Page 46 - Beholding Liberty!

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William Gell, Esq. M.A. F.R.S. F.S.A. and member of the Society of Dilettanti.
The Geography and Antiquities of Ithaca.
Dedicated, by permission, to the King.
London: Printed by J. Wright, St. John’s Square, for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster – Row. 1807. Library of the Hellenic Parliament
THE ENGLISH ANTIQUARIAN Sir Wil- liam Gell (1777-1836) visited Greece (the Pelo- ponnese, the Argo-Saronic Gulf, Continental Greece, Thessaly) and Asia Minor repeatedly be- tween 1801 and 1812, and became one of the most important antiquarians, producing hundreds of drawings and publishing various studies.
He was particularly concerned with the explora- tion for the Homeric world, visiting, in addition to the Troad, Ithaca in 1801 and 1806, together with Edward Dodwell. The outcome of these studies, this work attempts to identify and depict sites corresponding to the Homeric epics. The focus of
this research was to discover “Homer’s School”; research for it was also conducted on Chios, Ios and elsewhere. Here, a rocky outcrop is depict- ed (drawn by P.W. Tomkins and engraved by J.H. Wright), where an arrangement of niches and re- mains of ancient masonry were regarded by local inhabitants and the priest who served as Gell’s guide to be the remains of the Homeric ‘School’.
William Gell is a genuine representative of anti- quarianism and Philhellenism, who sees his con- temporary Greece through a neoclassical lens; when the Greek Revolution broke out, he kept a critical distance.
46 BEHOLDING LIBERTY!