# Opuscolo terzo sulla coltura delle ostriche



**Autore:** D'Erco Riccardo

**Dati editoriali:** Trieste, L. Herrmanstorfer, 1864

**Codice archivio:** 171

**Prezzo:** 1000.00 USD

**Stato commerciale:** Disponibile

**Link ufficiale:** https://www.govirarebooks.com/products/erco-opuscolo-coltura-ostriche-1864

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## Descrizione accademica e analisi

8vo (225x150 mm). 148 pp. and [5] litographic plates, 3 of which printed in color. With illustrations in text. Later quarter leather. Some light foxing and browning, a good copy. First edition of the third and most substantial instalment of Riccardo d’Erco’s pioneering series on modern oyster cultivation, published at a crucial moment in the transformation of traditional shellfish gathering into scientifically organised aquaculture. The work belongs to a sequence begun with Sulla coltura delle ostriche e sulle asterie o stelle di mare (Trieste, 1862, 44 pp.), followed by the Opuscolo secondo in 1863 (23 pp.) and the present Opuscolo terzo in 1864. A German translation (Notizen uber Austern-Cultur von Richard Ritter von Erco), was published in Trieste by the Buchdruckerei des Oesterreichischen Lloyd in 1869 (57 pp. and 6 plates). Riccardo d’Erco was born at Grafendorf in Styria on 16 December 1813 and died at Makarska on 24 January 1871. Trained in law, he entered the Habsburg administration and developed a specialised career in maritime affairs, fisheries and the economic exploitation of the Adriatic. He initially served in Dalmatia, where his knowledge of languages and local maritime conditions proved especially useful, and later became closely associated with the Central Maritime Administration at Trieste. By 1862 he held the rank of councillor in the Central-Seebehörde. His activity combined administration, legislation, natural history and practical investigation: he studied fishing techniques, marine resources, fisheries regulation and the possibilities of introducing more rational methods of marine production into the eastern Adriatic. He also assembled extensive manuscript material on the history, law and economy of Adriatic fisheries. The Opuscolo terzo is particularly important because it followed d’Erco’s government-sponsored journey through France and Belgium in 1863, undertaken to study the most advanced methods of shellfish cultivation and to assess their possible introduction into the Adriatic. The resulting publication therefore combines direct observation, comparative research and practical instruction. Rather than treating oyster culture merely as a branch of natural history, d’Erco approached it as an emerging technology capable of being transferred from one maritime economy to another. The volume surveys contemporary European experiments in oyster breeding and incorporates material derived from French specialists, while also discussing the rapidly expanding oyster industry of the United States. It is thus an unusually early Italian-language attempt to compare systems of commercial oyster cultivation on an international scale. The practical objective was clear: techniques developed abroad were to be evaluated and, where possible, adapted to the lagoons and coastal waters of the Habsburg Adriatic. The work contains translations of, and references to, two brochures by Eugène Kemmerer (1815-1900) on oyster farming in France, as well as to Paul Broca’s (1824-1880) 1865 report on his trip to the US. D’Erco’s work belongs to the formative history of modern aquaculture. During the middle decades of the nineteenth century, oyster cultivation was increasingly conceived not simply as the harvesting of a natural resource but as a controllable productive process involving the collection of spat, preparation and management of oyster beds, transplantation and protection against predators. D’Erco became one of the principal transmitters of these new practices to the Adriatic world. His writings continued to be cited by later Italian authorities on ostreiculture, including Corrado Parona in his discussion of experiments undertaken in France and Italy.

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## Bibliografia di riferimento

G. Cavanna, Bibliografia italiana di malacologia, Florence, 1881, p. 78; J. Šikić, Erco, Ricardo, in: “Hrvatski biografski leksikon”, Zagreb, 1998; Tijdsche der Nederlandsche Dierkundige Vereeniging, Supplement deel I, Aflevering I, Overzicht van de literatuur op de oester en de oestercultuur betrek- king hebbende, Leiden, 1883, p. 86; Italian Union Catalogue, IT\ICCU\TSA\1292387.

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