Rare Birds-eye view of Famagusta, ( Mağusa/Gazimağusa), Cyprus.
Beauvau, Henri , Baron de.; engraved by Jean Appier snr.
Jean Apier snr.
Famagosta Nancy, France Jacob Garnich, 1615 1615
Rare copper engraved birds-eye view of Famagusta from Henri Beauvau's
Relation journaliere du voyage du Levant. Black and white; set in a page of French text; text to verso
Engraved by Jean Appier snr. Dark impression; paper lightly toned.
Henri de Beauvau,
a soldier and diplomat, fought the Turks in Hungary first in the service of Emperor Rudolph III, and then under the elector of Bavaria.
He embarked upon this journey in November1604, regarding it as a diplomatic venture rather than a pilgrimage. He escorted De Salignac, the French Ambassador to the Sublime Porte,on his journey to Constantinople. The voyage took him to the Ionian Islands, Methoni, Melos and Samos, and he also visited Chios, Rhodes and Cyprus.
The first edition of Beauvau's chronicle was published in Toul in 1608, and the first illustrated edition in Nancy in 1615, and another edition in 1619.
The opening chapter narrates the mission's journey from Venice to Constantinople, where they stayed for four months. The second chapter gives a thorough description of the capital of the Ottoman Empire and of Ottoman institutions and customs. The third and fourth chapters refer respectively to Beauvau's travels in the Holy Land and to his pilgrimage to the biblical sites. In the last two chapters Beauvau records his visit to Egypt, in particular to Cairo, and the return voyage to Naples, where the company arrived in November 1605.
Most of the maps ('pourtraicts des lieux') are after earlier works by Giacomo Franco, Donato Bertelli and Giovani Francesco Camocio.
Baynton-Williams: Cyprus 52: Blackmer/ Navari :106; Sylvia Ioannou; B.0906; Atabey 84 & 85? 107 by 156mm (4¼ by 6¼ inches). Page size 227x176mm
ref: 3296
€650