67 - [HEYL QUIRINIUS]: Descriptio novissima Imperii Turcici: Das ist: Eine gantz neue Außführliche und Grundrichtige Beschreib - Vorstell - und Entwerffung deß heutigen Türckischen Reichs. WÜRZBURG, 1687

[HEYL QUIRINIUS]: Descriptio novissima Imperii Turcici: Das ist: Eine gantz neue Außführliche und Grundrichtige Beschreib - Vorstell - und Entwerffung deß heutigen Türckischen Reichs. WÜRZBURG, 1687 First edition,in large Quarto, contemporary full vellum soiled, back down corner trimmed, text generally clean,few pages of text destabilized,some spotting,marginal water stain in the down part on the second part, three sheets at the end with some loss of text, overall in almost very good condition. Following the Siege of Vienna (1683), there was an explosion of interest in the Ottoman Empire, and this book was created specifically to provide a contemporary and comprehensive geographical and social overview of the Ottoman lands across three continents.The book has been published by Quirinus Heyl at Würzburg and provide invaluable genuine information,not present in other sources and most probably gathered by a scholar from the Würzburg or Frankfurt circles who compiled contemporary intelligence for the German public and had first hand information from German mercenaries on actual duty in Greece and the Levant during the long Great Turkish War.The book is organized into three distinct parts, following the geographical reach of the Sultan’s power,Asiatic Turkey: Anatolia, Mesopotamia and the Levant,African Turkey: Egypt, Libya, and the Barbary Coast and finally European Turkey: The Balkans, Greece, and the islands.More than 40 pages described with astonishing contemporary details several Greek cities and areas. The book served as an intelligence briefing for the educated public, combining military geography as distances between cities and the state of fortifications with ethnography (populations, trade etc). As almost all the related contemporary German books, the publisher offered the text additionally as an extra some potential copper plates to add, here was not the case, only the text is present. A very rare informative account.