Riflessioni sul vitto pitagorico di Giuseppe Antonio Pujati primo medico di Feltre al signor dottor Jacopo Odoardi feltrese.
Feltre: nella Stamperia del Seminario per Odoardo Foglietta, 1751. Item #1429 4to. 235 x 165 mm., [9 x 6 ½ inches]. [4] ff, [90] pp., [1]f. Bound in early 20th century decorated paper boards. Slight marginal staining on the title page and a small repair to the inner white margin. Slight foxing on the margins of a few pages; a single small hole on the final page. First edition of this contribution to the 18th-century debate on the value of a vegetarian diet, one of the themes of the Enlightenment that Cocchi and Corrado were such important advocates. The controversy started in 1743 with the publication of Antonio Cocchi’s book, Del Vitto Pitagorico which described the benefits of a plant-based diet. Pujati (1701-1760) was one of the first to respond with this rebuttal addressed to Jacobo Odoardi arguing against this thesis and challenged the nutritional value of a meatless diet. Odoardi was to respond with his pamphlet, Risposta in 1753 and the controversy continued well into the 1780’s with Giovanni Bianchi and Corrado writing opposing views. Like so many of these publications on the subject of the nutritional value of the vegetarian diet, Pujati’s Riflessioni is very rare. It is not cited in NUC and OCLC cites only two copies in American, one at the Lilly Library and the other at Minnesota.
Maria Paleari Henssler. Bibliografia Latino-Italiana di Gastronomia, p. 603. Lord Westbury. Handlist of Italian Cookery Books, p. 179. Giuseppe Laterza. Dizionario enciclopedico letteratura Italiana, vol. 4 pp. 471-72.
Price: $2,500.00