L'antiquite expliquee et representee en figures. T. 1 Cz. 1 1719 (130978381)

For Montfaucon, Antiquity is not limited to the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, but includes the Germans, Gauls, and Parthians. The conception of the plan is new: not chronological, but systematic: gods, private life, collective life, funerals. The engravings, which include not only representations of vestiges or statues, but also simple objects of daily life, respond both to a scientific concern and to an aesthetic concern, and allow us to go beyond mere textual representations. Text paragraphs are short and concern only what is 'certain or highly probable.' Secular history is thus studied without reference to sacred history, with the dominant role being that of iconography. Latin, in small characters, is relegated to the bottom of the page, while the main text is in French and in large characters. The drawings are by Sébastien Leclerc, Nicolas de Largillierre, and Jean Audran, engraved by Audran and Leclerc.