[Scriptores de re rustica]. Libri de re rustica...[Paris], Josse Bade, 30 April 1529.
[Scriptores de re rustica]. Libri de re rustica...[Paris], Josse Bade, 30 April 1529.
[Scriptores de re rustica].
Libri de re rustica, M. Catonis, M. Terentii Varronis, L. Iunii Moderati Columellę, Palladii Rutilii: quorum summam pagina sequens indicabit.
[Paris], Josse Bade, 30 April 1529.
In the original speaking-binding
[Scriptores de re rustica].
Libri de re rustica, M. Catonis, M. Terentii Varronis, L. Iunii Moderati Columellę, Palladii Rutilii: quorum summam pagina sequens indicabit. [Paris], Josse Bade, 30 April 1529.
Folio (333x214 mm). Collation: Aa6, A8, B6, a-t8, v6, x8. [40], 311, [21] pages. Roman type. Title-page within an elaborate woodcut architectural border, including putti, grotesque figures, antique vases and cuirasses, and mythological figures; on the upper panel a medallion depicting a laureate writer at his desk, large Bade device of a printer's press at the centre. Woodcut decorated initials, on ten lines the ones on criblé ground at the beginning of each book. Numerous woodcut illustrations and diagrams in the text. Handsome contemporary brown morocco, over pasteboards. Covers within blind fillets and two frames richly blind tooled in floral pattern. Traces of ties to the edges. At centre of both covers cornerpieces and fleurons surrounding a quatrefoil-shaped medallion, with the gilt inscriptions 'DE RE RVSTICA' on the upper cover, and 'M: CAT: M: VAR L: COL' on the lower one. Spine with three raised bands, compartments blind tooled with diagonal fillet pattern. Edges with trace of the original green colouring. Minor scrapes to the upper cover, upper joint slightly cracked, minor wear to corners and extremities of the spine, the front flyleaf lacking. A good, wide-margined and unsophisticated copy. Small wormholes to the lower portion of the front gutter; title-page lightly soiled with old repair to the outer lower blank corner, without any loss. A few leaves uniformly browned, some small stains and spots.
First Badius edition of this classical collection of texts on agriculture by the major Roman writers on the topic: De re rustica by Lucius Columella (4-70 AD), the De re rustica by Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder (234-149 BC), the De re rustica by Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BC), and the De re rustica and De insitione by Rutilius Palladius (4th-5th century AD). The Scriptores rei rustica had been re-discovered at the beginning of the fifteenth century by Poggio Bracciolini, and the collection was first printed by Nicolas Jenson in Venice in 1472. Numerous editions followed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the collection became the standard reference work on agriculture until the end of the sixteenth century, owing especially to its comprehensive address of all aspects necessary for the conduct of a farm: plants, animals, wine, mustard, cheese, olives, fruit, etc.
The Badius edition closely followed the Libri de re rustica published by Aldus Manutius in May 1514, and edited by the Venetian printer himself along with the humanist and architect Giovanni Giocondo. Like the Aldine publication, the Parisian edition is thus supplemented with commentary by renowned humanists, such as the Enarrationes vocum priscarum in libris De re rustica by Giorgio Merula, the Enarrationes in XII Columellae libros by Filippo Beroaldo, the Interpretatio in hortum Columellae by Pomponio Leto, and the Scholia in hortum Palladii by Giovanni Battista Pio and Antonio Urceo (Codrus).
Renouard Bade, II, pp. 263-264; Schweiger II, p. 1306; Philobiblon, One Thousand Years of Bibliophily, no. 83.
