COMPTE DE RIANT: LES DEPOUILLES RELIGIEUSES ENLEVEES A CONSTANTINOPLE AU XIII SIECLE ET DES DOCUMENTS HISTORIQUES NES DE LEUR TRANSPORT EN OCCIDENT. PARIS [1875] FIRST EDITION, in 8vo, publishers blue paper covers, spine slightly faded, text clean and bright, complete 282p. and 4 lithographed plates, overall in very good plus condition. A fundamental work for the history of the Fourth Crusade and the systematic sack and transport of sacred objects from the Byzantine East to the Latin West. It provides a scientific inventory of the massive plunder of religious treasures, relics, reliquaries, and liturgical items following the Sack of Constantinople in 1204.First part is a detailed account of how the Latin Crusaders systematically stripped Byzantine churches of their most sacred contents. Riant tracks how the religious booty was divided. For example, he notes that relics were distributed in specific proportions: three-eighths each for the Venetians and the Latin Emperor (Baldwin of Flanders), and two-eighths for the French. The second half of the book focuses on the historical, hagiographic, and liturgical documents that were written specifically to record the arrival (adventus) and authentication of these objects in European cities like Soissons, Amalfi, and Halberstadt. It remains one of the primary sources for identifying the origin of many Byzantine treasures currently held in Western European cathedrals, such as the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris or the Treasury of San Marco. A very valuable scientific account of the sack of Constantinople in 1204.