From Head Librarian Gerald Cloud

Fresh off the boat from the continent is this fabulous collection of eighteenth century science, travel, and culture, comprising twenty manuscript notebooks and journals of more than 1,150 pages describing Louis-Benjamin Fleuriau de Bellevue’s Grand Tour of France and Italy, 1788-1791. Fleuriau de Bellevue was a mineralogist and geologist whose collections formed part of the foundation for the Museum of Natural History at La Rochelle. The unpublished notebooks are illustrated with numerous sketches and drawings, and include valuable mineralogical observations as well as remarks on churches, architecture, art, social customs, inns, and other travelers’ information. In addition to Italy Fleuriau’s travels took him to and Malta, Switzerland and the Tirol, a portion of which was in the company of the famous French geologist Deodat de Dolomieu, after whom the Dolomites were named.

The notebooks are well preserved and will serve a wide variety of researchers and scholars interested in 18th century travel, science, culture and more. The collection is currently being cataloged and will be available to scholars soon…