Beschreibung:

POSTEL, Guillaume (1505-1581). De la Republique des Turcs, & là ou l'occasion s'offera, des meurs & loy de tous Muhamedistes. Potiers: Enguilbert de Marnef, 1560. 3 parts in 1 volume, 4° (220 x 155mm). Collation: [ ] 4 , a-q 4 ; A-F 4 G 6 ; [ ] 4 , aa-kk 4 ll 6 (G6 and ll6 blank). Woodcut printer's device on titles. (Some spotting.) 18th-century French calf, spine gilt (extremities scuffed, spine chipped at head and foot, joints somewhat split). Provenance : unidentified signature (at foot of final text leaf, dated 1667, some marginal notes in the same hand); J.-B.-F.-G. de Meryan, marquis de Lagoy (1764-1829, collector's mark at foot of first title [Lugt 1710]). FIRST EDITION. Adams P-2015 describes a copy with the same imprint and number of pages but a different collation (4° in 8s). "Postel was the most learned of the French travellers to the East at this period. (He published the first Arabic grammar in French and numerous other learned works.) He accompanied the ambassador La Forest to Constantinople in 1535 and returned to the city again in 1549... The third book... furnished 'an unusually complete and accurate picture of the governing system of the Ottoman empire'. Montaigne used Postel as one of his sources of Turkish illustrations for the Essays ." (Blackmer, note on 1565 edition).