30. Libri de re rustica: Marcus Porcius Cato. De agri cultura; Marcus Terentius Varro. Rerum rusticarum libri tres; Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella. De re rustica; Rutillius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius. De re rustica (1533).

4° ; [54], 295, [1] leaves; 213 x 132mm.


A reprint of the 1514 edition (no. 29, above) this edition offers an interesting study in early printing practice. The preface was updated to criticize the 1521 Giunti edition published at Florence, but the 1533 edition lacks the privilege included with the 1514 edition (the fifteen years having passed) and adds an index. The main text was compressed by setting the type closer and adding one line to the page, producing a modest saving in paper. The same woodblocks were used for the illustrations in both editions, evidently having been kept at the shop between printings. Aldus's preface was reprinted exactly, which meant that the compositor could be given individual pages from the original to reproduce, even if they began in mid-sentence. The danger of this method of operation is shown in this reprint, for the pages have been printed out of order: the second page of the preface has been printed as the fourth page in the 1533 edition, no doubt causing considerable confusion to the reader. The differences between the editions--the attempt to fill up the page more in order to save paper, printing pages out of order (and it appears that the mistake was not caught, since all known copies have the pagination in the wrong order)--are symptomatic of the lowering of standards at the press in the period between the death of Aldus and Paulus's assumption of control of the firm.



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