69 - WHELER GEORGE: VOYAGE DE DALMATIE, DE GRÈCE ET DU LEVANT. AMSTERDAM, 1689

WHELER GEORGE: VOYAGE DE DALMATIE, DE GRÈCE ET DU LEVANT. AMSTERDAM, 1689 First edition in French, small 8vo, contemporary full leather slightly rubbed, the cover leather of the upper head of spine of volume one missing, text clean and bright, complete in two volumes and with eighty nine (89) engraved copper plates in total (including one big folded map, 20 small maps, 48 views, 16 plates with coins, 4 epigraphic plates etc., many plates folded), overall in very good condition, the text and the plates fresh as issued. Wheler travelled with Spon in Greece in 1675/1676. They have compiled two different travel accounts, both the most important 17th century travel accounts of Greece. They systematically collected first-hand information about the Grecian antiquities and also carefully observed life in 17th century Greece. Especially for Athens, Spon & Wheler conducted the first systematic recording of the Athenian antiquities, combining their theoretical knowledge with field observation, and thus considered to have inaugurated the archaeology of Athens. The map of Athens is the second ever drawn map of the city (after the map of Capuchin monks published just a few years earlier), and one of the very few presenting Parthenon before the destruction of the 1687 by the Venetian artillery.