[Murad IV, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire]. Copia di due commandamenti del Gran Turco in favore della serafica religione de' Capuccini per poter propagare la Santa Fede Catholica per tutto il di lui regno. Tradotti dalla lingua Turchesa in Francese, e poi in Italiana.

Milano/Bologna/Ravenna, per gli Stamp. Cam., 1628.

8vo. 8 pp. With woodcut title vignette. Wrappers.

 3,500.00

First (and only?) printing of the letter by the Capuchin friar Pacifico Scaliger, leader of his order's mission to Persia and Armenia, written to the Capuchin Guardian of Leghorn (dated 21 May 1627), with the two mandates received from Sultan Murad IV: the first a permit to found a hospital at Aleppo, Syria (12 April 1627); the other granting the Capuchins free passage and permission to reside and teach throughout the Ottoman Empire, wherever there are Christians (26 April 1627).

Some brownstaining; old pagination in manuscript and stamped (apparently removed from an old collection). Of special interest is the title woodcut, showing a round moon within the oriental crescent. The round moon bears a crudely drawn face, incorporating the western notion of a "man in the moon", but the heavily structured lunar surface also provides a curious counterpiece to the famous woodcuts which had appeared in Galileo's groundbreaking "Sidereus Nuncius" but eighteen years previously.

Excessively rare: a single copy in library catalogues (HAB Wolfenbüttel); no records via WorldCat or in Italian libraries via SBN.

References

OCLC 258074666 (no holding records). HAB Wolfenbüttel shelfmark M:Gv Kapsel 7 (46).