Guillaume Thomas Francois Raynal (1711-1796). Venice: Antonia Zatta, 1778-1779. 2 volumes in one. Folio (16 5/8 x 11 inches). Vignette title-page to volume one. 15 fine double-page engraved maps, hand-coloured in outline, engraved vignette head- and tail-pieces, and initials. Original Italian patterned limp paper boards (spine worn with minor loss) "the most eloquent man I ever heard speak in French" (John Adams) First Italian edition of an important atlas, including the first publication of Zatta's interpretation of John Mitchell's famous map of America from 1755. The fifteen sheets consist of a decorative title-page with an inset map of Bermuda, a general map of the 13 colonies, a map of Canada, and 12 sheets which assemble to form one large wall-map of the continent. The lengthy text is by Abbe Raynal, a French writer of historical commentaries, the most famous of which was his "Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes" (1770), which includes an account of each of the thirteen American colonies, Hudson's Bay, Canada and Louisiana, included in the first volume: "adopting deistical and libertarian attitudes associated with Montesquieu and Voltaire, . the exoticism, anecdotal style, and strident advocacy of social and economic reforms that characterized this survey of colonialism and commerce. made it one of the bulwarks of the French Enlightenment. But its open anticlericalism and advocacy of the right of insurrection alarmed the French monarchy and led to a decree of Parliament of 1781 ordering Raynal's arrest and the confiscation of his property. the last section of his "Histoire philosophique", also published separately as "Révolution de l'Amérique" (1781), helped to bring about American independence; he also maintained that more than 25,000 copies were distributed throughout the colonies" (A. Owen Aldridge for ADNB). This account of the American Revolution is found in the second volume of "Storia dell' America.". Sabin 68109