LAURENTIUS RUSIUS, Hippiatria sive Marescalcia (Book on the Health of Horses), in the Italian translation of ANTONIO DE BARLETTA, Liber de signis bonitatis et malitie equorum et de ipsorum infirmitatibus causis et curis (Book on the Signs of Health and Illness of Horses and on the Causes and Cures of their Diseases)

BOOK DESCRIPTION: the best known and most widely read medieval work on veterinary science for horses. In Italian, manuscript on paper, Italy (Pavia?), c. 1530-1560. Dimensions: 360 x 250 mm.,52 folios on paper, complete, written in an Italic script (cancelleresca italica) in brown ink, red rubrics, decorated 5-line initial on f. 1 styled as a tree trunk and 2- to 3-line red pen initials at the beginning of each chapter. CONTEMPORARY VELLUM BINDING, title written on the spine, enclosed in a modern half calf cover within a half calf slipcase, both with marbled sides. TEXT: Lorenzo Rusio's state-of-the-art treatise on veterinary science for horses is the best known and most widely read medieval work on the subject. It appears here in a rare fifteenth-century Italian translation, known only in four other manuscripts. Its large size and long lines suggest a reference copy, not something suitable for practical use in the stables. The text adds forty chapters on the preparation and application of medicines for horses, and a table of Latin and vernacular names for plants and herbs. PROVENANCE: Written in northern Italy in the middle of the sixteenth century, c. 1530-1560; Private European Collection; Belonged to Johan Dejager who assembled a collection of over 350 books related to horsemanship (no. 8 in his catalogue). CONDITION: overall in good condition. [TM 1027]