Les Navigations, Peregrinations, et Voyages, Faicts en la Turquie 1577

Nicolas de Nicolay; Assuerus van Londerseel

En Anvers : Guillaume Silvius, 1577

[Fine binding] Bound in full vellum. Red leather, gilt stamped spine label.  [24], 308, [26] pp., 59 (of 60) plates, wood engravings of costume.  Lacking one leaf, (P4-5). Facsimile replacement page bound in.  Pages generally clean and unmarked.  Some plates with old graphite or sanguine on the verso.  Anton van Leest provided the woodcuts after Danet.  The first edition was published in 1567.  Les Navigations is notable as one of the first detailed western books on Middle Eastern costume.   Nicolay was the royal geographer of France during the reign of Henry II.   In 1551 Nicolay was part of Gabriel d'Aramon's mission to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.  The French diplomatic mission was to explore the possibility of an Ottoman - French alliance.  His sketches depict Turkish, Greek, Arab, Armenian, Maltese and Moorish scenes and customs with a higher level of accuracy than previous accounts.   Nicolay's works were highly influential on the 16th century European views of the Ottoman Empire and Near East.   They became the basis of European ethnographies for the next two centuries.  This volume includes the plate of the self-mutilating dervish.  See: Brafman, David. "Facing East: The Western View of Islam in Nicolas de Nicolay's "Travels in Turkey" p. 153. The illustrations have variously been attributed to Titian.  

Bookplate of Theodore Low DeVinne, the printer and one of the founders of the Grolier Club.  Additional book plate of the Explorers Club (NYC) on front end page. Signed on book plate by James B. Ford. Ford was the President of the Club, the Club's library is named after him. Explorers Club blindstamps on title pages. Refs: Adams N-254; Colas II 2203; Brunet IV p. 67. Graesse IV p. 671.