Les Quatre premiers livres des navigations et pérégrinations orientales, de N. de Nicolay Dauphinoys

Folio. 8 sheets (beautiful title in an engraved frame, privilege, dedication to Charles IX, introductory poetry by Ronsard, table of chapters, one blank f.), 181 pp, one blank sh., 59 (out of 60) plates engraved by Louis Danet after Nicolaÿ's drawings, and representing the costumes of the different social classes of the Turkish and Persian Orient (some plates awkwardly reassembled). Missing the plate of the Armenian merchant.

Contemporary soft vellum, smooth spine, gilt edges, gilding a little faded, small lack of leather on an edge of the upper board, light dampstaining at the end of the volume.

Second issue of the first edition (the first issue, rarer, bears the date of 1567). The work is sought after for the plates providing details on the costumes of the main categories identifiable to a Western traveler in the great ethnic and religious motley of the Ottoman Empire and Persia.

Nicolas de Nicolaÿ (1517-1583), geographer to King Henry II, followed Gabriel d'Aramon in 1551, who was appointed the King's ambassador extraordinary to Suleiman the Magnificent. His main mission was to carry out topographical surveys of the Regency of Algiers and the Empire, but he also took the opportunity to paint "au naturel" the men and women he met.

This copy has been part of the works given by the very powerful Camille de Neufville de Villeroy (1606-1693), archbishop-count of Lyon from 1653 to his death, to the Collège de la Trinité held by the Jesuits (ex-dono label dated 1693). This great lord, with remarkable political and ecclesiastical action, was also a great book collector and a scholar. He had a library of more than 5,000 volumes, including many religious works, for which he had a gallery built on vaults. At his death, the collection was passed on to the Jesuit College, with whom he had maintained excellent relations, without any inféodation, which still distinguished him from many of his confreres.

Brunet IV, 67; Baudrier IX, 318-319; Atabey 870; Colas II, 2200