[British Isles] Jones, Inigo. The most notable Antiquity of Great Britain, vulgarly called Stone-Heng on Salisbury Plain...

London: Printed by James Flesher for Daniel Pakeman, and Laurence Chapman, 1655. First edition. 4to. (vi), 109, (1, errata) pp. Title-page printed in red and in black. Illustrated with the rare engraved frontispiece portrait of Jones by Hollar after Van Dyck, seven plates (including three folding), and three full-page charts. Full 18th-century brown calf, rebacked with original spine laid down, stamped in gilt, extremities and boards scuffed and scratched, head of spine worn; edges stained yellow; original marbled endpapers; spotting to frontispiece with small repair in upper corner; spotting to title-page, repair in bottom corner of same, and matching small repair in upper corner; very small hole in upper corner of A3-B1; repair in upper corner B4; second double-page plate bound upside down; scattered light foxing and spotting to text; light wear at plate folds; scattered contemporary marginalia, as well as modern pencil marginalia. Lowndes 1225; Wing J-954

Rare first edition of Inigo Jones' treatise on Stonehenge, the first comprehensive study of this great ancient monument. "Jones’s theory was that Stonehenge was a Roman temple, which, ‘if not founded by Agricola,’ yet was erected ‘in the times somewhat after his government,’ and was dedicated to the god Coelus, and he noticed in the monument a mixture of certain proportions proper to Corinthian and Tuscan work, together with the plainness and solidity of the latter order” (DNB).

According to Lowndes, "There were but a few copies printed, and most of them lost in the fire of London.'" Furthermore, copies with the frontispiece portrait of Jones are rare, and not typically found in the market.

Provenance

From the collection of Justin G. Schiller

[British Isles] Jones, Inigo. The most notable Antiquity of Great Britain, vulgarly called Stone-Heng on Salisbury Plain...