SPON AND WHEELER'S TRAVELS IN GREECE AND THE LEVANT
SPON, Jacob.
Voyage d’Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grece, et du Levant, fait aux années 1675 et 1676 par Jacob Spon docteur medecin aggregé à Lyon, et George Wheler gentilhomme anglois.
Lyons, Antoine Cellier, 1678.
Three vols, 12mo, pp. I: [xxiv], 405, [3 (blank)], II: 417, [13], [2 (blank)], III: 204, ‘226’ (recte 228), with a copper-engraved frontispiece portrait in vol. I, 30 plates (many folding), and two folding maps; paperflaws in outer margin of two leaves (vol. I C10 and R6, no loss of text), some occasional very pale marginal foxing, but an excellent set; in contemporary British speckled calf, double fillet frames ruled in blind on covers and in compartments of spines, small blind-stamped floral tool in corners of covers, board-edges ruled in gilt, edges speckled red; lightly rubbed, one corner bumped, headcap of vol. I very slightly chipped.
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Voyage d’Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grece, et du Levant, fait aux années 1675 et 1676 par Jacob Spon docteur medecin aggregé à Lyon, et George Wheler gentilhomme anglois.
Very rare first edition of ‘one of the most important accounts of travels in the Levant, and the first description of Athens which was systematic, detailed, and trustworthy’ (Blackmer).
‘Spon and Wheler met in Italy in 1675; they travelled together with Francis Vernon to Zakynthos, where the two groups separated. Spon and Wheler continued by sea to Constantinople, and Vernon travelled overland. The great merit of Spon’s work is due to its combination of a careful and knowledgeable interest in classical antiquity with an accurate observation of men, manners and topography in modern Greece. The whole of vol. II is devoted to Greece and includes a glossary of Modern Greek words and phrases with instruction on pronunciation. Spon’s interest in Greece was longstanding. He had already published Babin’s description of Athens, which had been communicated to him by the Abbé Pecoil of Lyon, with his own notes and preface’ (ibid.).
From Venice, Spon and Wheler’s itinerary took them along the Dalmatian coast and the Ionian islands. They set anchor at Zakynthos and later Cythera, visited Delos and eventually reached Istanbul where they visited the French ambassador Charles-François Olier, Marquis de Nointel, who had already visited Athens and was able to give them valuable information about the city. They also visited Bursa and Thyateira in Asia Minor, and stayed in Izmir for some time. On their return journey they crossed over to Patras from Zakynthos, visited Delphi, travelled to Athens and toured the region of Attica.
Jacob Spon (1647–1685), physician, archaeologist, and collector, was the archetypal French ‘curieux’, like his father before him. He collected medals, manuscripts, and inscriptions with immense enthusiasm, acquiring an entire coin hoard of seven hundred pieces found at Lyons. George Wheler (1652–1724), who published his own account of their travels in 1682, ‘was a man of many interests and practical skills. As a boy he had amused himself with woodwork, constructing a birdcage and a small harpsichord, and had taken an interest in plants; the latter he maintained in Oxford by frequent visits to the physic garden … On his travels he displayed keen curiosity and took the opportunity to collect plant specimens … He gave to his Oxford college more than thirty Greek manuscripts, acquired mainly in Athens and Constantinople; they included a priceless illuminated typicon, the foundation charter of a convent established in Constantinople about 1300. His plant specimens were given to the Oxford Physic Garden. Wheler occupies a significant position in the history of botany, since he introduced to Britain some plants hitherto unknown, including St John’s wort’ (ODNB).
Provenance: John Hay, second Marquess of Tweeddale (1645–1713), MP, and Lord Chancellor of Scotland in 1704-5, with his bookplates (Franks 14192/*566). The purchase note on the front flyleaf of vol. I, ‘payd for thes 3 volums 0–12–00’ (i.e. 12 shillings), is probably his.
Weber 405. Blackmer 1586 records the second edition.
