EISENBERG, Friedrich Wilhelm Baron d'.
La perfezione e i difetti del cavallo.
Florence, Giuseppe Allegrini for the Stamperia Imperiale, 1753. Folio. With an engraved title-page (with a variant of the title in French), a woodcut vignette on the title-page, the typographical title-page is printed in red and black, 22 full-page engraved plates, showing horses in several positions in 119 figures, and 1 folding engraved plate depicting a horse in full. Contemporary vellum, with the title lettered in gold within a small gold-tooled frame on the spine, blue edges. [4], CXLIII, [1 blank] pp.
€ 7,500
Very rare first edition of this beautiful work on the use of the rein with horses by Friedrich Wilhelm, Baron Rais d'Eisenberg (ca. 1685-ca. 1764) who was one of the most famous horse-aficionados of his time. Eisenberg depicts several aspects of the horse, heads, tails, fronts, feet, legs, etc., in 119 figures on 22 engraved plates, which all after the author's own designs. The plates are accompanied by descriptive text in French and Italian. The dedication to the Emperor François I is in French only. The folding engraving shows Eisenberg's favourite horse. The title on the frontispiece reads: "Anti-Maquignonage pour éviter la surprise dans l'emplette des chevaux...".
The Baron, who was raised among horses, worked first at the court of Saxon-Weimar, then as an equerry in Naples, for the vice king and later in Vienna - in the famous Spanish Riding School -, England and Tuscany. He wrote several important and lavishly illustrated books on horses and horsemanship: Description du manège moderne dans sa perfection (London, 1727), and Dictionnaire des termes du manège moderne (1747). In 1753, when the present work was published, he was director and first equerry at the Academy of Pisa.
With engraved armorial bookplate on inside front cover and a manuscript owner's inscription "Bibliotheca Militare Berilaqua ..." on the recto of the first free flyleaf. The binding is slightly dust soiled, the folding engraved plate has been pasted in, page V has been restored in margin. Otherwise in very good condition. Brunet II, col. 957; Cohen-De Ricci, col. 346; Mennessier de la Lance I, p. 438 ("very rare"); Nissen, ZBI 1266; not in Podeschi.
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