Details
COLUMELLA. De Re Rustica. Manuscrit en latin enluminé sur vélin [Florence, 1462]. Inscription au verso de la dernière page nous indique que l'humaniste Stefano Guarnieri a rédigé ce traité d'agriculture à Florence en 1462 en 53 jours.
COLUMELLA, Lucius Junius Moderatus. De Re Rustica, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
Florence, 1462
270 x 185mm. 213 leaves: 1-410, 59 (of 10, lacking iv), 6-1510, 168 (of 10, lacking v & vi), 17-2010, 2113 (of 14, final blank cancelled), the three missing folios replaced with paper leaves, 20 lines written in brown ink in a semi-cursive humanistic bookhand between 2 pairs of vertical and 21 horizontal lines ruled in brown ink, a single outer vertical bounds the marginal titles, justification: 180 x 113mm, rubrics, paragraph marks, running titles, marginal titles, original roman foliation and some text capitals in pink, TEN LARGE ILLUMINATED WHITE-VINE INITIALS and a MINIATURE WITH A THREE-SIDED WHITE-VINE BORDER including burnished gold bars with birds and putti and a coat-of-arms (stains at the edges of the margins at the beginning of the book, opening folio rubbed and spotted, slight worming of final folios). Modern tan old-style morocco, panelled in blind, with reused clasps and brass cornerpieces, modern black morocco box.
PROVENANCE:
Stefano Guarnieri, the scribe of the manuscript: the Guarnieri arms in the border of the opening folio, three bars argent and three bars gules impaling azure a leopard sejant proper. This manuscript was the first item listed in the catalogue of his library: C. Annibaldi, L'Agricola e la Germania di Cornelio Tacito (Iesi, 1907).
CONTENTS:
Columella came from Cadiz in Spain and served as a tribune in the Roman army in Syria. He composed De Re Rustica about 60-65 AD. The twelve books of this treatise on farming cover many topics, including the situation of a farm and its buildings, methods of cultivation, husbandry, fishponds, apiary, gardens and the responsibility of the bailiff and his wife. Columella appears to have written from practical experience and with the intention of arresting the decline of farming in Italy; this was to be effected by promoting knowledge, industry, and involving the landowner's interest. This copy precedes the first edition of ca.1471 [GW 7180].
SCRIBE:
In an inscription on the final verso the scribe identifies himself and records that he wrote the manuscript in Florence in 1462 in 53 days: Scripsi ego Stephanus Guarnerius, liii diebus Florentiae, mccccclxii. Stefano Guarnieri (d. ca. 1495) was a humanist who had undertaken various diplomatic missions during the pontificates of Callistus III and Paul II, including missions to Federico da Montefeltro and Sigismondo Malatesta. In 1466 he was appointed chancellor of Perugia and he held this office for 22 years: U. Nicolini, 'Stefano Guarnieri da Osimo cancelliere a Perugia dal 1466 al 1488', L'Umanesimo umbro: atti del IX convegno di studi umbri - Gubbio 22-23 settembre 1974 (Perugia, 1977), pp.307-23. He was an enthusiastic collector and transcriber of classical texts and many of his manuscripts survived in the Guarnieri-Balleani library at Iesi until its dispersal: B.A. Shailor, Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, iii, New York 1992, index V under Guarnieri-Balleani Library.
ILLUMINATION:
The Proemio of Columella's text opens with an attractive miniature of a young man digging. He stands in the foreground in a rather contrived contrapposto pose, driving his spade into the ground. The landscape behind him has distant trees and a castle, and a somewhat barren-looking midground with deer and rabbits. The style is that of one of the illuminators who worked in the circle of Francesco d'Antonio del Chierico, the leading Florentine illuminator of this date.
S. Prete, Il codice di Columella di Stefano Guarnieri (Cologny-Geneva, 1974)
COLUMELLA, Lucius Junius Moderatus. De Re Rustica, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
Florence, 1462
270 x 185mm. 213 leaves: 1-410, 59 (of 10, lacking iv), 6-1510, 168 (of 10, lacking v & vi), 17-2010, 2113 (of 14, final blank cancelled), the three missing folios replaced with paper leaves, 20 lines written in brown ink in a semi-cursive humanistic bookhand between 2 pairs of vertical and 21 horizontal lines ruled in brown ink, a single outer vertical bounds the marginal titles, justification: 180 x 113mm, rubrics, paragraph marks, running titles, marginal titles, original roman foliation and some text capitals in pink, TEN LARGE ILLUMINATED WHITE-VINE INITIALS and a MINIATURE WITH A THREE-SIDED WHITE-VINE BORDER including burnished gold bars with birds and putti and a coat-of-arms (stains at the edges of the margins at the beginning of the book, opening folio rubbed and spotted, slight worming of final folios). Modern tan old-style morocco, panelled in blind, with reused clasps and brass cornerpieces, modern black morocco box.
PROVENANCE:
Stefano Guarnieri, the scribe of the manuscript: the Guarnieri arms in the border of the opening folio, three bars argent and three bars gules impaling azure a leopard sejant proper. This manuscript was the first item listed in the catalogue of his library: C. Annibaldi, L'Agricola e la Germania di Cornelio Tacito (Iesi, 1907).
CONTENTS:
Columella came from Cadiz in Spain and served as a tribune in the Roman army in Syria. He composed De Re Rustica about 60-65 AD. The twelve books of this treatise on farming cover many topics, including the situation of a farm and its buildings, methods of cultivation, husbandry, fishponds, apiary, gardens and the responsibility of the bailiff and his wife. Columella appears to have written from practical experience and with the intention of arresting the decline of farming in Italy; this was to be effected by promoting knowledge, industry, and involving the landowner's interest. This copy precedes the first edition of ca.1471 [GW 7180].
SCRIBE:
In an inscription on the final verso the scribe identifies himself and records that he wrote the manuscript in Florence in 1462 in 53 days: Scripsi ego Stephanus Guarnerius, liii diebus Florentiae, mccccclxii. Stefano Guarnieri (d. ca. 1495) was a humanist who had undertaken various diplomatic missions during the pontificates of Callistus III and Paul II, including missions to Federico da Montefeltro and Sigismondo Malatesta. In 1466 he was appointed chancellor of Perugia and he held this office for 22 years: U. Nicolini, 'Stefano Guarnieri da Osimo cancelliere a Perugia dal 1466 al 1488', L'Umanesimo umbro: atti del IX convegno di studi umbri - Gubbio 22-23 settembre 1974 (Perugia, 1977), pp.307-23. He was an enthusiastic collector and transcriber of classical texts and many of his manuscripts survived in the Guarnieri-Balleani library at Iesi until its dispersal: B.A. Shailor, Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, iii, New York 1992, index V under Guarnieri-Balleani Library.
ILLUMINATION:
The Proemio of Columella's text opens with an attractive miniature of a young man digging. He stands in the foreground in a rather contrived contrapposto pose, driving his spade into the ground. The landscape behind him has distant trees and a castle, and a somewhat barren-looking midground with deer and rabbits. The style is that of one of the illuminators who worked in the circle of Francesco d'Antonio del Chierico, the leading Florentine illuminator of this date.
S. Prete, Il codice di Columella di Stefano Guarnieri (Cologny-Geneva, 1974)