188 - Elie Cabrol: Voyage en Grèce. Notes et Impressions. Paris, 1890

Elie Cabrol: Voyage en Grèce. Notes et Impressions. Paris, 1890 First edition, Large Royal Folio, contemporary leather over boards preserving the publishers paper covers, text and plates clean and fine, complete, overall in very good condition. A sophisticated account of Cabrol’s travels through the Hellenic world centered on aesthetics, archaeology, and the living culture of the late 19th-century Greek Kingdom. Élie Cabrol traveled during the spring of 1889, and his Impressions reflect a Greece that was rapidly modernizing while still being defined by its ruins. He documents the excitement surrounding the finds at Olympia and Mycenae, he visited the site of the Corinth Canal. His account provides a vivid description of this Herculean French engineering project that was literally cutting the Peloponnese away from the mainland Cabrol focuses on the contrast between the white marble of the ancient Acropolis and the white dust of the modern, neoclassical city. Detailed descriptions of the Academy and the National Library, which were then the symbols of the new Greek identity. His journey through the Morea follows the path of the ancient travelers, but with the convenience of the newly built Peloponnese Railway. His notes on Santorini and Syros are particularly evocative, capturing the maritime life of the Aegean before the onset of any tourism. A highly artistic publication published only in 500 copies as per concrete reference. Very richly illustrated