41 - REUSNER NICOLAUS: RERUM MEMORABILIUM IN PANNONIA SUB TURCARUM IMPERATORIBUS A CAPTA CONSTANTINOPOLI…., FRANKFURTI, 1593 {second printing Colocae, 1770}

REUSNER NICOLAUS: RERUM MEMORABILIUM IN PANNONIA SUB TURCARUM IMPERATORIBUS A CAPTA CONSTANTINOPOLI…., FRANKFURTI, 1593 {second printing Colocae, 1770} An astonishing extra rare second printing of the first edition, almost two centuries after! A real rarity. Large in Quarto, contemporary blue publishers hard paper covers, complete, text clean and bright, overall in very good plus condition. A fascinating later edition of a 16th-century classic. The work was compiled by Nicolaus Reusner (1545-1602), a German humanist, and it serves as one of the most important primary source collections for the history of the Turkish Wars in Europe and the gradual capture of the Balkan peninsula by the Turks after the capture of Constantinople. It is a compilation of letters, eyewitness accounts, and official reports regarding the Ottoman Levant. This particular edition, with two dates, 1593 and 1770 on the title page, is a curious and somewhat very rare scholarly revival, is a flagrant example of a reprint to demonstrate how the Ottoman empire was two centuries ago then,to compare with the dilapidated condition that it was in 1770 at the wake of the contemporary Russian attack which opened the Eastern Question. By 1770, the Ottoman Empire was perceived as being in total decline and the Europeans looked back at Reusner’s 16th-century accounts to understand the historical roots and their reversal…, the work contains speeches by European diplomats urging unity against the Turks,correspondence from generals on the front lines in Greece and Hungary. The 1770 revival edition is a proof of how long Reusner’s work remained very important for the Levant understanding. Even 200 years after being written, Enlightenment scholars still turned to it to study the history of the Ottoman Levant.