137 - [Athens]. LA GUILLETIERE [GUILLET DE SAINT-GEORGE].

[Athens]. LA GUILLETIERE [GUILLET DE SAINT-GEORGE]. Ancient and Modern Athens, and the Present State of the Turkish Empire, Including the Life of Sultan Muhammad IV. Paris: Estienne Michallet, 1675. Small 12mo, (12) leaves, 456 pp., (17) leaves, 2 folding plates. Polished, marbled havana calfskin of the period, decorated ribbed spine, speckled edges (binding rubbed, spine worn, upper cap missing, damage at the foot of the spine, a few slightly loose quires, a few small foxing spots). From the year of the original edition, of which only two printings were made. This description of Athens under Ottoman rule—whose authenticity was later disputed by Jacob Spon, a 17th-century French physician, archaeologist, and scholar—is presented as being based on the observations of Guillet’s brother, whereas it is actually a compilation of various sources on the Levant and the Mediterranean. André Georges Guillet, known as Guillet de Saint-George (1625–1705), the first historiographer of the Royal Academy, where he was admitted in 1682, became known for several writings on Greece and the Ottoman Empire. Having never visited the region himself, he attributed his works to a fictional brother, Guillet de La Guilletière, who supposedly escaped from Tunis and left for Greece in 1669. This in no way hindered the success of his works. Complete with two fold-out black-and-white copperplate engravings, including an ancient theater and a beautiful “bird’s-eye view” of Athens and its region, signed by Guillet and engraved by Gobille. Blackmer, 149. Weber, 364.