Bidspirit auction | TWISS (Richard). VOYAGE en Portugal

TWISS (Richard). VOYAGE en Portugal et en Espagne, Fait en 1772 & 1773. Berne. 1776. - TWISS (Richard) VOYAGE en Portugal et en Espagne, Fait en 1772 & 1773 . Traduit de l'Anglois. Orné d'une Carte des deux Royaumes. Berne: Chez la Société Typographique, 1776. xii, 380, 54 pp., 1 mapa desdobrável: front. grav., il.; 210 mm. First and only edition in French, published in the same year as the German and Irish editions, one year after the original English edition (”Travels through Portugal and Spain in 1772 and 1773”, London, 1775). The volume includes a ”Supplément au Voyage” (54 pp.) with additions by the author to the diary, a summary of the histories of Portugal and Spain, a bibliographical catalogue of works on the two countries, and an essay on the state of Portuguese and Spanish literature – a section of considerable interest for the history of Iberian bibliophilia. Richard Twiss (Rotterdam, 1747 – London, 1821), an English writer born into a family of merchants established in the Netherlands, travelled extensively throughout Europe before heading to the Iberian Peninsula in 1772. A member of the Royal Society since 1774, his account of his journey through Portugal and Spain was hailed by Samuel Johnson as one of the best travel books of the time. Twiss's curious and sometimes ironic gaze focuses on the customs, art, monuments, bullfights, and daily life of the Iberian Peninsula, paying particular attention to the paintings in Spanish churches, palaces, and private collections. Rare and sought after. ⚑ Auto-translated via Google Translate