VASCO DIAZ TANCO: Turckische Historien von der Turcken Ankunfft, Regierung, Konigen und Keysern Kriegen, Schlachten, Victorien und Sigen, wider Christen und Heiden….Frankfurt 1563, together: GIOVANNI MENAVINO: Das ander Buch von dem Machometischen glauben, Gesatz und Religion, Leben, Handtierungen, Wandel und wessen .idem 1565, together: JOHANNES AVERTINUS: Das Dritte Buch dess Achtbaren und wirdigen Herrn Johannis Avertini, idem 1565. A German mid-16th-century collection of three historical accounts on the Ottoman Levant. In folio (32 × 22 cm). Later vellum over boards. Ex-libris of Franz Pollack in Parnau on front pastedown. Strong uniform browning throughout, title, [98], 93 numbered leaves, [6], 119 numbered leaves, [8], 40 numbered leaves. Last page restored; title page with light restoration at two edges. Overall good. Vasco Díaz Tanco (c.1500–1560), a Spanish soldier in his youth, was captured and enslaved in Algiers by Ottoman pirates. Later he became a specialist in Ottoman history and wrote extensively on the Turks and their society. His works circulated widely in mid-16th-century Europe, at a time when Ottoman piracy, unchecked until Lepanto, terrified the Mediterranean world. His account also describes the Turkish wars up to 1538. Giovanni Menavino (1492–c.1550), a Genoese mariner, was likewise captured by Ottoman pirates in Greek waters and held for years in Constantinople. In the late 1510s he wrote a lengthy and unusually objective eyewitness account of Ottoman life, free from the usual clichés and invective. Johannes Aventinus, the German historian, translated both works into German and supplemented them with his own notes, summarizing the struggle against the Turks. A classical compilation of firsthand testimonies on the Ottoman threat, still urgent in the mid-16th century after the great conquests of Suleiman the Magnificent. Provides exhaustive details on Ottoman society and the condition of conquered Christians, as recorded by two men who first endured captivity and then traveled widely in the Levant. References: Göllner II 1042; Apponyi 1742, 1746, 1755.