MELCHIOR LORCK: [TURKISH PUBLICATIONS] Eine Speciale Beschreibung Der Muselmänner oder Türcken: Nach ihren vielfältigen Bedienungen zu Hoff und im Felde / Geist- und Weltlichen / Mann- und Weibs-Persohnen / Ordens-Leuthen / Sclaven / Last und andern Thieren / Gebauden / Musqueen / Kirchen und Herbergen {together} Grundliche Beschreibung des nunmehr fast gan Europa erschutternden Turken-Krieges… {together}Von dem Gebieth und Landschafften Des Türckischen Käysers / und zwar zufoderst in EUROPA... Thracien…, die Landschaften Griechenland… {together at head} Eine kurtze Vorstellung Aller NATIONEN und Königreiche In Asia / Africa und America {together at end} Al Koran. Happel Thesaurus Exoticorum, Hambrurg 1688. Third edition of the famous Turkish Publications and the only obtainable,first edition for the accompanying text and first edition of the other accounts compiled by Happel,FOLIO,18th century leather over boards, complete all five parts present, irregular separate paginations 120p.,192p.,160p., 288p.,112p.,engraved frontis, one hundred eighty eight (188) fine woodcuts, many full page, and twenty five copper (25) plates, many folded, some creating huge panoramas of cities, in total 213 illustrations, some restorations at the edges of pages at the very beginning and at the very last pages, also in few plates, with some loss of text or image, due to the weak paper as often, few scattered browning or spotting, occasionally misfolding,few marginal tears, one plate detached, some general wear but overall in very good condition. Melchior Lorck, a Danish painter, travelled to Constantinople at the 1550s and stayed for years. He prepared an extensive publication with many fine woodcuts and few copper engravings that were executed in the late 16th century in Hamburg, but this book never materialized up to his death. The plates include amazing views of the Levant (focused on people, but also palaces, churches, including the earlier depictions of Byzantine churches in Constantinople etc) creating the best ever produced corpus during 16th century. In the early 17th century they found the woodcuts and the copper plates and did two publications of only the plates,now of extreme rarity (Fisher:Melchior Lorck, 2010).Due to the ongoing in the 1680s big Turkish war,Happel compiled a huge Folio volume, with several accounts and included on some of his publications Lorck s fantastic illustrations, this time including accompanying texts around them. As Fisher demonstrated, in his specific study for Lorck, the texts that most probably are coming also from the original papers of Lorck are somehow confused and had not finished. Modern specialists of art evaluation compare Lorck works with Durer s. This edition contain 123 woodcuts (and few copper engravings) from Lorck, all comes from the same original woodblocks of the 16th century,just Happel erased some dates and signatures after more than a century. He added also other lengthy contemporary accounts for the Turkish war describing in details the Levant, including very accurate descriptions of many places in Greece. These accounts are accompanied with other illustrations including fine views of cities in Greece, maps and battles. There is no doubt that this collection of more than 200 illustrations is among the best ever produced and the Folio size make them impressive. It includes one huge (80x34cm) folded plate with more than 30 views of Greek cities celebrating their liberation by the Venetians, a fantastic double page (40x33cm) engraved view of the conquest of Nafplio after Van Luyken famous painting( now in the Museum of Amsterdam), an other one double page depict Koroni conquest. It include also rare folded maps of Greece (unrecorded to Zacharakis). All these 17th century fine rare engravings complete the fantastic corpus of Lorck. Lorck original plates and woodcut blocks have been lost around 1700 and no further publication exist.Of the outmost rarity