Beschreibung:

SCRIPTORES REI RUSTICAE -- Marcus Porcius CATO (232-147 B.C.). De re rustica . - Marcus Terentius VARRO (116-27 B.C.). De re rustica . - L.Junius Moderatus COLUMELLA (fl. ca.36-ca.65 A.D.). De re rustica . Edited by Georgius Merula (1430/1-1494). - Rutilius Taurus PALLADIUS (fl. 4th century). De re rustica . Edited by Franciscus Colucia (fl. 15th century). Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 1472. Median 2° (335 x 230mm). Collation: [1 1 4 2 1 2 3 10 4 8 (1/1r blank, 1/1v Merula's dedication to Petrus Priolus, 1/2r Enarrationes brevissimae (to Cato, Varro and Columella), 2/1 blank, 2/2r letter by Merula to Bernardus Iustinianus, 2/3v tabula to Cato, 2/6r letter of Merula to Dominicus Georgius, 2/8r Cato text, 4/7r first colophon, 4/7v tabula to Varro); 5-7 10 8 8 9 6 (5/1 Varro text, 9/5v second colophon, 9/6 blank); 10-11 10 12-27 8 28 10 29-30 8 31-34 10 (10/1 blank, 10/2r tabula to Columella, 10/6r Columella text, 28/5v third colophon, 28/6 blank, 28/7r Palladius tabula and text, 34/7v Palladius De insitione , 34/10r fourth colophon, letter from Colucia to Nicolaus Jenson, 34/10v blank)]. 300 (of 302, without blank 2/1 and 28/6) leaves. The letter from Merula to Dominicus Georgius is bound as the innermost sheet of quire 2, rather than in quire 28 or 10 as in British Library copies (IB. 19660, IB. 19659). 40 lines. Type 1:115R, 115Gk. Guide-letters. 8-line initials in red and blue, 2- to 3-line initials and paragraph marks alternating in red and blue, some spaces blank, red capital strokes. (Tiny marginal wormholes filled in first 10 leaves, marginal tears repaired in 2/8, 5/10, and lower margins of last 13 leaves, lightly washed, fading the blue decoration.) Gold-tooled blue straight-grained morocco over pasteboard, sides with border of fillets and roll-tool à vermiculures , spine tooled in compartments, tan morocco doublures with roll-tooled borders, vellum flyleaves, gilt edges, pink silk ribbon marker, by François Bozerian (Bozerian jeune), with his stamp at foot of spine. The roll à vermiculures was also used by his brother, Jean-Claude Bozerian, no. 23 in Culot, Jean-Claude Bozerian (1979). Provenance : some marginal annotations (washed); A.A. Renouard (1765-1853), Bibliothèque d'un Amateur I, p.250. FIRST EDITION of all texts. Book ten only of Columella had probably appeared already at Rome, printed by the Printer of Silius Italicus, ca.1471 (GW 7180). The conjunction of the first three texts, by Cato, Varro and Columella, can be found from the Middle Ages, and their appearance together in a manuscript, once in S.Marco but now lost, was the basis for this first edition and most 15th-century manuscripts. In it Varro breaks off after Bk.3, ch.17.4 as here. They are joined in this collection by Palladius, whose works survived Antiquity in only one copy. Together, they form the chief texts on agriculture and rural life and deal with crops, vines, bees, olives, cattle-breeding, and -- in Cato -- old customs and superstitions to aid in effective cultivation. For the tenth book of his systematic treatise, the most comprehensive Roman work on agriculture, Columella took up Virgil's statement in the Georgics (4.148) that he was leaving it to others to write about gardening. Thus Columella's tenth book is on gardens and written in hexameters to supplement Virgil. It is the only part of the four texts in this collection to be printed independently in the 15th century. H *14564; BMC V, 173 (IB. 19658-60); Goff S-346; IGI 8853; CIBN S-174; Flodr, Scriptores rei rusticae 1; Botfield 145-49