Page 44 - Beholding Liberty!

44 BEHOLDING LIBERTY!
I.1.3
[Jean-Jacques Barthélemy]
Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, dans le milieu du quatrième siècle avant l’ère vulgaire,
Seconde édition. Tome sixième.
A Paris, Chez De Bure l’aîné, Libraire de Monsieur Frère du Roi, de la Bibliothèque du Roi, et de l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions, hôtel Ferrand, rue Serpente, n.o 6. M. DCC. LXXXIX. Avec approbation, et privilege du Roi.
Library of the Hellenic Parliament
THE FRENCH ABBÉ Jean-Jacques Barthé- lemy (1716-1795) published in 1788 an extensive (multi-volume) historical novel, with the Scythian young Anacharsis travelling in Greece in 363-337 BC for educational purposes – in line with the trav- ellers of the Grand Tour in Greece at the time of the author’s writing. It is therefore a fictional period travelogue. After all, the author never visited Greece – he drew inspiration for it while in Italy – but he is a characteristic example of an armchair traveller, who, based on his erudition, being a leading antiquarian and hellenist of his time, recreates the (ancient) Greek world vividly and eloquently.
The idyllic and idealised image, literally and figura- tively, of classical Greece that he offers his readers is the result, and at the same time the ne plus ultra, of the age of antiquarianism and the Enlighten- ment, in the late eighteenth century. In turn, it rein- forced the trend of le goût grec or goût à la grecque, which – as part of Neoclassicism – had taken hold
of Paris and France from 1760 onwards, establish- ing the ‘Greek taste’ in the arts and aesthetics in general.
Its success led to multiple editions and translations up to the mid-nineteenth century; it was also par- tially translated into Greek by the team of Rigas Feraios and Chrysovergis Kouropalatis. In addition, similar works (roman grecs) were written under the influence of Anacharsis, the most representative being Étienne-François de Lantier’s Travels of An- tenor (1797).
In the year in which this second edition (1789) of the Anacharsis came out, and precisely thanks to it, Barthélemy was elected member of the French Academy.
The stand-alone “atlas”, an illustrated supplement by the French historical geographer and cartogra- pher Jean-Denis Barbié du Bocage [cat. no III.8.A.2], contributed decisively to this publishing success.