Beschreibung:

HAMILTON, Sir William (1730-1803). Campi Phlegraei, ou Observations sur les volcans des Deux Siciles . Paris: chez Lamy, l'an VII [1799-1802]. 2° (520 x 335mm). Text in English and French. Half-title. 60 etched and aquatint plates with roulette work, 59 after Pietro Fabris one double-page by Le Vacher after Alex. Danna, all present in two states: uncoloured on wove paper and coloured by hand on laid paper. Near-contemporary purple half morocco gilt by P.F. Heyne of Antwerp, the flat spine with an overall design scrolling stylised arabesque foliage with pointillé work and gilt fillet borders, titled in gilt (light scuffing to extremities, small tear to head of upper joint). THE RARE SECOND EDITION OF HAMILTON'S 'MAGNIFICENT PUBLICATION' (Jenkins and Sloan), here in an 'édition de luxe' with the plates in two states. Brunet notes three issues of this edition: 1. ordinary paper with uncoloured plates; 2. 'papier vélin' with the plates coloured and uncoloured; 3. on 'très Grand Papier' with the plates 'peintes'. Only one (incomplete) copy of this edition is listed as having sold at auction in the past thirty years. The two editions are essentially the same, but do show a number of differences. The plates in the second edition include a double-page plate, dated 1802, of a volcanic eruption in 1794 that is not in the first. The second edition does not include the double-page map found in the first. In the present issue, all of the single-page uncoloured plates include a plate number, have no etched-ruled border and are printed on wove paper. All the coloured plates are printed on laid paper, and all but four of them include a plate number. Of the four coloured plates without a plate number, two have a hand-drawn border with wash, whilst two have no border at all. The hand-coloured borders to the first edition are all single colour dark wash, with a heavy black outline around the image, in the present editon the borders are light blue/green and yellow watercolours, and printed black rules. The binding on the present copy, with the binder's ticket of P.F. Heyne of Antwerp, can be dated to 1830 or later, the date of the watermark on the free endpapers. The Campi Phlegraei is the best known of Hamilton's four works on volcanic activity, and the first edition (published in Naples between 1776 and 1779) 'provided a clearer, more precise and useful explanation of volcanic activity than ever published before, which underlined Hamilton's own theories about volcanoes being creative forces and enabled him to answer in one publication the lists of questions about volcanoes and rocks he had been receiving from correspondents all over Europe. Its publication in French and English provided it with a market not only in his own country but throughout Europe as well, and an international audience for a British discovery' (Jenkin and Sloan). Pietro Fabris (fl.1756-1784), an artist living in Naples, was commissioned and trained by Hamilton to sketch the volcanoes of southern Italy. In four years Hamilton climbed Vesuvius at least twenty-two times, sometimes at great risk, since both he and Fabris wished to make sketches at every stage of the eruptions. Brunet III, 31; cf. I. Jenkins and K. Sloan Vases and Volcanoes (London: 1996), 'Catalogue' 43; cf. Lewine p.232; Lowndes II, p.989.