Descrizione delle prime scoperte dell'antica citta d'Ercolano

Venuti, Marcello de (1700-1755). Descrizione delle prime scoperte dell'antica città d'Ercolano ritrovata vicino a Portici, villa della Maestà del re delle due Sicilie . . . xxiii, 146pp. Rome: Stamperia del Bernabò, e Lazarrini, 1748. 219 x 166 mm. Vellum c. 1748, head and foot of spine chipped, minor staining. A few minor dampstains, occasional foxing but very good.

First Edition. In 1738 major excavations at Herculaneum resumed under the patronage of Charles VII of Naples (later Charles III of Spain). The king appointed a Spanish engineer, Roque Joaquin de Alcubierre, to head the project, but Alcubierre was no scholar, so the king called in his royal librarian, humanist and scholar Marcello de Venuti, to supervise the finds. Venuti's book, published a decade later, includes an account of the discovery of the ancient Theater of Herculaneum and transcriptions of some of the Latin inscriptions uncovered there.