Details
BESSARION, Joannes, Cardinal (1403-72). Ad Italiae principes contra Turcas exhortatio. Rome: Antonio Blado, September 1537.
4° (194 x 136 mm). Collation: A-F4 G6. 30 leaves, G6 blank. Italic type. Full-page woodcut of a beardless tonsured man in religious habit preaching before a king and crowd of armed men (G5v), woodcut printer's device on title, 4 ornamental woodcut initials, one initial space with guide letter. (Light spotting to a1v-a2v.) Modern vellum over pasteboards.
Provenance: washed 17th-century annotations on G6v.
Third edition of the Latin orations of Bessarion against the Turks. Bessarion, born in Trebizond, was educated in Constantinople where he became a Basilian monk and priest of the Greek Orthodox church. A member of the Greek delegation to the Council of Florence (1438-39), he entered into communion with the Roman Catholic church and remained in Italy. Named cardinal, he was nearly elected pope in 1455, and remained an influential member of the Roman hierarchy. Throughout his career Bessarion sought to promote the crusade against the Turks, especially after their siege and conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The present orations, urging the states of Italy to unite and oppose the common enemy who threatened to overrun them, were written in 1470, soon after the fall of Euboea. The text was first printed in 1471 in Paris, by Gering, Cranz and Friburger (Goff B-519) and reprinted in Paris in 1500. An Italian translation was published in Venice, also in 1471, and was reprinted at least three times before the end of the 16th century. The publication of the present edition was probably occasioned by the renewed advance of the Turks under Sultan Suleiman I (1520-66) and in particular the (unsuccessful) Turkish siege of Corfu in 1536.
Adams B-831; BM/STC Italian, p. 90; Fumagalli Blado 43; Göllner Turcica 589.
4° (194 x 136 mm). Collation: A-F4 G6. 30 leaves, G6 blank. Italic type. Full-page woodcut of a beardless tonsured man in religious habit preaching before a king and crowd of armed men (G5v), woodcut printer's device on title, 4 ornamental woodcut initials, one initial space with guide letter. (Light spotting to a1v-a2v.) Modern vellum over pasteboards.
Provenance: washed 17th-century annotations on G6v.
Third edition of the Latin orations of Bessarion against the Turks. Bessarion, born in Trebizond, was educated in Constantinople where he became a Basilian monk and priest of the Greek Orthodox church. A member of the Greek delegation to the Council of Florence (1438-39), he entered into communion with the Roman Catholic church and remained in Italy. Named cardinal, he was nearly elected pope in 1455, and remained an influential member of the Roman hierarchy. Throughout his career Bessarion sought to promote the crusade against the Turks, especially after their siege and conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The present orations, urging the states of Italy to unite and oppose the common enemy who threatened to overrun them, were written in 1470, soon after the fall of Euboea. The text was first printed in 1471 in Paris, by Gering, Cranz and Friburger (Goff B-519) and reprinted in Paris in 1500. An Italian translation was published in Venice, also in 1471, and was reprinted at least three times before the end of the 16th century. The publication of the present edition was probably occasioned by the renewed advance of the Turks under Sultan Suleiman I (1520-66) and in particular the (unsuccessful) Turkish siege of Corfu in 1536.
Adams B-831; BM/STC Italian, p. 90; Fumagalli Blado 43; Göllner Turcica 589.