meaning of the work lies in this intimate link, established for each culture, between agricultural techniques, cultural systems and the privileged types of territory. The didactic intention, already evident in the general plan, is specified in the chapters, where Crescenzi remains faithful to a uniquely effective presentation scheme for each crop. For each plant, he follows a logical order that leads him to successively illustrate the different botanical varieties, their most suitable environment, the techniques suitable for their cultivation, their harvesting and preservation, ending with their possible uses (food, therapeutic, etc.) (cf. J.E. Bauman, Piero de' Crescenzi's Liber ruralium commodorum: Unearthing the Origins of the Pleasure Garden, Dissertation thesis, University of Virginia, May 2000).
The woodcuts show a wide range of subjects, from garden design techniques to horse breeding, from the perfect barn to a oxen pulling a plough (in one particular vignette, the artist has inserted the figure of Hercules, on his tenth task of bringing back the uncooperative cattle of Geryon from the end of the world, behind the usual peasant figure with oxen), from grape harvesting to barrel making, from shepherd dogs to pigeons and peacocks.
Pietro or Pier de' Crescenzi, from Bologna, was a man of vast culture, ranging from law to medicine, from botany to natural sciences. After graduating in law, he remained in contact with the intellectually lively environment of the University of Bologna throughout his life. As a judge, he made numerous occasional trips, which enabled him to gather valuable observations on the agricultural practices and cultivation systems of many Italian regions. After holding several public offices for his city, he retired to private life in 1298, dividing his time between Bologna and his country residence at Villa dell'Olmo. The Opus ruralium commodorum was most likely written between 1305 and 1309. Crescenzi died around 1321 (cf. P. Toubert, Crescenzi, Pietro de', in: "Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani", 30, 1984, s.v.).
Edit 16, CNCE13734; Essling, 844; Mortimer, 141; Sander, 2237; Simon, Bibliotheca Bacchica, 161; P. de Crescentiis, Ruralia commoda. Das Wissen des vollkommenen Landwirts um 1300, W. Richter, ed., Heidelberg, 1995-97.
Two works in one volume (200x147 mm). Contemporary or slightly later flexible vellum, inked title on spine (slightly soiled, restorations). Small holes carefully repaired to the first title page with no loss of text, insignificant restoration to the upper blank margin of the final leaf, worm tracks partially repaired to the inner margin of some leaves not affecting the text, some occasional foxing and browning, all in all a good copy. (Inventory #: 215)