Inside the book

The treatise was long forgotten, only resurfacing in lectures in 1803. Today, three manuscript traditions exist: the original manuscript (Florence, BNCF), a clearer handwritten copy (Florence, BML), an abridged manuscript (Siena, Biblioteca Comunale). Though unpublished in his lifetime, it circulated in manuscript, and its influence can be traced (often unattributed and at times verbatim) in the writings of later Tuscan agronomists such as Davanzati, Soderini, and Tedaldi. The first part treats viticulture and wine, the second orchards, the third vegetables and flowers. This 1871 first printed edition presents only three books, streamlining and altering Firenzuola’s original text. A flawed but important artifact, it reveals both his early contribution to Tuscan viticulture and the irony of how his ideas were borrowed yet his name nearly erased. From Chianti Classico, by Bill Nesto and Frances Di Savino: “It was with great surprise that we found an author, Girolamo da Firenzuola, who mentioned Sangiovese even earlier. In 1552 he authored a seven-book agricultural treatise titled Sopra la agricultura. The first book covers viticulture; the second, vinification and maturation of wine. The remaining five discuss the cultivation of fruit trees and the principles of garden design. Though his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all served as high-level officials for the Medici rulers of Florence, Firenzuola was, in his own words, a man who had a “certain natural inclination” for grafting vines and fruit trees. He had inherited three properties in Galluzzo just north of San Casciano in Val di Pesa, but it is likely that he taught himself the “grande arte della Agricultura” [great art of agriculture] in his work as an administrator at the Vallombrosan abbey Badia di San Salvatore, in Vaiano north of Prato. Firenzuola wrote his treatise while serving a sentence in Florence’s Stinche prison (probably as a consequence of a dispute with the administrator of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence’s Duomo, or cathedral, regarding its lumber harvesting practices). He did not possess the writing skill of his brother, Agnolo, who was a well-known abbot and later author. His treatise was not a display of erudition but a practical handbook based on his personal experience planting and grafting vines and fruit trees, and making wine. Neither his manuscript nor his name publicly surfaced until 1803, when an abbot named Luigi Fiacchi (also known as Clasio) gave a lecture in Florence at the Georgofili Academy and another at the Academy of Science and Letters in Florence, called La Colombaria. In these lectures, he described an unedited work about agriculture from 1550 by a Girolamo di ser Bastiano Gatteschi da Firenzuola. He explained that it had been lost to history and, in contrast with the works of celebrated Tuscan authors such as Luigi Alamanni, Pier Vettori, Bernardo Davanzati, and Soderini, presented an entire system of agriculture, especially regarding the cultivation of olives and vines. According to Fiacchi, Firenzuola’s treatise was “sepolto ancora miseramente fra le tenebre di vergognosa dimenticanza” [still buried miserably in the shadows of shameful oblivion]. We discovered what we believe to be Firenzuola’s original handwritten text from September 16, 1552, in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (BNCF, or National Central Library of Florence). Its 157 numbered, double pages contain all seven books, the first two of which detail every aspect of planting vineyards, growing grapes, and making and aging wine. We also obtained a copy of what we assess to be an exact transcription, barring punctuation and spelling corrections, of this manuscript in a more legible handwritten version (though 117 double pages in length) from the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana [BML, or Laurentian Library] in Florence. The BML copy turned out to be our Rosetta stone for deciphering Firenzuola’s feverish and faded cursive script in the BNCF manuscript. His work was published in 1871 for the first and only time to date, in Siena. However, that volume contains only three books and is based on an abridged version of Firenzuola’s original manuscript in the Biblioteca Comunale di Siena [City library of Siena]. This version veers away from the other two, streamlining ideas, omitting details, and even changing the order of chapters. It must be a condensation of the original manuscript by someone who, sadly, did not understand the seminal value of Firenzuola’s work or the practical art of agriculture”.