Naukeurige Beschryving van Gantsch Syrie, en Palestyn of Heilige Lant

Key Properties

Edition: first edition

Language: Dutch

Illustration: engraved allegorical frontispiece "Syrie en Palestyn" dated 1678; four folding maps including the large folding panorama of Jerusalem; 27 double-page plates of maps, views and illustrations; 31 plates including portraits of the Twelve Sons of Jacob; 34 half-page plates in the text (according to the seller's description)

Collation: pp. [10], 262, [8], 1-344, 337-581, [7] (according to the seller's description)

Format: folio

Binding: contemporary speckled calf, spine richly gilt in compartments with lettering piece "Beschryving van Syrie en Palestyn"

Dedication: to Nicolaes Witsen

Collation & Technical Description

Pp. [10], 262, [8], 1-344, 337-581, [7]. Four folding maps including the large folding panorama of Jerusalem; 27 double-page plates of maps, views and illustrations; 31 plates including portraits of the Twelve Sons of Jacob; 34 half-page plates in the text (according to the seller's description).

Condition

Title printed in red and black; divisional title for Palestine. Lightly foxed. Contemporary speckled calf, spine richly gilt in compartments with lettering piece, neat repairs to the extremities, hinges starting.

References & Bibliography

Röhricht, Bibliotheca geographica Palaestinae, 1171.

Cf. Blackmer 88.

Laor, Maps of the Holy Land, for the maps.

STCN (Short-Title Catalogue Netherlands).

Description

Olfert Dapper, an Amsterdam physician and man of letters, became the great compiler of the Dutch Golden Age. Working from the published accounts of travellers, merchants and pilgrims, he wrote for the Amsterdam publisher Jacob van Meurs a series of large illustrated descriptions of the world beyond Europe: Africa, China, Asia and the islands of the Mediterranean among them. His books are valued for their breadth and for the comparatively sober, matter-of-fact way in which they present foreign peoples and customs.

This is the first edition of his description of Syria and Palestine, published in 1677 with an engraved frontispiece dated 1678. Dapper dedicated it to Nicolaes Witsen, the Amsterdam burgomaster, cartographer and great patron of geographical learning, and states on the title that the work is drawn from old and new writers and from the reports of eyewitnesses. The first part covers Syria and the Levant, the second Palestine or the Holy Land. Van Meurs gave it the lavish illustration that made his house famous: folding maps, double-page views and plans, plates of costume and antiquities, and the portraits of the Twelve Sons of Jacob. The allegorical frontispiece shows the Holy Land enthroned with Moses and the tablets of the Law, surrounded by the many peoples and faiths of the Levant. Among the views are Damascus, drawn as it was seen in 1668,, Tripoli, Aleppo and Jaffa, the Temple of Solomon, and the great folding bird's-eye panorama of Jerusalem, one of the most impressive printed images of the city of its century.

Historical Significance

A cornerstone of Dutch Holy Land literature and one of the great illustrated books from the workshop of Jacob van Meurs, with the celebrated folding panorama of Jerusalem.