Nicolas de Nicolay | The navigations, peregrinations and voyages made into Turkie. London, 1585, later half calf

Nicolas de Nicolay

The navigations, peregrinations and voyages made into Turkie... conteining sundry singularities which the author hath there seene and observed... Translated out of French by T. Washington the younger. London: [at the cost of John Stell] by Thomas Dawson, 1585

4to (181 x 132mm.), title within decorative border, woodcut initials and headpieces, woodcut illustrations, eighteenth-century marbled boards with modern calf spine retaining old red morocco lettering-piece, lower corner of [paraph]4 repaired, woodcut on f.10 torn and repaired with missing section replaced in ink, a few other marginal repairs, occasional light soiling

FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. The artist, geographer and spy Nicolas de Nicolay (1517-1583) went to the court in Constantinople as part of an embassy from Henri II to the Sultan; Henri's predecessor had counted Suleiman as an ally and Henri wished to revive that accord. Nicolay's work, a combination of a travelogue with a survey of the Ottoman Empire, was first published in French in 1567 and quickly translated into other European languages. His depiction of the Ottomans is less pejorative than other similar accounts although still interwoven at times with salacious details of sex, drugs and cruelty. The illustrations, originally engraved by Louis Danet and copied here from the 1576 Antwerp edition, were widely influential on subsequent works and artists.

LITERATURE:

Blackmer 1197; STC 18574

PROVENANCE:

Daniel Boulter (1740-1802), engraved bookplate, catalogue of his Museum Boulterianum in Yarmouth [probably dating from 1794], books section, item 268, priced 12s; F.H. Wulkop, booklabel; D.L. Cumming, signature on flyleaf