Von den Aromaten und wolschmäckenden, gantz krefftigen und hailsamen Specereyen […] so aus fremden landen, zu uns Teutschen, gebracht werden

AN EARLY MONOGRAPH ON SPICES

8vo (147x95 mm). [64] leaves. Collation: A-H⁸. The final leaf is a blank. Woodcut initials and tailpiece. Printer's device and colophon on l. H7^r. 19^th-century marbled boards, orange morocco lettering piece stamped in gilt on spine (board edges slighlty rubbed). Small repair to the lower gutter corner of the title page not affecting the text, slightly browned throughout (as most copies), all in all a good, genuine copy with occasional contemporary underlinings and marginal notes (partly trimmed).

Rare first edition, dedicated to Anna, daughter of the King of Sweden Gustav I and from 1563 wife of the Count Palatine Georg Johann I zu Veldenz und Lützelstein, of this treatise which is presumably the earliest monograph exclusively devoted to spices.

From the dedication we learn that Anna was herself an inquirer of nature's secrets and an expert in medicinal plants, and that Ramingen was employed by her father, the Count Palatine, as a chamber counselor before 1580 (most likely between 1576/77 and March 1579). Then, due to a serious illness and “inconvenient” disputes about his person within the Lützelstein court household (he calls his accusers “Delatores und Syconphantae”), he was dismissed from his post but continued to receive a sort of annual pension. From the preface (Vorrede) that follows the dedication we find out that Ramingen strongly believed in the superior virtues of foreign spieces (if consumed fresh and in the proper way) compared to the German native ones, and that his intention with the present book was that to offer a summary on the subject in German languange. He also quotes the reference works of Hieronymus Bock (1498-1554) and Otto Brunfels (1488-1534) on herbs and spices (B.R. Jenny, Vom Schreiber zum Ritter: Jakob von Ramingen 1510-nach 1582, in: “Schriften des Vereins für Geschichte und Naturgeschichte der Baar und der angrenzenden Landesteile in Donaueschingen”, 26, 1966, pp. 14-16).

The work is entirely devoted to spices, how to use them, and their various virtues. Sections are included on cardamon, anis, cinnamon, rosemary, nutmeg, coriander, pepper, saffron, and absinthe (wermůtwein), with references to their Indian, Persian or Arab cooking methods. The second half of the book discusses honey and its uses in food and medicine, giving many recepies. In this section, Ramingen quotes from Niclaus Beltz from Stuttgart, Gereon Sayler (chief physician of the city of Augsburg), and Johann Stocker.

Von den Aromaten is at the culmination of a heavily seasoned cuisine which began with the Ancients and lasted until the beginning of the Renaissance. “The traditional explanation for the generous use of spices and other strong sweet and acid flavourings in medieval haute cuisine is that, given the rudimentary means of preserving food, they were essential to disguise the unpleasant taste of tainted and salted meat. That cannot be anything like the whole truth, for the use of spices began to change long before there was any significant improvement in methods of preservation […] The problem is not so much to explain why the upper classes in the Middle Ages liked food of this kind, but why gradually from the Renaissance onwards their tastes changed towards food which was generally more elaborate in its preparation, but less reliant on the proliferation of spices […]” (S. Mennell, All Manners of Food, Urbana & Chicago, 1996, pp. 53-54).

Von de Aromaten is also an early testimony of the epic contest for the spice trade, which literally drove the early modern world economy and propelled European maritime exploration and conquest across Asia and the Pacific (cf. R. Crowley, Spice. The 16^th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World, Yale University Press, 2024).

Jakob von Ramingen zu Laiblachsberg, occasionally also Rammingen, was the son of the Württemberg state archivist of the same name, and grew up in Stuttgart. He was taught scribing and record keeping by his father, and from 1533 to 1535, he worked as a court clerk. Eventually he had to flee to Ulm due to inadequate accounting of war expenses, and this resulted in the confiscation of his goods. From 1535 to 1553, he served as accountant and archivist for various aristocratic lords, while also writing three manuals on domestic economy: Von der Hausshaltung (Augsburg, 1566), Der rechten künstliche Renovatur (Heidleberg 1571), and Von der Registratur (Heidelberg, 1571) (cf. J.B.L.D. Strömberg, The earliest predecessors of archival science: Jacob von Rammingen's two manuals of registry and archival management, printed in 1571, Stockholm, 2010). From 1553 to 1559 he held the office of conservator in the Göppingen district, and from 1576 he was chamber counselor to Count Palatine Hans von Veldenz and Lützelstein (until 1579). In 1548, he was granted the title of nobility by imperial decree. After acquiring Laiblachsberg Castle in Sigmarszell near Lindau, he received imperial permission in 1554 to use the additional name zu Laiblachsberg (cf. B.R. Jenny, Op. cit., pp. 1-66; see also W. Leesch, Die deutschen Archivare 1500-1945, Munich, 1992, II, p. 472).

VD16, R-190; Weiss, 3093; Drexel, 867.govi

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