Descrizione

4to. (8), 237, (3) pp. Bound in contemporary 'carta rustica', faded manuscript title to spine. Rare first edition of this treatise on bread and bread-making, by the physician and naturalist Saverio Manetti (1723-85). The work deals with wheat, flour, different kind of bread (corn, rye, buckwheat and sweat bread, donuts, farinata, waffles, bread with raisins etc.), how to prepare and bake it, substitutes of bread and molds and worms that can grow on it. A separate section details the specifics of oriental bread - "Pane Etiopico, e Saracenico", and varieties "in grand' uso appresso l' Egitto" (pp. 148ff.). "This work precedes Parmentier's 'Parfait Boulanger' by 13 years" (Westbury). - Very lightly foxed, but a very good copy, uncut. With Lord Westbury's bookplate to front pastedown. - Bitting 185 (1766 edition only, s.v. "Ginori"). Gamba 2328 (1768 ed. only). Re III, 103. Westbury 138-140.