Olfert Dapper | Description exacte des isles de l'archipel, Amsterdam, 1703, contemporary calf

Olfert Dapper

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. Amsterdam: George Gallet, 1703 

First French edition, folio (365 x 234mm.), half-title, additional engraved title, title printed in black and red, 34 engraved maps, plans and plates (4 of which are folding), 43 in-text engraved illustrations, contemporary calf, spine with raised bands in seven compartments, red edges, marbled endpapers, a few small repairs at folds, occasional spotting, with very occasional rust-holes, binding slightly rubbed, upper joint split, spine worn

A crisp copy of this highly illustrated work. The first edition was published in Dutch in 1688. 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. His other works included Syria and Palestine, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia and the Morea.

LITERATURE:

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

PROVENANCE:

"M. Delauney Dufondray" (plausibly Abbé Delauney Dufondray, a Canon of Bayeux Cathedral in the early nineteenth century), printed book-label; Loverdos Collection, gilt bookplate and library stamp to rear free-endpaper