University of Virginia Library

47. Gell, Sir William.

Vol. I. POMPEIANA: / THE / TOPOGRAPHY, EDIFICES, /
AND / ORNAMENTS / OF / POMPEII. / BY / SIR WILLIAM
GELL, F. R. S. F. S. A. &c. / AND / JOHN P. GANDY, ARCHITECT.
/ LONDON: / PRINTED FOR / RODWELL AND MARTIN,
/ NEW BOND STREET. / 1817-1819.

4to. Half title ([i]); title page ([iii]); dedication ([v]); preface ([vii]xxviii);
list of plates ([xxix]-xxxi); note (1 unnumbered p.); descriptive
text ([1]-273); emendations and note to binder (1 leaf).

Vol II. [Engraved title:] POMPEIANA BY SIR WILLIAM GELL
AND JOHN P. GANDY ARCHITECT / London, Published July 1,
1819, by Rodwell & Martin, New Bond Street.

4to. Engraved title page (1 leaf); 92 engraved plates, some of which
appear in 2 or even 3 states, making a total of 159 engravings.

The engravers were G. Cooke (1781-1834), a pupil of James Basire;
Charles Heath (1785-1848), for whom mythological subjects were a
forte; H. Hobson (fl.1814-22), English; George Hollis (1792-1842),
born in Oxford and died in Walworth; John Le Keux (1783-1846), a
Londoner; Frederick Christian Lewis (1779-1856), who studied at the
Royal Academy and was a painter, a watercolorist, and an engraver;
James Lewis, perhaps the architect who flourished ca.1774-1800; William
Home Lizars (1788-1859), a Scot, the son and pupil of Daniel
Lizars; Wilson Lowry (see No. 32); Henry Moses (1782-1870), one of
the master engravers in England at the time; S. Porter; John Pye (b.
1745), a student of Major (see No. 76) who worked for the publisher
Boydell; Shury; John Walker, Jr. (fl. ca.1800), a nephew of Anthony
Walker, also an engraver; Robert Wallis (1794-1878), English; and
W. Wise (fl.1817-76), who worked in London and Oxford.

Sir William Gell (1777-1835) was born in Derbyshire and educated
at Jesus College, Cambridge, and at the schools of the Royal Academy.
Knighted in 1803, he issued his first book, Topography of Troy, a

folio illustrated by his own sketches, in 1804. This was followed by Geography
and Antiquities of Ithaca, 1807; Itinerary of Greece, 1810, with
a second edition in 1827; Itinerary of the Morea, 1817; Narrative of a
Journey in the Morea, 1823; and Topography of Rome and Its Vicinity,
2 vols., 1834, with a second edition in 1846. Byron said of his sketching:
"Rapid indeed! He topographised and topographised king Priam's dominions
in three days" (DNB). Gell was a Fellow of the Society of
Antiquaries, F.R.S., and F.S.A. and a member of the Academy of Berlin
and the Institute of France.

J. P. Gandy (1787-1850) changed his name to J. P. Deering on receiving
an inheritance from Henry Deering. He was the younger brother
of Joseph and Michael Gandy, the architects. Educated at the Royal
Academy, he went to Greece for the Dilettanti Society in 1813 and later
with Gell to Pompeii. He was elected A.R.A. in 1826.

Gell says that the excavation at "Pompeii was begun upon in 1748;
and it may at first excite our surprise, that from this date to the present
day, no work has appeared in the English language upon the subject of
its domestic antiquities, except a few pages by Sir William Hamilton, in
the Archaeologia" (I, ix-x). One can understand how he could "topographise
king Priam's dominions" so quickly after he tells us that "the
authors of the present work . . . generally avoided entering into a
scrupulous detail of measurement" (I, xi-xii). He goes on to say: "It may
be proper to state, that the original drawings for this work were made
with the camera lucida, by Sir William Gell. To render the subject
clearer, a slight alteration has in two or three instances been made, but
always mentioned in the text. The literary part with the exception of the
first essay, are [sic] by his coadjutor" (I, xvi).

This edition was the first. It was expanded in 1832 by two volumes
called Pompeiana: The Topography, Ornaments, &c. that gave the results
of the excavations after 1819. There was also a partial reprint in
1880 under the title Pompeii, Its Destruction and Re-Discovery.

One of the original paper covers for one of the volumes is bound in
the University's recently acquired set. From it we learn that the original
price per volume was 12 shillings. The views, though handsome, are a
little on the romantic side (see Plate XLVIII).

Although Jefferson ordered Pompeiana for the University in the
section on "Architecture" of the want list, there is no record of a set entering
the collections until recently. The present set on the library's
shelves is the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.

U. Va.

*DG70.P.7G3.1817

Plate XLVIII. From No. 47. "Pompeii. Peristyle or Inner Court of the House of
Pansa" (Pl. 35).