A rare Czech translation of a Turkish chronicle 1594

Joannes Leunclavius

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• About the artwork
  Kronyka Nowa O Narodu Tureckem, na dwa Djili rozdelena.
  Prague, Daniel Adam, 1594. 2 volumes bound as 1. Small 4to (19.5 x 15.5 cm). With the title-page of volume 1 printed in red and black, and the colophon with large woodcut printer's device; the 2nd volume with woodcut ornament on the title-page, and the colophon with a woodcut vignette. Contemporary blind-tooled vellum, with 2 leather straps with brass clasps (later).
  
  Extremely rare first Czech edition of a famous Turkish chronicle, translated after the German by Jan Kocin. The text was based on a 16th-century Turkish manuscript by Muhammed ibn Hasanjan, called Saadeddin, which described the Turkish history up to the year 1550. This manuscript was brought from Istanbul by the Austrian scholar Hieronymus Beck in 1551, and subsequently translated into German by Joannes Gautier, or Spiegel, the interpreter of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I. Gautier augmented the manuscript with a continuation of the history to the year 1588, and this version was rendered into Latin by Joannes Leunclavius, or Hans Lewenklau.
  Library stamps on title-pages; occasionally browning throughout; with a few old owner's entries; new endpapers; first blank strengthened; a few old owner's entries. Good copy of an extremely rare Prague imprint.
  Göllner, Turcica 1956; USTC 568735; WorldCat (4 copies, including 1 incomplete).
• About the artist
  Johannes Leunclavius was born in 1541 in Germany. He was known as both an historian and an orientalist. His involvement Turkish history, republishing and annotating Ottoman sources, uncovers his expertese on the field. He also edited Xenophon, Cassius Dio and other classical authors. His most renowned work is called 'Hist Turcia Musulmanica'. Leunclavius was known to be a friend of the nobleman Heinrich von Lichtenstein and he accompanied him on a diplomatic mission to Istanbul from 1584 to 1585. He was also a friend of Friedrich Sylburg, who published a translation of Zosimus of his. Leunclavius passed away in 1594.