12mo. 216ff. (including the final leaf of approbation). Inner margins of first 6 leaves very lightly wormed and reinforced, in twentieth century half vellum.
FIRST EDITION of Du Cros’ abridgement of Giovanni Battista Rostagno’s Viaggi del…marchese…Villa in Dalmatia, e Leuante, published in Turin in the preceding year and which Du Cros states in his preface that Rostagno lent him in manuscript form. It gives a vivid day to day account of the siege of Candia (and of Villa’s part in it until his return to Italy and death from his wounds in 1668) which the Turks had begun in 1648 and had renewed with greater vigour in 1667. The city fell in 1669 and was followed by the immediate capitulation of the whole island. Du Cros, a diplomat who worked for Charles II and was later involved in the marriage negotiations of William and Mary, had earlier travelled in the Levant and had spent a little time in Crete in Villa’s retinue. He apologises in his preface for beginning with the last part of Villa’s life as he had originally intended to write his full biography.Blackmer 505; Weber 346.
GBP 500.00
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