A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine and the Confines Thereof, with the History of the Old and New Testament Acted Thereon [PLATES WITH CONTEMPORARY HAND-COLORING]

London: by J. F. for John Williams, 1650. First edition. Very good-. Two parts, folio (32.2 by 21.3 cm). Register continuous, though pagination in two series. Sequencing varies from pages to leaves; double-suite plates (generally) account for gaps in pagination, though not included in the register. Signatures: [pi]2 A-F4 G6 H-2H4 2I4 (2I1+chi 2I2.2I3) 2K-2R4 2S6 2T-2X4 2Y6 2Z2 3A-4B4. Pagination: [10], 24, 29-48 pages, 49-50 leaves, 55-67, [1: blank], 73-86, 91-98, 103-116, 121-134, 139-152, 157-166, 171-178, 183-202, 207-222, 227-236, 241-262, 287-288, 293-308, 313-350, 355-374, 379-392 pages, 393-396 leaves (f. 396 misnumbered 397), 397-404, 409-439, [1], p. 434, [1] pages; 38, 43-60, 65-72, 77-92, 97-118, 123-202 (pp. 144-145 misnumbered 136-137), [18: index and errata; final page blank] pages. Additional engraved titlepage; main title within double-ruled border, woodcut crown vignette; text within ruled border, marginal column for printed side notes; 29 copperplate engraved plates (27 double-suite, each bound in at the center fold; 1 full-page plate of armorials; 1 large folding map of Palestine (74.5 by 34.5 cm); woodcut ornaments and initials. Contemporary speckled calf, spine with raised bands (expertly rebacked to style), gilt double fillet rules, gilt morocco lettering piece; endpapers renewed. Light to moderate dampstain at bottom corner throughout first 120 leaves, and occasionally at fore-margin in later leaves; text crisp and clean with only occasional stains and smudges (mostly marginal); top corner engraved title slightly trimmed (not affecting illustration), clean tear at top margin leaf 2T3 just extending into headline, a few other strictly marginal small tears; about half of the plates expertly reinforced at verso along gutter margins; 7 plates with clean tears running along center fold (and thus not easily noticed) starting at bottom margin and sometimes extending into illustrations (in two cases nearly half-way), else a very good copy, complete with the engraved title and all 29 engraved plates.

First edition of this pioneering biblical atlas, whose title references the mountain peak in Moab (modern Jordan) from which Moses first surveyed the Promised Land (Deut. 34.1-4). A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine is the earliest serious effort by an English scholar to present a comprehensive historical and geographical description of the Holy Land. Its author, the Church of England clergyman Thomas Fuller (1607/8-1661), was a leader of the moderates in the Commonwealth church and in the negotiations for the Restoration. "The interregnum, which brought many radical and unwelcome changes as far as Fuller was concerned, was, paradoxically, a remarkably productive period for him as a scholar and writer" (Patterson). His influence was "secured by a remarkable range of contacts in society, by his sermons, distinguished equally for their topicality and restraint, and by an impressive series of books. Much in demand with the reading public, these were at once scholarly, exemplary in their moral attitudes, and graceful in style" (Sandler). Among those works is the present volume, an opulent folio, elegantly printed and profusely illustrated with highly-decorative double-suite maps of the territories allotted to the Israelite tribes amidst the adjoining kindgdoms, along with depictions of Jerusalem and its sanctuary in the First- and Second Temple eras. The nearly six hundred pages of text "follows pretty closely the Theatrum Terrae Sanctae of Adrichomius (1590), the standard work on the subject, with chorographical descriptions of the land of Canaan, the sites being identified by the biblical events that occurred there. Both Fuller and Adrichomius draw their information not only from the Bible itself but from Josephus and the Early Fathers, from more modern authorities such as Bochart and Villalpandus, and from the accounts of recent travelers" (Sandler). Fuller's "Pisgah-Sight of Palestine was well received. Part of the reason for its success may be that it "carried perhaps an implied message: if ancient Jerusalem and its temple could be rebuilt, so, too, could the nearly shattered Church of England." (Patterson).

The large folding map of the Holy Land, along with 26 of the other folding plates and the engraved title page were colored by an early hand in brick red, bright green, yellow, cerulian blue, and brown. All of the maps are fully colored; some of the other plates more sparsely so.

The collection of armorials engraved on the page facing the opening of the text pays tribute to the noblemen who supported Fuller's project. [From the Latin]: "Reader, you must know that this fetus of ours would have expired in great pain (though the cost was excessive) in the very birth itself, if some benevolent hands of Maecenas had not given birth to it with the help of our efforts." The folding map of Palestine displays in marginal vignettes the arms of three of these benefactors: James Cranfield, 2nd Earl of Middlesex; Robert Cordell; Sir William Paston. The other armorials are apportioned among the margins of the 27 folding plates.

Provenance: early manuscript notes appear on the margins of four text pages and the map of the territory of Dan; stamp of Trinity College, Bristol appears at the verso of the large folding map. References: Cox I: 208; ESTC R18096; Lowndes 2 (1885): 848; W. B. Patterson, "Fuller, Thomas" [in:] ODNB online; Rohricht 1070; F. Sandler, "Thomas Fuller's 'Pisgah-Sight of Palestine' as a Comment on the Politics of Its Time" [in:] Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Aug., 1978), pp. 317-343; Wing F2455. (Inventory #: 54606)