Borgo, Aritmetica mercantile, Venice, Ratdolt, 1484, later limp vellum

BORGO, PIETRO

[Aritmetica mercantile] Qui comenza la nobel opera de aritmethica nela quale se tracta tute cosse a mercantia pertinente. Venice: Erhard Ratdolt, 2 August 1484

4to (201 x 152mm.), 118 leaves, 36-38 lines, gothic type, 6- to 13-line white on black woodcut initials, printed calculations in margins, some deckle edges, modern limp reused vellum, modern printed paper label on spine, occasional light soiling or staining, a small wormhole throughout, central fold of each quire reinforced

RARE FIRST EDITION, A LARGE COPY. This is the second treatise on commercial arit.mes tic to be printed in Italy, after Larte dela merchadantia, Treviso, 1478, which was never reprinted. Borgo's work was more detailed and therefore of greater influence; it was reissued in 1488, 1491 and many more t.mes s in the sixteenth century. Borgo was a mathematician from Venice.

LITERATURE:

ISTC ib01034000; Hoock & Jeannin B18.2; Riccardi i, 163; Smith, Rara arit.mes tica p.16; Tomash & Williams B208; Van Egmond p.293; David Eugene Smith, "The First Great Commercial Arit.mes tic", Isis 8 (1926), pp.41-49

PROVENANCE:

"St[?] ytae Maria", inscription on b4 recto; modern Dutch or German booksellers' inscriptions on lower pastedown; bought from Martayan Lan, New York, 1991; Erwin Tomash, booklabel