Jean Bernard Mary Lafon - Rome ancienne; Rome moderne - 1853

MARY-LAFON (Jean-Bernard). Ancient Rome from its foundation to the fall of the Empire. [Followed by:] Rome from the establishment of Christianity to the present day. Paris, Furne et Cie, 1853. 2 volumes, large 8vo, xi, 400 pp., [1] f. (table); 446 pp., frontispiece and engravings on steel hors texte, half-fine brown morocco, spine with raised bands ornamented with gilt fleurons, green title pieces and red shelf-mark, marbled paper boards, marbled paper endpapers blue, original covers preserved (binding of the period).

Historian, philologist and playwright, Jean-Bernard Mary-Lafon (1810-1884), born in Lafrançaise (Tarn-et-Garonne) and died in Montauban, had made himself known through his studies on the language and literature of Occitan (Volney Prize 1841) and by his Histoire politique, religieuse et littéraire du Midi de la France. For Furne, publisher of the great illustrated histories of the nineteenth century, he offers here a vast synthesis of the history of Rome, from the legendary foundation to the events of 1848-1849.

Volume I opens with the Origin of Rome and then the narrative proceeds through the Republic and the Empire up to its fall. Volume II, "Rome moderne", guides the history of the city through subterranean and Byzantine Rome, feudal and papal Rome, then from Luther to the triumvirs of 1848 and to the final siege of Rome (1849), and closes with a meditation on Rome, capital of the universal Church. The work is illustrated with numerous engravings hors texte in medium/Demi? size: The Tarquinus driving his chariot over his father's body, a tumult in the Forum under the Capitoline wolf, a charge of war elephants, the Cordonata and the staircase of the Ara Coeli at the Capitol, a popular dance at the foot of the Colosseum, etc., etc.

Binding slightly rubbed with small losses of paper, scuffs on the leather, corners worn, light foxing, ex-libris by damp stamp on the guards of a Montauban bibliophile, other minor defects.