Pitton de Tournefort Joseph - Relation d'un Voyage du Levant fait par ordre du Roi au format in-4° - 1718

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708) was a French botanist.

2 volumes in quarto. 136 engravings in copperplate of rare plants, animals, maps, Antiquities, etc... Collated complete.

Richly illustrated by 136 engravings including 87 plates without text and 4 folding plates.
Louis XIV sends on a mission from 1700 to 1702 the French botanist, on the recommendation of the Count of Pontchartrain, Secretary of State for the Marine, in order to carry out scientific research, accompanied by the draughtsman Claude Aubriet and the German botanist Andreas Gundelsheimer.

Leather binding with the back entirely and cleanly split into two very solid parts. The front board detached and the rear kept by a raised cord. THE INTERIOR IMPECCABLE, paper crisp.
Volume 1: Black and red title, 13 ff. + 188 pp.
Volume 2: Black and red title + 208 pp + 8 ff. of Index.

In the form of letters addressed to the Count of Pontchartrain, describing the Greek archipelago, Constantinople, the Black Sea, Armenia, Georgia, the frontiers of Persia and Asia Minor. Eulogy of the author by Fontenelle.
In addition to observations on the manners, or the trade of the various peoples, the author had collected more than 1300 rare plants, most of which were still unknown in France.