Name: Atlante monumentale del Basso e dell'Alto Egitto
Brand: La Fenice Antiquaria
SKU: 179-1837--8200-5170-2026
Price: 7883.95 EUR
Availability: InStock

Atlante monumentale del Basso e dell'Alto Egitto

€7.883,95 EUR

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Atlante monumentale del Basso e dell'Alto Egitto

45 hand-colored plates for over 300 images of ancient Egypt in large folio format

Segato, Girolamo; Valeriani, Domenico

Atlante monumentale del Basso e dell'Alto Egitto

Illustrato dal prof. Domenico Valeriani e compilato dal fu Girolamo Segato con disegni tratti dalle opere di Denon, della Commissione Francese, di Gau, di Caillaud e di Rosellini e con quelli dallo stesso compilatore eseguiti sul luogo.

1837, Firenze, Nello stabilimento posto nei Fondacci di S. Spirito N.° 1993

€7.883,95 EUR

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Overview

Second edition (first published in 1835) of one of the most ambitious and lavishly illustrated nineteenth-century surveys of Egypt, uniting archaeology, topography, and landscape in a monumental atlas published at the height of Europe's fascination with the Nile. Conceived by the explorer, chemist, and antiquarian Girolamo Segato (1792-1836), the work grew out of his travels through Egypt and Nubia after 1818, where, together with the engineer Lorenzo Masi, he explored and surveyed territories extending beyond Wadi Halfa along the Blue and White Nile, regions then only imperfectly known to European scholarship. Rather than limiting itself to the celebrated monuments of the lower Nile, the atlas sought to assemble a comprehensive visual record of Egypt's ancient remains, architecture, landscapes, and antiquities, combining Segato's own field drawings with material derived from the great Egyptological expeditions of Denon, Gau, Cailliaud, Rosellini, and the French scientific commission. Following Segato's death in 1836, the work was reissued under the direction of Professor Domenico Valeriani, whose name appears alongside that of the late Segato on the title page. In that occasion, two octavo text volumes were also issued under the title Nuova illustrazione istorico-monumentale del Basso e dell'Alto Egitto, sometimes preserved together with the present Atlas.

Inside the book

The atlas contains 160 engraved plates (numbered 1-99, with numerous plates bis, ter, etc.), including 8 double-page plates, 45 hand-colored plates (among them four of the six maps), approximately 150 aquatints devoted principally to landscapes, monuments, and city views, and approximately 150 etchings depicting costumes, animals, plants, antiquities, and architectural details. Among the most striking views is the magnificent Cairo during the Nile Flood, one of the finest panoramas of the series, but the colored depictions of objects, mummies, wall paintings are particularly striking and charming. The visual journey begins in Alexandria, with topographical plans, harbour views, and the celebrated Pianta della Città del Cairo, before following the Nile southward through Egypt. Funerary monuments and burial customs give way to the pyramids of Abu Sir, El-Lahun, and Meidum, shown in plans, elevations, and sections, while the great temple complexes of Dendera, Latopolis, Luxor, Karnak, and Thebes are documented through architectural surveys of façades, columns, capitals, ceilings, reliefs, and hieroglyphic inscriptions. Interspersed throughout are portraits of Coptic monks after Denon, studies of scarabs, amulets, funerary figures, ornaments, and other antiquities, together with scenes of contemporary Egyptian life. One particularly evocative group of plates, devoted to the desert route between Qena and Quseir, records not monuments but survival itself: water-carriers at a well, desert vegetation, and even a flea are observed with the same documentary precision as the ancient ruins. The atlas concludes with views of Philae, studies of Ababda costume and dwellings, and finely reproduced hieroglyphic manuscripts, including a beautifully illuminated example with red and black rubrication, bringing together archaeology, landscape, ethnography, and natural history in a single visual survey of nineteenth-century Egypt.

Why La Fenice likes it

Some books preserve information; this one preserves fascination. The hand coloring alone is enough to stop us in our tracks. Rich, luminous, and astonishingly fresh, these plates preserve the sense of wonder with which nineteenth-century Europe looked upon Egypt: a land where colossal temples, painted mummies, hieroglyphs, and everyday life seemed equally worthy of admiration. More than an atlas, it is a beautifully colored monument to Egyptomania at its most elegant.

Vol. I: leaves [1] f.e., [2], [65] plates, [1] r.e.; Vol. II: [1] f.e., [2], [95] plates, [1] r.e.

Contemporary half leather over marbled paper-covered boards, spine gilt-decorated with raised bands. The binding shows wear to the corners and extremities, with well-executed repairs and restoration. Light foxing throughout, with some localized heavier spotting. The hand-coloured plates retain their original period coloring in excellent condition. A large-format atlas with binding wear, but internally preserving its magnificent plates.

Dimensions (inches): 20 x 13 1/2 x 2 1/4

Girolamo Segato (1792-1836), compiler remembered also for experiments in tissue petrification.