A treatise on harnessing, riding and forging horses (in Italian) from 1628

FIASCHI Cesare - Trattato dell'imbrigliare, Atteggiare, & Ferrare Caualli [...], diviso in tre libri, Ne'quali sono tutte le Figure a proposito delle Briglie, de gli Atteggiamenti, e de'Ferri. Et in questa Quinta impressione unito il Trattato di Mescalzia di Filippo Scacco da Tagliacozzo [...]. In Padova 1628. appresso Pietro Paolo Tozzi, al Pozzodipinto. 4, s. [8], 139, [13], 151, [1]. Period perg. binding.
Cover stains, minor stains inside, folds and glued losses of last pages, two pages missing (pp. 147-150, beginning of table of contents) in second part of book. Own notes. A classic Renaissance treatise on harnessing, riding and shoeing horses. It was first published in Bologna in 1556. Each of the three parts of the work is decorated with a full-page woodcut showing a horse in harness in front of a craftsman's workshop, a horse during a demonstration in front of an audience, and a scene of shoeing a horse in a forge. In addition, the work includes 36 examples of decorative munstocks (full-page woodcuts) and their numerous components, as well as schematic diagrams illustrating the arrangement of a horse; some diagrams have been accompanied by short musical excerpts indicating the rhythm of the horse's movement - this was the first such use of musical notation in hippological literature. Another novelty is the insertion of long feathers into the hands of the riders visible in the engravings, which symbolized the gentle handling of the animal. The edition presented here is enriched by Philip Scacco's work "Trattato di mescalzia" with a separate title page and numerous small woodcuts in the text.