(BASSUS, Cassianus).

Le grand et bon mesnager, compose en latin par Constantin Cesar de Constantinoble. Et traduict en francoys par maistre Anthoine pierre licencie en droict: lequel traicte de toute agriculture, de-tous bastimens lieux dedifices: & comme ilz se doibuent edifier. Pareillement de toutes manieres de labourages, & plantz, & aultres honnestetes qui ung chascun bon mesnager doibt scavoir pour edifier en toutes choses.

      The Geoponica: a 6th or 7th century text from Greece on Agriculture in a French translation No place (Poitiers?), no printer, 1544. 8vo. Old vellum, renewed endpapers, paper title label on spine, lettered in ink. Title, as well as some lines in the first quire printed in red and black, with finely engraved woodcut initials, one of which on the title. (16), CXII, CXII lvs. Very rare edition of this French translation by Antoin Pierre of this interesting collection of early agricultural texts on farmer's houses and all the farmer's activities, originally compiled by Cassianus Bassus about the 6th or 7th century AD, and revised by order of Constantine VII of Constantinople (to whom the text is sometimes ascribed), in ca. 950. The first Latin edition, translated by Janus Cornarus (1500-1558), appeared in Venice in 1538; in the same year Froben published an edition in Basle and it has since been published in the original Greek, French and English in many editions to the 20th century.work is also ascribed to Dionysius Uticensis and the Byzantine Emperor Constantinus the Great and is also listed under the word "Geoponica". In the 80's of the last century the work has been the subject of a series of doctoral theses at the University of Munich (see the dissertations of Chr. Kraus on book 13 & 15; S.U. Wappermann on book 16 & 17; H.M.E. Jung-Neumann onm book 18 & 19; J.E. Sommer on book 14 & 20 of the Geoponica von Cassianus Bassus, Uebers. und Besprechung von --. Good copy from the library of Ernest Ridley Debenham - with a beautifully engraved ex-libris - and Rouvier de Vaulgran.- (Some foxing in first and last lvs). Vicaire, Bibliographie Gastronomique, p. 204; Brunet II, 1540 (i.v. Geoponica); cf. Hunt Botanical cat. 41; modern ed. by H. Beckh in the Teubner series: Geoponica sive Cassiani Bassi scholastici De re rustica ecloge. Leipzig 1895 (repr. 1994); in general: W. Gemoll, Untersuchungen über die Quellen der Verfasser und die Abfassungszeit der Geopopnica. Berlin 1883 (repr. 1972); E. Fehrle, Zur Geschichte der griechischen Geoponica. Habil. Heidelberg 1913.