VARRO, Marcus Terentius. Opera quæ supersunt. In lib. ling. Lat. Coniectanea I. Scaligeri. In lib. de re rust. notæ eiusdem … Editio ultima, recognita & aucta. Paris, Claude Baaleu, 1585.
8vo. Near-contemporary vellum with yapp edges, pp. 143, 255, [88], 48, [4, blank]128, [16], 67 [recte 77]; black morocco-piece renewed, otherwise a very good and crisp copy.
The first scientific treatise on agriculture and food production, contained in the collective edition (first, Geneva, Estienne, 1573) of the major extant works of the Roman polymath, annotated by the eminent Renaissance scholar Scaliger. Marcus Terentius Varro (1st century BC) inherited a large farm near Rieti, not far from Rome. After the Civil War Caesar appointed him to oversee the public library of Rome in 47 BC. His only complete work extant, Rerum rusticarum libri tres (Three Books on Agriculture), has been described by Harrison in his Note Upon the Roman Agronomists (1918) as 'the well digested system of an experienced and successful farmer who has seen and practised all that he records' (p. 10).
Schweiger II, 1116; Adams, V-284; cf. Smitskamp, The Scaliger Collection, 192-3 (earlier editions).
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