TOURNEFORT, Joseph Pitton de.

Relation d'un voyage du Levant.

Stock Code

103157

Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1917

£3,500

'The botanist Pitton de Tournefort was sent on a mission to the Levant by Louis XIV in 1700. He was accompanied by the artist Claude Aubriet and the doctor Gundelsheimer. Pitton de Tournefort travelled extensively in the Archipelago, visiting most of the islands in the Cyclades (Andros, Tinos, Delos, Santorini etc.) and many in the Northern Sporades (Samos, Mitylene, Skyros, Tenedos). He also spent a considerable period in Crete before going to Constantinople and Asia Minor, the coast of the Black Sea and then overland through Armenia to Persia. The travellers returned to Paris in June 1702. Pitton de Tournefort began to prepare his manuscript for publication but his health failed after the printing of vol. I and he died in 1708, before vol. II was ready for the press. According to the preface the unknown editor kept back vol. I until vol. II appeared in 1717, and the two

Description

First edition, 2 vols; 4to, [xviii], 544; [iv], 526, [xl] (index) pp., 152 engraved plates and maps (some folding), tiny marginal burn hole to plate opposite p.379 in vol. II, occasional light browning and spotting, Contemporary calf, gilt spine, red morocco gilt lettering-pieces, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, red edges, extremities faintly rubbed, a fine set.