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🌟 See it for yourself at Firsts: Hong Kong 2025 (5–7 December 2025), Stand 21! Photos courtesy of @asiasociety.org

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As well as highlighting the recipient's bravery at the Battle of Fornovo, our poet displays some exceptional alliteration: 'Pareil aux preux per sans per imperant / Patron piteux des pers proche parant / Prise par tout par postillation' (try saying that five times fast ...)

It is preceded by two leaves of unrecorded contemporary manuscript verse, the contents indicating that the recipient was a participant in the Italian campaign described in the printed book, evidently a commision executed at the very highest level of the French court.

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Scriptores rei rusticae. Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 1472

The first printed edition of this compendium of classical texts on agriculture and rural life. This volume actually comprises two separate copies attached together to make one complete whole. 2/7

Despite being a frankenbook, it preserves a trove of very early evidence (illuminated initials, marginalia, identifiable early binding). It also comes with about 300 years of unbroken provenance, which is important for us -- a public library -- as we look to model ethical acquisition practices. 3/7