(DURRET.) Voyage de Marseille à Lima, et dans les autres lieux des Indes Occidentales. Avec une exacte Description de ce qu’il y de plus remarquable tant pour la Geographie, que pour les Moeurs, les Coûtumes, le Commerce, le Gouvernement & la Religion des peuples; avec des notes & des figures en taille-douce. Par le Sieur D*** A Paris, Chez Jean-Baptiste Coignard, 1720. With 6 engraved plates, four of which are folding and including a plan of Lima. Two parts in one volume. xxxv, [1, blank], 282, 244, [2] pp. 12mo. Nineteenth-century half morocco, spine with raised bands and gilt lettering, marbled boards.

€ 950

European Americana 720/78; Sabin 21437; James Ford Bell Library D354; Gove, The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction, p. 233; Conlon 20:394; not in Echeverria & Wilkie; Goldsmiths’ 5610; not in Kress or Einaudi.
First edition of this scarce book which, although suggesting to be an account of a voyage to South America, is actually a work of fiction. Durret himself claims that it was based on an account by the “Sieur Bachelier” to which he only added notes and of which improved the style. This however is not correct, the work is by Durret.
“Chapter 17 of the first part and chapter 19 contain descriptions of Santa Catharina and Brazil in general. The letter is signed “Durret,” but the account is by Bachelier, a surgeon. Father Labat believes this was an imaginary voyage” (Borba de Moreas, i, p. 281).
“Récit, selon Barbier, plein de bévues et de contradictions, car D. l’aurait fait sans sortir de chez lui. Détails sur les moeurs, et sur les coutumes nuptiales de Malte, du Maroc, des Canaries, du Brézil, du Chili, du Pérou, de Madagascar, etc.” (INED 1678.)
“Contains useful information on the products of the South American coast” (James Ford Bell Library). – Title page cut short at foot.

RELANDUS, H. (OR RELAND, OR REELANT, H.) Palaestine, Ex Monumentis Veteribus Illustrata, in tres libros distributa, ……. Norimbergae (Nürnberg), apud Petrum Conradum Monathus, 1716. Title printed in red and black, engraved vignette, with engraved frontispiece, engraved title, 6 engraved folding maps and plates, including the large engraved map of the Holy Land, 8 engraved plates, and illustrations in the text. Three volumes in one, continuously paginated: [14], 788, [82] pp. 4to. Contemporary vellum.

€ 950

Brunet iv, 1203-4: “Ouvrage très estimé”; Graesse, Trésor de Livres Rares & Précieux, vi, 75; Blackmer 1406; Chadenat 4935: Hage Chahine 3950; Tobler, p. 213.
Second and revised edition, first published in 1714. A Dutch translation appeared in 1719.
Reland, the celebrated Dutch orientalist, was professor of oriental languages and ecclesiastical antiquities at the University of Utrecht. His description of Palestine is a remarkable work for its time, a significant, long-lasting contribution to research into the history and geography of early Palestine. Reland was eminently qualified to conduct this exhaustive survey: he was a geographer, cartographer and polylinguist possessing, in addition to the European languages, full command of Hebrew, Arabic and classical Greek. The work enumerates and describes 2500 sites mentioned in the Bible, Mishna and Talmud and is probably the most important work published by Reland. – Ancient annotations on front paste-down and recto first fly leaf, small stamp in blank portion of the title-page, a bit age-toned but a good copy. The illustrations in good impressions and showing, besides the Holy Land, among others a folding genealogical table of the Herods and a folding table comparing ancient measurements of distances.

WINCKELMANN, (J.J.) Histoire de l’art chez les anciens, Par Winckelmann; Traduite de l’allemand; avec des notes historiques et critiques de differens auteurs. Tome Premier [-Tome II. Deuxième partie.] A Paris, Chez H.J. Jansen et Comp. (vols I & II), chez Gide (last volume), 1793-1803. With 3 engraved frontispieces, 3 title vignettes, engraved head- and tailpieces, many fine half-page engravings and 65 engraved plates. Two volumes bound in three. cii, 695, [1] pp.; [4], 692 pp.; [4], 405, [3] pp. 4to. Nineteenth century blind and gilt tooled calf, spines with raised bands, gilt lettering, inside dentelles, marbled edges, joints and extremities a bit shaved, first two volumes with short splits to joints but firmly holding.

€ 900

Brunet v, col. 1463: “Bonne édition, dont les 2 prem. volumes parurent d’abord en 1793, sous le titre Oeuvres de Winckelmann“; Graesse, Trésor de Livres Rares et Précieux, vol. vi, p. 461.
“The most influential voice in the Enlightenment reassessment and valorization of ancient Greek art, Winckelmann also shaped two disciplines that emerged in the eighteenth century, art history and archaeology. (…..) Winckelmann’s growing reputation as the foremost classical scholar, as well as his appointments and personal connections, put him at the center of an influential circle of art connoisseurs, artists, and intellectuals. (…..) History of Ancient Art, groundbreaking because of its historical, developmental account of the origins and development of art in various periods and cultures, largely viewed Roman art, by contrast to that of the Greeks, as imitative in a negative sense, a decadent fall from the perfection of the Greek ideal. (…..) Artistic styles, as Winckelmann argued, developed in response to factors such as climate and social and political structures conducive to freedom. Since, as he saw it, these external conditions were ideal in ancient Greece, Greek art had developed in perfect harmony with nature” (Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, vol. iv, pp. 259 ff.) From 1758 on, Winckelmann was employed as a librarian and curator by Cardinal Alessandro Albani, founder of one of the most important eighteenth-century collections of classical antiquities. He was also librarian at the Vatican and prefect of Roman antiquities. Winckelmann’s interpretations of ancient arts were enormously influential and his influence can be traced among numerous German thinkers -including Johann Gottfried Herder, Goethe, Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel, and Hegel. – The half-titles of the first two volumes entitled “Oeuvres Complettes de Winckelmann” as indicated by Brunet. Some pages a bit browned or spotted, but only ocassionally, a nice copy on good paper and with ample margins.