Greece. DAPPER. Description exacte des isles de l'Archipel et de quelques autres adjacentes, dont les principales sont [..]

Folio. 340x230 mm. Contemporary marbled leather binding, spine with 5 nervs amd gilt ornaments and gilt title on red Morocco label, red edges. Half-title, engraved frontispiece, 4 unnumbered pages including title-page, 556, [3], 1 blank page. In total 34 plates o.t., many on double page or folded, and 43 copper engravings on half page in the text. Ex Libris “Manoir de Roncheville / Chaye – Petritzi”, glued on the insidecover. Nice specimen.

First French edition, richly illustrated. The iconographic apparatus includes an allegorical frontispiece with title, 34 plates outside the text with maps, plans and views, of which one large fold-out map, sixteen full-page and 17 double-page. There are also 43 engravings in the text, partly inspired by Boschini's Archipelago of 1658 and the works of Coronelli. The illustrations depict city plans, views, ruins, scenes of everyday life, costumes, plants, animals and medals. Blackmer: “Dapper himself was not a traveller; his books on the Morea and Archipelago are compiled from other sources and are of especial interest for their plates”. The Dutch physician and geographer Olfert Dapper, 1639-1689, compiled numerous works on history and geography from ancient and contemporary sources. Here he gives a very complete description of the islands of the Aegean Sea, called the Archipelago because of their Greek name Aigaion Pelagos. The first edition was published in Dutch in 1688.

Blackmer 453; Cobham-Jeffery p.14; STCN 306856808; Weber II, 745; Atabey 323 (second French edition).