Home
Shopping cart (0 items € 0)
Go Back

Extremely rare Italian 17th century manual for grafting fruit trees

DAHURON, René.
Tratttato[!] del tagliar gl'alberi da frutto con la maniera di ben allevarli, tradotto dal Francese, ...
[Venice?, Girolamo Albrizzi?, 1698?]. Folio. With a drop-title on the first page, 12 numbered illustrations printed from 3 engraved plates, and a notice of another book on the last page. Modern pink paper wrappers. pp. 261-280.
€ 850
An unrecorded Italian translation of a French treatise on the pruning and grafting of the limbs of fruit trees, first published as Traité de la taille des arbres, & de la maniere de les bien elever (Celle, André Holwein, 1692), with 12 engraved illustrations from 3 copperplates that depict trees and methods how to graft them. The Hunt Library catalogue mistakenly describes the second French edition (Nouveau traité, Paris 1696, illustrated with woodcuts) as the first edition and notes that this is "a rare little work, not listed in any of the larger botanical collections so far as we can find." The present Italian translation after the first edition appears to be even rarer.
Dahuron was gardener to Georg Wilhelm, Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg at Celle from 1690 to 1701 and then to Wilhelm I, King of Prussia at Potsdam. The present Italian translation appeared in 1698 together with an Italian Compendio of Jean de la Quintinye, Instruction pour les Jardins (Paris 1690) as Il Giardiniero Francese, overo Trattato del Tagliare gl'Alberi da Frutto con la Maniera di ben Allevarli (Venice, Girolamo Albrizzi, 1698). The present edition seems to have been published at about the same time, but as the last(?) treatise in a 280-page folio. The treatise collates 2mo: 2H4 2I6 = 10 ll., with a notice on fol. 2I6v of Antonio Maria Salvini, Discorsi Accademici ... (Florence, Giuseppe Manni, 1695): the notice mentions the death of Francesco Redi (1626-1697). The present edition of the treatise therefore seems likely to have been published in 1698, perhaps in the proceedings of one of the Florentine scholarly societies, but we have found no publication in which it seems to fit. The paper bears no discernible watermark.
In very good condition and with generous margins, with only some minor water stains at the foot, not approaching the text or illustrations. An extremely rare Italian translation of an early treatise on the grafting of fruit trees. Cf. Arnold Arboretum I, p. 183; Bradley III, p. 171; Hunt 395 & 455; for Dahuron: NBG XII, col. 787.
Order Inquire Terms of sale

Related Subjects:

Europe  >  France, Greece & Italy
Natural history  >  Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | Horticulture & Forestry