Recherches sur les ruines d'Herculanum et sur les lumieres qui peuvent en resulter, relativement a l'etat present des sciences & des arts; avec un traite sur la farique des mosaiiques.s.

Fougeroux de Bondaroy, August Denis (1732-89). Recherches sur les ruines d'Herculaneum; et sur les lumières qui peuvent en résulter . . . xvi, 232pp. 3 folding plates. Paris: Desaint, 1770. 161 x 101 mm. Quarter sheep gilt, paste paper boards ca. 1770, light wear and rubbing. Minor dampstaining, old repair to one plate, but very good.

First Edition. Fougeroux de Bondaroy, a botanist and writer on arts and crafts, visited Herculaneum in 1763. His monograph focused on household utensils and objects of daily use rather than on examples of "high" culture-a surprisingly modern approach, but one for which he was attacked by Diderot. The engraved plates illustrate pots, pans, hammers, jugs, scrapers and some of the charred papyrus rolls recovered from the site, along with a machine designed for unrolling them. These images of papyrus rolls are among the first published images of the rolls and the capsa cylindrical containers that held groups of them. Moorman, Pompeii's Ashes, p. 42.