Pietro de’ Crescenzi (Bologna, ca. 1230-ca. 1320), jurist, landowner and writer, composed the Ruralia commoda between about 1304 and 1309. Drawing upon the classical agricultural tradition of Cato, Varro, Columella and Palladius, as well as medieval authorities, Crescenzi combined inherited learning with practical observation. The resulting twelve-book encyclopedia offered a remarkably comprehensive account of the management of land and its resources and became one of the most influential agricultural texts of the later Middle Ages.

The work encompasses virtually every aspect of rural economy: the siting and organization of an estate; soils and cultivation; cereals and other crops; trees, gardens and medicinal plants; animal husbandry and beekeeping; vineyards and wine-making; hunting and fishing; and, finally, a calendar of agricultural tasks to be undertaken through the year. Its rapid transition from manuscript to print is testimony to its enduring practical authority: the Latin text was first printed at Augsburg in 1471, only a generation after Gutenberg, and no fewer than thirteen editions in Latin and the principal European vernaculars appeared during the fifteenth century.

Of particular importance is Book IV, devoted to the vine and the production of wine. Simon describes the work as a particularly interesting treatise on viticulture and wine-making, noting that the fourth book is entirely concerned with vines, vineyards, their cultivation, and the nature and usefulness of their fruit. The present edition thus belongs to the earliest body of printed literature concerned substantially with viticulture and oenology.

Book X is devoted to hunting, fishing and hawking, giving the work an equally important place in the early printed literature of the chase. The Ruralia commoda has traditionally been noted as the first printed agricultural book to contain a substantial section devoted to hunting; its treatment of rural life extends from the productive management of an estate to the breeding and care of animals and the pursuit of game.

The importance of Crescenzi extended well beyond the Middle Ages. The work became a model for the European tradition of books on husbandry and estate management and continued to be printed and translated for centuries. Its practical authority was sufficiently enduring that Leonardo da Vinci owned or consulted an edition of Crescenzi, using the text as a reference in connection with his botanical investigations, tree growth, irrigation and the design of facilities for storing grain.

This edition occupies an especially important position in this transmission: it is at once the first edition printed in Italy and the first printed edition in the Italian vernacular. The second Italian edition did not appear until Vicenza in 1490.

ISTC ic00973000; USTC 995538; Goff C973; GW 7826; CIBN C-673; BMC VI, 627; Not in Schwerdt or Thiébaud.