[BREAD].
L'amico de' poveri che insegna il vero modo di fare il pan venale col quale possono arricchire i fornaj onesti, intelligenti, e pratici delle regole del loro mestiere, e possono dare un maggior peso di pane ottimo, ben lievitato, e ben cotto alla povera gente.
Florence, Domenico Marzi and company for Luigi Carlieri, 1773. Small 4to in 8s. With an engraving in the text on p. 13 and a woodcut vignette on the title-page. Contemporary heavy paper or flexible paperboard wrappers (carta rustica). 42, [2 blank] pp.
€ 4,800
First edition of an extremely rare manual about bread, unrecorded in the standard bibliographies and in splendid condition, written to help bakers make an affordable and good quality bread for the poor. The anonymous author explains how to make different types of loaves by using various flours and how the stone-crushed wheat should be sifted rather than milled and then separated into different grades of flour with the help of a machine called "Il Buratto" (shown in the engraving).
We have located only four copies worldwide. Another edition published by Antonio Zenti at Viterbo in the same year (two copies located), also a 48-page 4to, has a different collation.
Near-contemporary inscription "PANE" on front wrapper, with the small early 20th-century armorial bookplate/private library label (printed in blue) of the marchese Piero Gerini (1874-1938) of Florence, with the shelf-mark filled in in manuscript. Clean and untrimmed, giving wide margins and preserving the deckles. ICCU, CFIE 038014 (1 copy); WorldCat 46255042, 953414960, 1151724887 & 1184210332 (3 copies); not in Bitting; Goldsmiths'; Kress; Vicaire; Westbury; for "carta rustica" bindings, see Nicolas Pickwoads account: https://historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=3757.
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