Melethemata inauguralia (De fungorum generatione...)

Bound with:   Dardana, Giuseppe Antonio. In agaricum campestrem veneno. - Turin, excudebat Ioan. Mich. Briolus, 1788.                                                   
Two works in one volume.  8vo.  I: 205 x 135 mm., [8 x 5 inches].  [iv], 284 pp.  2 folding plates colored by contemporary hand, with 10 diagrams.  II:  32 pp.  Bound in contemporary wine morocco, gilt triple-fillet borders and corner pieces in a floral motif, spine with title gilt, all edges gilt; original marbled paper pastedowns and endpapers. Very fine copy.

Pico's treatise is divided into four parts, including insights into picking mushrooms and the risk involved in consumption of toxic species. Of great importance are the folding plates, engraved by Stagnon from drawings by G. F. Anselmi and Pico himself and hand-colored at the

time. The second part of the volume is taken up with the work by Dardana, featuring a letter addressed to Pico about the differences between poisonous and edible mushrooms.

It is evident that the truffle has very ancient origins, but the first scientific studies are carried out only since the eighteenth century. More precisely, in 1788 the Latin name Tuber Magnatum was born: it was invented by a Turin doctor Dr. Vittorio Pico, who defined the white truffle as the "truffle of the magnates". The Savoy family, for example, passionate lovers of truffles, sent it as a "diplomatic gift" to all the other European courts and invited friends to their hunts (for truffles) in the Turin hills.

For Pico, OCLC cites copies at Harvard and Michigan only, NUC cites Harvard only.  For Dardana OCLC cites copies at Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Michigan only.  Rare in the trade; not listed for sale on Via Libri or ABE, two copies of Pico only on Maremagnum.

Paleari Henssler, Maria.  Bibliografia Latino-Italiana di Gastronomia. 1998., p. 575 for Pico only.