296 Aster History; CRESCENZI 
a title represented by “ Della villa of Petro Crescentio” in the 
Italian version by Sansovino. It holds a deservedly high place 
among the achievements of that too brief outburst of literary 
activity which formed the period of Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, 
and Chaucer. J. M. Gesner included this work in 1735 in his 
Ret Rusticae Scripiores. 
Crescenzi’s 136 plant-chapters form * his 6th book ; he begins 
each with the plant’s name and gives often a few synonyms 
and a few characteristics, but is mostly occupied by the direct 
utility of the plant to man,—which is chiefly medical and for which 
Plateario is his constant source, though cited by name only thrice. 
Book V treats of 52 kinds of trees in 53 chapters; book IV of 
the vine; book III of grasses and forage plants, in 23 chapters. 
Meyer made an unprinted synopsis of 292 plant-species in Cres- 
cenzi: had he included varieties the number would have been over 
As a whole, Crescenzi’s work is based on the Roman writers 
on Agriculture, on Palladius, Columella, Varro and Cato; with 
much indebtedness to Albertus Magnus and some to Nicolaus 
Damascenus ; and very much to Avicenna, who is cited by name 
over 80 times, or next in frequency to Palladius.+ 
Crescenzi does not seem to have known either of the three 
encyclopaedists, though writing, 1305, only a half century latet 
Third Italian translation by ’ Nferigno, i. e., Bastiano de Rossi (Florence eT 
praised by Meyer, but confounded by the Biographie Générale with the preceding ; 
is, ragueg a revision of the 1478 or Tuscan translation; title, ‘ 7rattato del ye 
cultur 
Old German translation, with cuts, Barista; 1493, 1499, etc., etc., and Strnsbarss 
1518, as ‘* Von dem Nutzen der Dinge.’ 
Old French translation, a MS, called « Rustican,”’ of ‘‘ Pierre de Crescens,”” at 
at desire of Charles V, in 1373, printed by Verard, Paris, 1486, as ‘* Prouffits ¢ 
pestres et ruraulx, a Pierre Crescensi’’; again, entitled ‘« Le bon Mesnaiger ‘ 
additions by Gorgole Corne), Paris, 1 
with 
tT Among earlier plant writers Crescenzi used sen Galen and ares also 
ra 
a Historia Alexandri ; among later writers he cites from Constantinus, from Ge be 
Cremonensis (his translation of Abulcasis) and from Macer, whose na parcte ss 
502, 
Macer in the early Latin editions; but as Macro in Sansovino’s Italian versions i. 
which is presumably the name the poet bore in Italy when not in Latinized form 5 ‘ 
the Latin Basle editions, 1518, etc., Macro had been misunderstood (as earlier 
Bartholomaeus Anglicus) and is erroneously printed Macrobius. 
