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Antonio Gori.
Dactyliotheca Smithiana.
Venetiis: Ex Typographio J. B. Pasqualii, 1767.
Acquired through the Kenyon -Law Starling Fund.
This is a remarkable catalog of the gems collected by Joseph Smith (1682-1770), British consul in Venice, and later sold to King George III of Great Britain. Embellished by more than one hundred engraved plates, Stanford's copy is exceptionally fine, the pages untrimmed, and bound in contemporary calf with marbled boards. Gori (1691-1757) was a Florentine antiquary; in this work he not only describes the gems but includes a detailed history of gem engraving and engravers as well. Most of the gems represent seventeenth- and eighteenth-century work. The collection was acquired by George III together with Consul Smith's library and many of his paintings and drawings in 1762
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