156 - [Turkey]. DALLAWAY, Jacques.

[Turkey]. DALLAWAY, Jacques. Ancient and Modern Constantinople, and a Description of the Coasts and Islands of the Archipelago and the Troad. Paris: Denné the Younger, Year VII (1798–1799). 2 volumes in-8, frontispiece, VIII-371-(1) pp., fold-out table and frontispiece, (2)-292 pp., fold-out map. Contemporary fawn half-basane, smooth spine highlighted with gilt fillets, red title label, gilt title and volume number, speckled edges (spine rubbed with small losses, head caps worn down, small marginal tear on the map, a few scattered foxing spots but interior remains fresh). A rare French first edition, translated by the famous Abbé Morellet during the Revolution. Based on Dallaway’s work published in London in 1797. Illustrated with two fold-out views: the Pointe du Serrail as seen from the British Ambassador’s Palace in Pera (the Sarrayburnu) and a View of the Plain of Troy taken from Hector’s Tomb, engraved in black on copper by Bovinet after Mercati, as frontispieces to each volume; a painting in Volume I and a fold-out map, *Sketch of the Plain of Troy*, engraved in black on copper by Gaitte in Volume II. Dallaway, then a member of the British Embassy in Constantinople, provides insights into both the political organization and the Ottoman, Armenian, Roman, and Byzantine architecture. Considered at the time to be one of the finest works in English on Constantinople. The artist who drew the views, Gaetani Mercati, had accompanied the embassy to the Sublime Porte from 1793 to 1796. Blackmer, 441. Atabey, 309.