The Antiquities of Magna Graecia.

WILKINS, William.

$4,000.00

Item Number: 116938

Cambridge: Printed at the University Press by Richard Watts for Longman, Hurst, Orme and Rees, 1807.

First edition of this ambitious and influential work on the classical architecture of the Magna Graecia by one of the leading figures of the English Greek Revival movement of the early 19th century. Folio, bound in full green buckram, engraved vignette to the title page, illustrated with 73 full-page engraved plates including 20 aquatint views, maps, and illustrations, subscribers list. In near fine condition with the plates remarkably clean. Library stamp to the title page and bookplate to the pastedown.

English architect and classical scholar William Wilkins visited the classical antiquities of Greece, Asia Minor, and Magna Græcia in Italy between 1801 and 1804. On his tour he was accompanied by Italian landscape painter Agostino Aglio, whom Wilkins had commissioned as a draughtsman on the expedition. Aglio supplied the drawings for the aquatint plates of monuments for Wilkins' impressive folio, The Antiquities of Magna Graecia.