Details
TRUGUET, Laurent-Jean-François (1752-1839, Comte). Tactique navale ou traité d'évolutions, à l'usage des Turcs. Constantinople: de l'Imprimerie du Palais de France, 1788.
4° (280 x 205mm.). Collation: inserted French title, Turkish title, A-Z Aa2 (Turkish text); 13 folding etched plates, illustrating naval manoeuvres, with Turkish captions. Arabic type throughout. CONTEMPORARY PARISIAN GOLD-TOOLED BINDING BY NICOLAS-DENIS DEROME LE JEUNE, crimson morocco, fine wide dentelle border composed of small tools including a bird, foliage, scallops, dots, roundels, etc., flat spine decorated in compartments with small tools including a trophy, green morocco lettering piece, gilt edges, light-blue silk liners.
The French Embassy Press at Constantinople was started by the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier. Savary de Brèves' Arabic fount and other typographical materials were shipped from Paris, together with the printer Dizerand. Only a few books were printed, manuals in Turkish for the Sultan's armed forces; although they were intended for the exclusive use of the Turks, some copies were supplied with a French title and sent to France. ALL ARE EXCEEDINGLY RARE (there is apparently no copy of the Truguet in the Bibliothèque Nationale). The treatise on naval tactics by Truguet, who had come to Constantinople with Choiseul-Gouffier in 1784, is a masterpiece of oriental typography. Both the copy and superb dentelle binding "à l'oiseau" by Derome le jeune are in immaculate condition. The bird tool appears to be identical to that on a signed Derome binding (De Ricci, Signed Bindings in the Mortimer L. Schiff Collection 38) and the diamond-roll to that on two other signed Derome bindings (De Ricci 44 and 47). F. Babinger, Stambuler Buchwesen im 18. Jahrhundert (1919), p. 27.
4° (280 x 205mm.). Collation: inserted French title, Turkish title, A-Z Aa2 (Turkish text); 13 folding etched plates, illustrating naval manoeuvres, with Turkish captions. Arabic type throughout. CONTEMPORARY PARISIAN GOLD-TOOLED BINDING BY NICOLAS-DENIS DEROME LE JEUNE, crimson morocco, fine wide dentelle border composed of small tools including a bird, foliage, scallops, dots, roundels, etc., flat spine decorated in compartments with small tools including a trophy, green morocco lettering piece, gilt edges, light-blue silk liners.
The French Embassy Press at Constantinople was started by the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier. Savary de Brèves' Arabic fount and other typographical materials were shipped from Paris, together with the printer Dizerand. Only a few books were printed, manuals in Turkish for the Sultan's armed forces; although they were intended for the exclusive use of the Turks, some copies were supplied with a French title and sent to France. ALL ARE EXCEEDINGLY RARE (there is apparently no copy of the Truguet in the Bibliothèque Nationale). The treatise on naval tactics by Truguet, who had come to Constantinople with Choiseul-Gouffier in 1784, is a masterpiece of oriental typography. Both the copy and superb dentelle binding "à l'oiseau" by Derome le jeune are in immaculate condition. The bird tool appears to be identical to that on a signed Derome binding (De Ricci, Signed Bindings in the Mortimer L. Schiff Collection 38) and the diamond-roll to that on two other signed Derome bindings (De Ricci 44 and 47). F. Babinger, Stambuler Buchwesen im 18. Jahrhundert (1919), p. 27.