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First Edition. Hard cover 4to, in a modern rebinding of half calf over marbled paper-covered boards, the spine with five raised bands, tooled in blind with a byzantine-like tessellated pattern, the title in gilt upon an onlaid red morocco label, new endpapers and fly leaves. Ex-library with two small blind stamps to lower corner title page and final page and related brief pencil notation to ffep. and verso title pg. [1],xii, plates I-VII,197, [1] pp. All original engraved full page plates are present. Pages untrimmed. With Errata page. **CONDITION: Overall Very Good antiquarian condition. Case is Near Fine, with a minute amount of rubbing to two front corners, otherwise no shelf wear. Small rubbing to one side of title label. Inside, hinges and joints are in order. Some pages show mild buckling. Moderate foxing to errata page. Finger soiling to title page, and some page edges a bit "dusty." Plate IV rubbed at bottom, (affecting scale indicator) A half inch open tear to foot of last page. Lightly age toned. **British AUTHOR and ARTIST Governor Thomas Pownall, F.R.S. and F.S.A. was a retired colonial American administrator, economist, parliamentarian and statesman who turned his attention in waning years to the study of Roman antiquities both in England and on the European continent. An amateur artist, he had his various sketches turned into the engraved plates shown here, drawing some of the newly discovered Roman ruins found at this time, and in consulting collections of like-minded connoisseurs. As a man of his times, his Cambridge education was replete with the classics, and he states his desire to plumb the poetical, artistic and historical references in this material for concrete examples to be be seen in the world around him, to correct defects in the faulty descriptions of others, and to enlighten the world to the rich historical record often hiding, unappreciated, in plain sight. To this end, he traveled to the aforementioned French and bordering Italian and Austrian provinces of ancient Gaul around 1783. Chapters are largely arranged by the cities he visited: Orange [Allobroges,] The "Delta of Gaul," being the Cottian Alps of Hannibal's march, Aix, Marseilles, the Glanum Livy (St. Remy de Provence), Crau, or Stony Plain around Lake Geneva, Arles, home of Roman ship building in the first century AD, Nîmes, Vienne (sic), Lyons and the newly discovered baths at Badenweiler. There are comments on local industries, arts , Roman belief systems, and natural science in this very readable compendium. **Of interest to the American reader, Governor Pownall (1722-1805) enjoys the historical reputation of being boldly sympathetic and actively pursuant of the rights of the American colonists against the repressive colonial administration of George III's government. He worked for the Board of Trade before promotion to posts in the Colonial governments of New York and New Jersey, becoming Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1857. He wrote several important books on the colonial administration, was a friend of Benjamin Franklin, criticized the Navigation Acts, the Quartering Act and other matters of taxation without representation, all issues leading up to the American Revolution of 1776. His influence on American affairs is nicely outlined at The Colonial Society of Massachusetts. USTC lists only five copies held worldwide; Worldcat lists only one, 504725812. Rare to market. (AMJ)
Ref: RARE 9781
$750.00 $637.50