Shaikhzade Ahmed Misri. Istoria della Sultana di Persia. Novelle turche. Composte in lingua turca da Chéc Zadé e tradotto dal francese nell’idioma italiano.

€ 2,800.00

Second Italian edition of this important collection of oriental tales now known as the "Forty Viziers", first published in Italy in 1728. The first western edition, in French, appeared three years after Galland's first edition of the Arabian Nights, following its characteristic frame-narrative structure. It echoes the Biblical story of Potiphar's Wife, concerning a young prince who refuses the advances of his stepmother, who then denounces him to the sultan. The prince is put on trial, by means of alternate tales told by the sultana and the forty viziers. Petis de la Croix (1653-1713), dragoman to Louis XIV, attributes the Turkish original to one Chéc Zadé (Shaikhzade Ahmed Misri), tutor to the Ottoman ruler Murad II (r. 1421-51), but it is now thought that that the tales date back to Arabic original no longer extant, possibly written in Egypt for the Turkic ruler al-Ikhshid (r. 935-946), and that two writers were involved in its production: "an Ahmed-i Misri [Ahmed the Egyptian] who translated the work from Arabic and presented it to Murad II, and a Sheykh Zade who took up the text later, presenting it to both Murad II and Mehmed II" (Burrill, "Sheykh-Zade", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd).