Antiquities of Athens, The :
Measured and Delineated by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, Painters and Architects
James Stuart , Nicholas Revett

James "Athenian" Stuart and Nicholas Revett's monumental Antiquities of Athens was the first accurate survey of ancient Greek architecture ever completed. Based on precise measured drawings done at the sites of the ancient ruins between 1751 and 1754, these books set a new standard for archaeological investigation in the eighteenth century. In doing so, they also transformed our understanding of Greek architecture and—by pointing up differences between Greek and Roman examples—fundamentally challenged prevailing notions about a universal classical ideal and fueled the Greek Revival movement that dominated British, European, and American architecture and design for over a century.

Originally published in four volumes that appeared between 1762 and 1816, Stuart and Revett's masterwork is presented here in its entirety as part of our Classic Reprint series and features a new introduction by scholar Frank Salmon. With its many images of buildings, plans, sculpture, friezes, and decorative objects such as vases, it remains the logical starting point for anyone interested in Athens, Greece, and its influence on the history of Western architecture.


James Stuart (1713-1788) was a British architect, archaeologist, and painter. Nicholas Revett (1720-1804) was a British architect and artist.

Frank Salmon lectures on the history of art at Cambridge University and is the author of Building on Ruins: The Rediscovery of Rome and English Architecture.
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Editorial Reviews

Stuart the Athenian, Traditional Building:
" The Antiquities of Athens was the lodestar for the Anglophone and Germanic Grecian architecture dominant in the decades around 1820." — Thomas Gordon Smith (Wednesday, October 01, 2008)

Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America:
"James Athenian Stuart and Nicholas Revetts monumental Antiquities of Athens was the first accurate survey of ancient Greek architecture ever completed. Based on precise measured drawings done between 1751 and 1754, these books set a new standard for archaeological investigation in the 18th century. They transformed our understanding of Greek architecture and by pointing up differences between Greek and Roman examples fundamentally challenged prevailing notions about a universal classical ideal, and fueled the Greek Revival movement that dominated British, European, and American architecture and design for over a century. This new edition includes all plates from the original masterwork."

New Athenians - One series of buildings personifies the Grecian ideal of New York Style of the 1830s., Period Homes:
""The institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America (ICA&CA) recently announced an important reprint of James Stuart and Nicholas Revett's The Antiquities of Athens, originally published in three volumes, the first in 1762. Hopefully, the Princeton Architectural Press re-issue will influence current Classical architects and patrons to reanimate the elements, ideas and nuances of Athenian architecture as the original books did in their day."" — Thomas Gordon Smith (March 1, 2008)

Art&Auction:
"It's stunning, in a stuffy-professor kind of way. And its presence is absolutely vital, I'd guess, on the bookshelf of any self-respecting architect." (January 2008)

Cover to Cover - The best art books of 2007..., Art + Auction:
""Speaking of the exotic, given how far we've come (in what direction, other than temporal, is up for debate) from the founding of Western culture in ancient Greece, all that sandblasted, white-golden evidence of glory on the Acropolis can seem as unfamiliar to us as any Japanese scroll from 700 years ago. Indeed, even back in the Enlightenment, 18th-century Europeans had it wrong. They thought there was a single classical model, the Greeks and the Romans all smushed together, tunic to toga. That was before two British architects and artists, James Stuart (1713-1788) and Nicholas Revett (1720-1804), spent three years in the mid-1700s measuring, diagramming and drawing the very old stuff in Athens.

The result was a magnum opus - published in four volumes between 1762 and 1816 - that sparked the Greek Revival movement that dominated European and American architecture for a century thereafter. That single work has been reissued in reduced facsimile as The Antiquities of Athens(Princeton Architectural Press...) It's stunning, in a stuffy-professor kind of way. ...it's presence is absolutely vital, I'd guess on the bookshelf of any self-respecting architect." — Peter Plagens (January 2008)

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