(AGRICULTURE). SIMONDE DE SISMONDI, JEAN CHARLES LÉONARD.

TABLEAU DE L'AGRICULTURE TOSCANE.

(Genève: J. J. Paschoud, 1801). 210 x 140 mm (8 1/4 x 5 1/2"). xiv, 327 pp. FIRST EDITION.

Very pleasing recent retrospective smooth half calf over convincing marbled paper boards, raised bands, maroon morocco label, new well-matching endpapers. Folding frontispiece illustrating various types of trees and agricultural tools. The folding plate, first three leaves, and three other leaves with marginal patches up to two inches square (not affecting text), probably due to the removal of a library stamp. Aside from the patches mentioned above, a copy IN VERY FINE CONDITION inside and out, the new convincing binding unworn, and the text unusually clean, fresh, and bright.

This is the youthful first work of notable historian and economist Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de Sismondi (1773-1842), the fruit of five years of experience as a farmer in Tuscany. The author offers a thorough and detailed discussion of the cultivation of olives and the production of olive oil; he discusses grapes and the production of Tuscan wines (including Montepulciano, Chianti, and Montecatini); he discourses on chestnut and fruit trees as well as on livestock; and, indicative of his future interests, he spends time examining the condition of the peasantry. Simonde de Sismondi was born in Geneva of a family of Italian origin, studied and travelled in England, then moved with his parents to Tuscany to escape the vicissitudes of the French Revolution. Initially influenced by the ideas of Adam Smith, he argued in his early works for a free market economy, but after the financial crises of 1818 and 1819, he radically revised his economic views, becoming an advocate for government regulation. He spent his later life largely in Geneva and France, and was widely admired and honored for his many works of economics and history, some of the best known being his "History of the Italian Republics" and "History of the French," which was written over a period of 20 years. The present volume is especially desirable because it is quite rare (nothing in ABPC since at least 1975), because it gives a useful comprehensive picture of the agricultural landscape of Tuscany at the end of the 18th century, and because it is an early work by such an eminent author. (CJM0709)