Blouet, Guillaume Abel, and others.

First edition, 3 volumes, folio (570 x 390mm.), half-titles, engraved additional titles and 262 plates, 6 double-page or folding, 5 hand-coloured, contemporary green half morocco gilt, [Blackmer 153; BAL RIBA 1009], some slight spotting or discoloration, bindings very slightly rubbed

A good copy of an important work. The Morea Scientific Expedition (an adjunct to the French military mission to the Morea), arrived in Greece in March 1829. It was organised into three sections: architecture, archaeology and natural sciences. The archaeology section was disbanded after two months but its work was included with that of the architectural section directed by the distinguished architect Guillaume Abel Blouet. "The plan of the work follows the itinerary of the expedition, which included Byzantine, early Christian and medieval antiquities, along with more exhaustive surveys of the principal classical remains at Pylos, Messene, Olympia, Phigalia, Megalopolis, Sparta, Argos, Mycenae, Nemea and Corinth, and on the islands of Delos, Naxos, Aegina and Cape Sounion (Sunium). Particular attention is given to the temples of Jupiter at Olympia, of Apollo at Bassae, near Phigalia and of Jupiter on the island of Aegina. Blouet and his colleagues were the first archaeologists to identify the ruin of the temple at Olympia as the famous temple of Jupiter described by Pausanias" (BAL RIBA).