Fray Miguel Agustín, with the concern that exists in the Modern Age by agriculture, which ensured the livelihood of the population, and that was the basis of the economy of the time, was reflected in a series of writings, the so-called treaties of agriculture.
Works of different authors aimed at a different audience, which continued the rich tradition of the classic writers de Re rustica, bringing together the medieval authors of the Christian world and the Islamic world.
Friar Miguel Agustín was born in Banyoles, Girona, in 1560. He served in the Order of St. John of Jerusalem and became prior in the town of Perpignan, France. He died in 1630; he was a prior and a naturalist. He is best known for being a distinguished agronomist who wrote a renowned manual on agronomy.
Published for the first time, in Catalan, in 1617, and consists of 194 pages, with the title Llibre dels secrets d agriculture, house rustic and pastoral, one of the contributions to agronomy most significant written in Catalan.
The Polytechnic University of Madrid still retains two copies of this work. The first, belonging to the edition published in Barcelona, in the printing house of Juan Piferrer, 1722, and the second one, corresponding to the edition of J. Ibarra, made in 1761. The two copies are bound in parchment.
Years later, in 1625, he published this work in Spanish, in Zaragoza, which added a new part on the game and a vocabulary of terms agriculturalconducted in six languages (Spanish, Catalan, Latin, Portuguese, Italian, and French), with the title Book of the secrets of agriculture, cottage and shepherd.
In the successive editions, the text was expanded, moving to more than 500 sheets of paper. The next edition was made in Perpignan in 1626, and then followed by others in Barcelona, Zaragoza.
In this new edition, figure on the cover extended of the work, with the addition of a fifth book, which is about the hunting of animals and a vocabulary in six languages (Spanish, Catalan, Latin, Portuguese, Italian, and French), with reference to the names of the fruits, trees and other herbs.
At the end of the book includes a wheel perpetual, with the signs of the planets, zodiacal signs, to have the knowledge of the years of the fertile and sterile, the present and the future, and a subject index.
It is a work well-documented; the work is preceded by an extensive introduction in which the author quotes the great authors, classic and modern (Columela, Justinian, Cicero, Pliny, Pike Belancio or Cardano).
Proves the greatness of agriculture, which teaches the cultivation of the land and how to plant trees; the pastoral activity, which indicates the manner of raising all species of domestic animals, land, and volatile.
The volume or treaty of Miquel Agustin had as a reference, the more direct, the work of Estienne L'agriculture et maison rustique, 1564.
