CLAYNAERTS (Nicolas) Lot n° 141

Peregrinationum ac de rebus Machometicis epistolae elegantissimae. Leuven, Martinus Rotarius, 1551. Small in-8 (15,5 x 9,5 cm) of [83] ff. havana morocco, spine with ornamented nerves, red tr. Very rare second edition, enlarged, of the 24 letters sent by Nicolas Cleynaerts during his trip to Spain, Portugal and Morocco to his friends in Flanders during the last years of his life. A very good copy. "CLÉNARD (Nicolas), born in Diest in Brabant, professor of Greek and Hebrew languages in Louvain, travelled in France, Spain and Portugal, to familiarize himself with living languages. Around the year 1540, he went to Africa to learn Arabic; having entered Fez, he greeted the king in Arabic, and told him that he had come to buy Arabic books to enrich the libraries of Europe: he applied himself to translating the Bible into Arabic: his work was not limited to this. He tried to enlighten these peoples who follow the religion of Mohammed with the lights of the faith, which brought him persecution from the king of Tangier; he was stripped of the Arabic books he had collected at great expense, and he himself found salvation only by fleeing. He died in Granada in 1542, aged 49. […]"" Feller, Dictionnaire historique..., 1818-1820, III, 179.