Brice Germain - Description de la ville de Paris - 1713

BRICE (Germain) - Description of the city of Paris and all that is most remarkable in it, By Germain Brice. Enhanced with Plans & Figures properly drawn & engraved. Sixth edition. Revised & enlarged by the Author - In Paris, at François Fournier, 1713.

3 volumes in-12 (approximately 17 x 10 cm) [Note: the copy includes volumes 1, 2 and 3, of the four in the complete edition]. Volume I: Title page, portrait of the author in the frontispiece, 17 preliminary pages, 442 pages, illustrated with 8 folding engraved plates (including views of monuments, the Porte Saint-Martin, etc.). Note: the large plate of the Paris plan is missing. Volume II: 506 pages, illustrated with 11 folding engraved plates (including the Luxembourg Palace, etc.). Volume III: 398 pages, illustrated with 7 folding engraved plates (including Notre-Dame Church, etc.).

Full brown morocco with marbled edges of the period. Spine with raised bands richly ornamented with gilt compartments in floral motifs, title labels in red morocco and gilt tomaison labels (“DESCR / DE / PARIS” and “TOM. I”, “II”, “III”). Red or speckled edges. A choice copy enriched with the prestigious engraved ex-libris of Edgard Mareuse, famous Parisian bibliophile and great collector of works on Paris.

Copy in a proper and uniform condition. The period bindings show a fine old patina, with signs of use, rubbing and superficial losses at the heads and corners. The interior preserves clean laid paper of the period, adorned with magnificent finely executed folding engravings. Small tears on some plates, without serious consequence.

First published in 1684, Germain Brice’s Description of the City of Paris is the urbane and artistic guide par excellence to classical Paris under Louis XIV. A true ancestor of modern travel guides, the work went through numerous editions revised and enlarged by the author himself, the 1713 edition (sixth edition) representing the culmination of his topographic vision before the major changes of the Enlightenment century.
Germain Brice takes the reader from palaces to churches, from bridges to grand town houses, describing in meticulous detail the collections of paintings, architectural curiosities and sculpted decor of the capital.

Germain Brice was one of the very first to conceive a systematic and aesthetic guide to Paris intended not only for eminent foreigners but also for Parisians desirous of discovering the artistic treasures of their own city, thus recording the architectural state of Paris at the end of the Grand Century.