Noël Chomel - Dictionnaire œconomique, contenant divers moyens d’augmenter son bien et de conserver sa santé - 1718

CHOMEL (Noël). Economic Dictionary, containing various means of increasing one’s wealth and of preserving one’s health.
Paris, published by Étienne Ganeau and Jacques Estienne, 1718.
Two folio volumes, 25x40 cm. Text printed in two columns: Volume I, 1,568 columns; Volume II, 1,465 columns, with numbering errors. That is, 1,517 pages of text according to the bibliographic description of the edition, to which are added the preliminaries and the unnumbered table. Titles printed in red and black, numerous wood engravings in the text, banners and illuminated initials.
Second edition, revised, corrected and enlarged, in which the supplement is integrated into the alphabetical order. This vast compilation brings together the practical knowledge necessary for running a household and a domain: agriculture, gardening, viticulture, animal husbandry, beekeeping, hunting, fishing, cooking, preparation of remedies and food preservation. Artisan recipes, soap and starch making, dyes, domestic work and commercial advice further expand the scope of the work.
Priest and parish priest of Saint-Vincent in Lyon, Noël Chomel organizes these knowledges in the form of alphabetically arranged articles, mixing observations, technical procedures and recipes. Thus, his dictionary offers a particularly rich view of domestic and rural economy at the beginning of the eighteenth century, in the old sense of the administration of the house and its resources.
Illustration directly accompanies the described uses: oxen and sheep, hunting nets, bird traps, fishing devices, distillation, casks and a compass rose are notably found in the copy. The captioned diagrams illustrate the methods and tools of the time, alongside recipes and cultivation advice.
Old full calf bindings, spine with six nerves adorned with fleurons and gilded motifs, title pieces and volume labels, marbled paper endleaves and red edges. An old manuscript inscription on a flyleaf mentions a canon of Amiens Cathedral.
Condition: bindings worn, with rubbing and significant epidermural wear on boards, leather cracked at spines and hinges, loss at the headpieces, bumped corners. The title of Volume II shows tears and pronounced creases. Stains and browning occasional, some small holes visible on some leaves; the photographed pages retain legible text and woodcuts.