Voyage d'Italie.
A Amsterdam, & se vende a Paris: chez Clousier, David, l'aine, Durand, chez Damonneville, 1743.
4 vols in three, 12mo. xlviij, 352 pp.; 366 pp.; 290 pp.; 295 pp. Marbled endpapers, title pages in red and black, frontispiece and 76 copperplate engraved illustrations throughout, many folding plates. Three quarters black morocco with marbled boards, backstrips richly gilt. Small ticket of C.E. Rappaport, Libri Rari, Roma, all three vols. Some rubbing to tips, edges, and marbled boards, internally very good with slightly occasional spotting and a faint stain to the lower corner of the first few signatures of vol.2.
§ A lush depiction of Italy at the time, with its cities, monuments, customs and inhabitants described and pictured. Detailed illustrations of regional garments, views of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Vesuvius, St. Peter's Basilica, the Scala, the Capitol, and the Colosseum, and others are included.
Maximilien Misson (1650?-1722) was a French Huguenot who fled with his family to England in 1685 on the revocation of the edict of Nantes. In 1687 and 1688 he made the grand tour of Italy as tutor to a young English noble. "As a consequence of this journey Misson published, at The Hague, a work which became the standard travel guide to Italy for at least the following fifty years, the much-quoted Nouveau voyage d'ltalie, avec un mémoire contenant des avis utiles à ceux qui voudront faire le mesme voyage (1691). Based upon his travel journal it was presented in the form of a series of letters. The text is resoundingly modern, comprising the sequential exposition of first-hand factual observations, none the less augmented by the critical perspective of a protestant travelling through a Catholic country. An English translation first appeared in London in 1695, followed by a corrected second edition in 1699." (DNB) A collector noted of this copy: "Misson is often paired with Richard Lassels' The Voyage of Italy (1670), posthumous) on account of their respective Protestant and Catholic perspectives, with readers often deciding between them based on religion rather than their native language." Item #125804
Price: $1,500.00