First of 2 volumes in 12mo. pp. [18], 376, [5] (last blank), ff. [3] (plates). Contemporary calf. Gilded spine elevated on 4 bars, remnants of spine label. Clean tear in large fording plate neatly repeared. Includes plates, maps (partly folded). Printer's device on title page. Contains headpieces, engraved initials.

First, scarce edition of a major local history. The enlarged quarto reprint (Geneva, 1730) is traditionally preferred as the ‘best’ edition, but the entire section of inscriptions (II, pp. 285-395) is unchanged from its appearance here, fifty years earlier. Spon was a believer of the the forgery based on a fabricated epitaph by Paulus Merula, a Latin text on the tombstone of the mythical priestess of Aventicum, ‘Julia Alpinula,’ a victim of Rome’s transalpine conquests later celebrated by Byron and many others as a heroine of first-century Helvetia. ‘Spon [...] swallowed all of Merula’s Geneva inscriptions as gospel’ (A. Freeman, Julia Alpinula, pseudo-Heroine of Helvetia. How a Forged Renaissance Epitaph Fostered a National Myth. London, 2015, p. 48).

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Jacob Spon

Books by Jacob Spon (50 max)

Voyage d'Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grece, et du Levant : Fait Aux Années 1675. & 1676. V. 1

Histoire de la ville Et de l’Estat de Geneve. Depuis les premiers Siecles de la fondation de la Ville jusqu’à present Tirée fidellement des Manuscrits, Par Iac. Spon Docteur Medecin Aggregé au College de Lyon. Tome II

Voyage d'Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grece, et du Levant: fait aux années 1675 & 1676

Voyagie Door Italien, Dalmatien, Grieckenland, en de Levant. Gedaan in de Jaren 1675 En 1676

Recherches curieuses d'antiquite: contenues en plusieurs dissertations, sur des medailles, bas-reliefs, statuës, mosaïques, & inscriptions antiques : enrichies d'un grand nombre de figures en taille douce

Histoire de Geneve; Volume 3