Small 4to. Volume I - Book I: [8], 391 pp., [1] / Book II: Title, pages 395-511, [1] / Volume II - Book III: 515-1068, [94 index], title-pages printed in red and black, engraved frontispiece, 1 folding table, engraved vignette on title-pages, 11 engraved plates, some folding, 2 large folding maps, engraved illustrations in text, woodcut initials, head and tail pieces, contemporary calf, rubbed and faded, spines gilt in compartments, occasional light foxing, small damp stain on few pages, Book plate and blindstamps of Earls of Macclesfield at Shilburn Castle, Batavorum, Guilielmi Broedelet, first edition, 1714.

Synopsis

Adrian Reland (1667-1718), the celebrated Dutch Orientalist, was professor of Oriental languages and ecclesiastical antiquities at the University of Utrecht. His description of Palestine is remarkable work for its time, especially considering the fact that his description of the city is not based on his travels but collected from accounts of other authors.
In the preface Relandus declares to have mistrusted all the existing cartographical material, and to have reconfigured Palestine’s topography on the bases of the printed sources, which included the Rabbinical and Arabic ones. He draws special attention to his map of distances to the formation of which the whole book II is devoted: being a careful reconstruction of interrelated and Arabic ones. He draws special attention to his map of distances to the formation of which the whole book II is devoted : being a careful reconstruction of interrelated distances as mentioned in the literature it forms a building in which each stone closely connects with the others and can’t be taken out without affecting the other parts.
The third book, usually bound separately with the second title-page, is taken up by a comprehensive topographical dictionary of the Bible. In his chapter on Lebanon (pp. 311-22). Relandus quotes Maundrell’s description which was published without a map; he is now able to offer one (p. 320) after the autograph copy of Maundrell himself through the good offices of the brothers Masson. From them he also received the illustration of Punic coin p. 1014, and when discussing the town of Petra, now called Agra, he reproduced French letter by Jacques de Bary (pp. 934-51) which explains a number of coins illustrated by 6 engravings.
Bibliographic references: Blackmer 1406; Tobler p. 312.