[NICOLAY, Nicolas].
Plusieurs descriptions des accoustremens, tant des magistrats et officiers de la Porte de l' Empereur des Turcs, que des peuples assujectis à son Empire. Avec les figurs des representant le tout au naturel, tirees des medailles antiques & descriptions de ceux qui ont frequenté parmy ces nations, ou des bons autheurs qui en ont escrit.
Including: THOMAS, Artus. Tableaux prophetiques des empereur severe et leon, avec leurs epigrammes predisans la ruine de la monarchie des Turcs.
[Paris, widow of Abel L'Angelier, 1620]. 2 parts in 1 volume. Folio. With 79 engraved plates, including 62 costume plates (ca. 27.5 x 17.5 cm) after Nicolas Nicolay. With an additional loosely inserted engraving of a "Marchant Juif". All the plates have explanatory texts on the versos of the preceding plates. 19th-century green half morocco. "64" [=65] ll., 65-114, [3], [1 blank] pp.
€ 13,500
Nicolay's series of engravings of Turkish magistrates and officers (including descriptions) followed by Thomas' collection of emblems, prophesying the fall of the Ottoman empire, as published in the 1620 edition of Laonikos Chalcocondyle's L'Histoire de la décadence de l'Empire Grec. It doesn't have any date or publisher's information itself, but has the same pagination errors described in the copy of Chalcocondyle in the Staatsbibliothek Berlin ("Bl. 32 als 23 gez. und Bl. 64 doppelt gez."). This history concentrates on the later period of the Byzantine empire and was first published in Latin in 1556. The enlarged French translation with additions by Artus Thomas first appeared 1612 and was possibly reissued in 1616 and 1620.
The original costume plates by Nicolas Nicolay were first published in Nicolay's work Les navigations peregrinations et voyages, faicts en la Turquie (Lyon, 1567). It was translated into various languages and left a deep mark on later publications on the same topic. Its success was largely due to the 60 (later expanded to 62) illustrations of the different costumes worn in the area Nicolay visited. Subsequent works on the Turcs also included Nicolay's illustrations, in woodcuts or engraved after the originals as in the Chalcocondyle's edition of 1612.
Binding very slightly rubbed and on leaf somewhat loose. Very good copy. Cf. Atabey 214 (Chalcocondyle 1662), 871 and 872 (Nicolay 1576, 1586); Goldsmith, BMC STC French C-594 (Chalcocondyle 1620); Hamilton, Europe and the Arab world 9 (Nicolay 1576) and 23 (Chalcocondyle 1662); Hiler, pp. 656-657 (several Nicolay editions).
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