14 - [ALMANAC]. [GROSSON, Jean-Baptiste Bernard]. Historical Almanac of Marseille [...] For the year of grace 1774.

[ALMANAC]. [GROSSON, Jean-Baptiste Bernard]. Historical Almanac of Marseille [...] For the year of grace 1774. A Marseille almanac for the year 1774, offering a comprehensive overview of the economic, maritime, and cultural life of Marseille on the eve of the Revolution, in a beautiful, decorative full morocco binding from the period. Marseille, Jean Mossy, 1774. In-12, full red morocco, smooth spine adorned with mermaid motifs in gilt metal, title label in brown morocco leather, gilt scrollwork framing the covers, guilloché headbands, gilt fillet on the edges, all edges gilt (contemporary binding). 17 unnumbered folios, followed by 35 to 288 pages, title medallion, headpieces, and tailpieces. Spine slightly sun-faded; binding scuffed with slight black marks on the covers; very rare and minute foxing. The 1774 volume of this famous annual series conceived by the Marseille notary and antiquarian Jean-Baptiste Bernard Grosson (1733–1800), published in Marseille by Jean Mossy from 1770 to 1790. A veritable treasure trove of information on 18th-century Provençal society, this almanac contains an astrological and liturgical calendar, an administrative and ecclesiastical list of Marseille’s institutions (civil and military government, the navy, the courts, the municipality, academies, and colleges), as well as historical and archaeological entries written by Grosson on the city’s monuments, points of interest, and illustrious figures. A beautiful, attractively bound copy.