121 - Zacchia, Laudivio. Letters from the Great Mahomet, Emperor of the Turks. Venice, Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1563. First Italian edition, translated by Ludovico Dolce

Zacchia, Laudivio. Letters from the Great Mahomet, Emperor of the Turks. Venice, Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1563. First Italian edition, translated by Ludovico Dolce Zacchia, Laudivio. Letters of the Great Mahomet, Emperor of the Turks. Venice, Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1563. Octavo (152 x 100 mm); 192 pages. Printer’s mark on the title page, engraved initials and headpieces (lower margin of the title page is slightly trimmed). Contemporary full-parchment binding (delicate restorations). A collection of letters attributed to Mehmed II, but in reality the product of Zacchia’s literary imagination, depicting correspondence between the conqueror of Constantinople and the rulers of Persia, Greece, Italy, and the Mediterranean islands. The work, conceived as a rhetorical and political exercise, reflects the European perception of Ottoman power and dramatizes the confrontation between the Christian and Muslim worlds. First Italian edition, translated by Ludovico Dolce