Containing Many Great Views of the Aegean Archipelago, Crete and Cyprus
Description Exacte des Isles de l'Archipel. et de Quelques Autres Adjacentes; Dont les Principales Sont Chypre, Rhodes, Candie, Samos, Chio, Negrepont, Lemnos, Paros, Delos, Patmos, avec un grand nombre d'autres. Comprennant Leurs Noms, Leur Situation, Leurs Villes, leurs Chateaux, & l'Histoire tant ancienne que moderne de leurs Habitants; Leur Gouvernement, les Revolutions qui y font arrivées, & las Plantes, Animaux, &c. qui s'y trouvent. Enrichie de Plusieurs Cartes des Isles, et de Figures en Taille-douce qui représentent les habits de leurs Habitants, les Plantes & les Animaux les moins connus. Traduite du Flamand.
Amsterdam: George Gallet, 1703.
First French edition. Folio (13 3/4 x 9 inches; 349 x 229 mm). [6], 556, [4] pp. Complete with half-title, engraved frontispiece, Thirty-four engraved maps, plates and plans and forty-three engravings in the text. The thirty-four engraved maps, plates and plans are comprised of one large folding map, sixteen, full page plates and seventeen double page plates. Title printed in black and red.
Contemporary speckled calf, expertly rebacked with original spine laid down. Spine lettered and stamped in gilt. Edges speckled red. Marbled endpapers. Boards a bit rubbed. A one-inch tear to crease of folding map, not affecting map. Paper flaw to top outer corner of leaf Qqq2, not affecting text. Two-inch closed tear to leaf Ttt3, paper flaw to outer margin of leaf Vvv2, not affecting text. A five-inch closed tear to plate facing page 530, and a 1.25 inch closed tear to the bottom corner outer corner of Zzz2, not affecting text. Overall a very clean, nice copy.
"Olfert Dapper (1635/6?-1689) was a Dutch physician and scholar who devoted himself to geographical and historical studies which were notable for their fine plates and illustrations, as here, though he never visited the places he described. Other works included Syria and Palestine, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia and the Morea." (Sotheby's 11/13/08).
"Dapper's account of the Greek islands was first published in his native Dutch in 1688. This French translation, printed in Amsterdam in 1703, re-uses the engraved plates of earlier Dutch editions, as can be deduced from the presence of Dutch captions to some of the plates. Dapper's work is as much a lament for the present state of Greece's past glories as it is an architectural and archaeological guide...The plate of Delos on display, with its pathetic heaps of fallen masonry, overgrown with weeds and now the home of snakes and lizards, perfectly complements the tone of the text." (Kings College London- Katie Sambrook).
Atabey 323. Blackmer 453. Cobham-Jeffery 14. Contominas 190. Weber II 745.
HBS 64779.
$8,000.
Price: $8,000.00
Item #64779