Ex Libris of Jean-Baptiste-François Gigot d’Orcy, in the Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon’s copy of Voyages en Europe, en Asie et en Afrique (1786).

I noted in a recent post the value of full text search when it comes to ferreting out obscure references to Macintosh and his work. Google Books is helpful in another way, too: it is occasionally possible to identify the provenance of the books it has scanned and thereby to trace something of their likely readership. This much is true, at least, for one of the copies of the 1786 French translation of Macintosh’s book, Voyages en Europe, en Asie et en Afrique.

The book in question is currently held by the Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon (at shelfmarks 438670 – T. 01 and T. 02), but was previously part of the private library of Jean-Baptiste-François Gigot d’Orcy (1737–1793), an important entomologist who possessed what one contemporary described as “un très-beau Cabinet d’histoire naturelle” in his Paris home. d’Orcy’s role as a patron of natural philosophers (such as Guillaume-Antoine Olivier, 1756–1814) and as a book collector has been detailed on the blog “Histoire de la Bibliophilie“.

d’Orcy’s collection of books, including Voyages en Europe, en Asie et en Afrique, was auctioned off the year after his death. Macintosh’s book was item 1458 in the Catalogue des livres de feu citoyen Gigot d’Orcy (yet, sadly, to be scanned by Google Books).