[Numismatics/Rome] Spon, Jacob : Recherches curieuses d'antiquité. Lyon, Thomas Amaulry, 1683

Format in-4°, mm. 260x190, pp. (24), 538, (22). Complete. Contemporary binding in smooth full parchment with handwritten titles on the spine. Blue edges. Excellent copy with minimal defects and sporadic foxing.

First seventeenth-century edition printed in Lyon in 1683, by the French archaeologist and numismatist Jacob Spon (1647-1685), richly illustrated with numerous epigraphs and figures engraved in the text. French text. Copperplate frontispiece drawn and engraved by Mathieu Ogier; copperplate illustrations, some engraved by Mathieu Ogier, the one on f. 3M1r engraved by Jean-François Cars. Copperplate brand on the title page (signed BF: Mercury and female figure). Copperplate headpiece on A1r paper; woodcut initials and decorations. Jacob Spon, a collector of antiques, was a pioneer in the exploration of monuments in Greece and an internationally renowned scholar in the development of the "Res publica literaria".