Sicard’s illustrations of Antinoupolis

My last post gave an account of a visit to Antinoupolis in Egypt in 1715.  But without the illustrations!  Well, I have spent several days now, attempting to locate online a copy of Father Sicard’s Letter to the Count of Toulouse which had undamaged illustrations in it.  Not all copies were bound with illustrations, I note.

The text of the letter is printed in the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses series, which is an utter mess of original volumes of letters, jumbled all anyhow, plus reprints in different orders, etc etc.  Somebody ought to draw up a table of this series in its various versions.  It is NOT fun, attempting to locate something.

Today, using the Europeana portal, I had a lucky break, and discovered the existence of a separate volume of plates for the series!  A copy is held at Gallica here.  It indicates the volume and the page numbers.

So, finally, here are Father Sicard’s three illustrations!

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South gate of Antinoe

and

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West gate of Antinoe

and finally the column of Alexander Severus:

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Column of Alexander Severus, in the ruins of Antinoe, 50 leagues south of Cairo. 1715.

It’s wonderful to have all this stuff online, but there is still plenty for researchers to do, in simply locating it all!

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3 thoughts on “Sicard’s illustrations of Antinoupolis

  1. Delightful – thank you! In this copy, the second engraved ‘Aurelius’ correctly has lambda, while the first alpha for lambda! (Maybe I shall get round to collating all the examples of the Greek inscription you have provided, for the fun of it…)

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