Dell Obbedienza Del Cavallo Trattato.
Livorno, M. Coltellini [1764].
4to (222 x 158 mm.). Etched title, xviii, 428, [1]p. ETCHED ARCHITECTURAL TITLE with a riding master and his horse (Giovanni Lapi) and two plates of a horse skeleton and bridle parts..
Contemporary binder’s boards (worn, shaken), contemporary signature of Giovanni Batista Trivella on the front cover, uncut.
Only Edition of this horse training manual which “anticipates by about two centuries the modern theories of biomechanics” (Tomassini). Rosselmini was the superintendent of the Grand Duke of Tuscany’s stud-farms in San Rossore and the director of a riding school in Siena. He devotes the first section to the different parts of the horse, what roles they play in locomotion and the different gaits. In contrast to current beliefs, he argues that a horse’s front legs support its weight while the back legs regulate motion. In the second section, he focuses on how to raise foals and train their movements — something he claims even his young sickly son was able to do in two years. In part three, he focuses on riders, their posture and how to direct a horse, including PARTICIPATING IN MOUNTED PROCESSIONS, PAGEANTS, EQUESTRIAN BALLETS, JOUSTS AND TILTS. He closes with advice on breeding and managing herds. In modest condition (foxing, some quires browned, paper flaws and two leaves unopened at top edge, bottom margin of title repaired).
¶Tomassini, The Italian Tradition of Equestrian Art 236-8; Ayala, Bibliografia militare-italiana 209; Wells, Horsemanship: A Bibliography 6494; Cicognara, Catalogo ragionato dei libri d’arte e d’antichità 4617; Wellcome Institute, A Catalogue of Printed Books in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library IV: 560; see Toole-Stott’s Circus and Allied Arts 2345.
Price: $1,750.00