CHALCONDYLE. Lot n° 29

General History of the Turks, containing the History of Chalcondyle, Translated by Blaise de Vigenère,... Paris, Cramoisy, 1662-63. Two vol in-folio of (12) ff. (frontispiece included), 903 pp. (badly encrypted 907), (14) ff.; (6) ff. (incl. frontispiece), 204 pp., (6), (2) ff., 89, (3) pp., 274 collars (wrongly numbered 273), (3) pp., 116, (2) ff., 85, (10) pp., contemporary brown calf binding, decorated spines, red edges. T. I: Frontispiece and 20 portraits engraved in text. T. II: Frontispiece, 4 mid-page engravings, a folding plan of Constantinople, a folding plate showing the emperor's army in order of battle, 65 full-page engraved plates with intaglio text, of which 63 according to Nicolai, showing Turkish costumes, 17 full-page plates for the Prophetic Paintings of the Ruin of the Turkish Empire. Most complete edition. The History of the Turks by the Greek historian Chalcocondylas covers the period 1389-1462, corresponding to the end of the Byzantine Empire. The work, the Greek original of which was donated to Geneva in 1615, was translated and published for the first time in French by Blaise de Vigenère in 1577 and continued in this form by Artus until 1612 and by Mézeray until 1661. The famous and beautiful costume plates, attributed to Louis Danet, come from the work of Nicolas de Nicolaï published in 1567. At the time, they constituted the first serious series of documents on clothing in the Near East and were therefore very influential. They were subsequently used or copied several times. Nice copy. Restored upper headdresses. Faux-title (crumpled) and frontispiece of the first volume crumpled in the lower white margin; tear in the last table leaf of the first volume.