JORDANUS RUFFUS. 395 



willingly ; he recommends that the hoofs be shod with 

 shoes of a convenient weight, round, and adapted to the 

 shape of the feet. The shoe to be light, and narrow 

 towards the extremity of the branches, as in proportion 

 to the narrowness of the shoe at the heels woidd the 

 horse's hoofs become hard and strong. The thicker the 

 shoes of the young horse, so the more liability was there 

 to the hoofs becoming weak and soft ; and so long as 

 horses continued to be shod in their youth, so would the 

 hoofs become large and hard.' 



Veterinary medicine at this stage in the revival of the 

 arts and sciences was almost, if not entirely, Italian, and 

 the best and most original writers on it were natives of 

 Italy. After RufFus, the principal author on the diseases 

 and management of the domestic animals at this period 

 is Petrus de Crescentiis, of Bologna, a philosopher, lawyer, 

 physician, and traveller.^ His work, written when he was 

 seventy years of age (1307), had an immense success, 

 treating, as it did, of every branch of agriculture ; and 



' 'Ancora e utile al cavallo lavarghi spesso la bocca con umo buono, 

 et fregargliela con il sal pesto : et facedo cosi, il cavallo bevera piu 

 volontieri, et fiicciasi ferrat con ferri di peso convenevoli, et che sieno 

 rotondi, tanto che s'adatti a I'unghia di piedi. II ferro deve esser leg- 

 gieri, et stretto nella sua estremita ; imperoche quanto sono piu stretti 

 di dietro, le unghie del cavallo, tanto sono piu dure, e forti. Et sappi, 

 che quanto piu spesso si ferra il caval giovane, tanto piu fa divenir 

 I'unghia debbile e molle 5 et pero per il continuo suo andar ferrato 

 nella giovanezza, le sue unghie diveramo dure, et grandi.' 



^ I have not been able to refer to the first Latin edition — ' Opus 

 Ruralium Commodorum,' printed in 147 ij but of the ten editions 

 afterwards published, I have selected for reference that of nearly a cen- 

 tury later — ' De Omnibus Agriculturae partibus, etc., per longo rerum 

 usu exercitatum Optimum et Philosophum Petrum Crescentiensem, 

 principem rei publicae Bononiensis,' etc, Basileae, 1548. 



