Breve descrizione dell'Arcipelago e particolarmente delle diciotto isole sottomesse l'anno 1771. Al dominio russo del conte Pasch di Krienen Con un ragguaglio esatto di tutte le Antichità da esso scoperte ed acquistate [...]

Full title: Breve descrizione dell'Arcipelago e particolarmente delle diciotto isole sottomesse l'anno 1771. Al dominio russo del conte Pasch di Krienen Con un ragguaglio esatto di tutte le Antichità da esso scoperte ed acquistate e specialmente del sepolcro d'Omero e d'altri celebri personaggi.

8vo. pp. VIII, 170, ff. [3] (plates, folded). Signatures: a⁴ A-K⁸ L⁴. Contemporary speckled calf with three folding tables and plates. Includes 3 genealogical tables, engraved initials, and head- and tailpieces.

Bound with another guide to the Greek islands for ‘négocians & navigateurs’ (Description historique et géographique de l’archipel, Rédigée d’après de nouvelles Observations, & particuliérement utile aux Négocians & aux Navigateurs. Neuwied, Chez la Société Typographique, 1789).

Pasch van Krienen’s sensational announcement of the discovery and excavation in 1771 of what he claimed to be Homer’s grave on the island of Ios is here supported by elaborate documentation (transcriptions of Greek inscriptions, pictured in the plates), the authenticity of which has never been determined, since all the material evidence he claimed to have found was allegedly exported on his behalf to Livorno or Nazzo, and has since disappeared. By the late eighteenth century Pasch van Krienen’s discoveries had already been questioned, if not found fraudulent, by C. G. Heyne (see Bib# 5544327/Fr# 1410.2 in this collection for the rare first edition of Heyne’s follow-up investigation), and they are now generally regarded as an out-and-out hoax.

See J. P. Crielaard, ‘A “Dutch” Discoverer of Homer’s Tomb’, in Crielaard (ed.), Homeric Questions (1995), pp. 313-316; and David Constantine, In the Footsteps of the Gods: Travellers to Greece and the Quest for the Hellenic Ideal (2011), pp. 215-218.

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