BAUDIER: Histoire du Serail et de la Cour du Grand Seigneur Empereur des Turcs. Paris 1624 First edition. In 4to (24 × 17 cm). Early 19th-century leather over boards. Complete: 175, [9] pp. Some browning, otherwise very good. Bound at the end—probably during the early 19th-century rebinding—is Histoire de la Cour de Chine (complete: 56 pp.). One of the rarest editions relating to the Levant: only two copies are known in public libraries worldwide, and the BnF copy is incomplete. Michel Baudier (1589–1645) had a particular interest in the Turks. He traveled in the Levant in the early 17th century and published three works on the Ottomans. This is his final publication on the subject and offers a detailed presentation of the Ottoman palace, with an eyewitness account of its ceremonial life, descriptions of several Constantinople monuments, and a comprehensive survey of the Ottoman administrative system at all levels. It is possible that Baudier incorporated into his account official reports of French ambassadors to the Porte, as he was himself a court official of the French king during the 1620s. The appended second work deals with the Chinese court. This is one of the earliest and most accurate presentations of Constantinople as the capital of the powerful Ottoman Empire. Not in Atabey or Blackmer. Rare.