[Turkey]. - Lot 64

[Turkey]. [HOLDERMANN, Jean-Baptiste Daniel (Father) MÜTEFERRIKA, Ibrahim]. Grammaire turque, ou méthode courte et facile pour apprendre la langue turque. Avec un recueil des noms, des verbes, & des manières de parler les plus nécessaires à sçavoir, avec plusieurs dialogues familiers. Constantinople, [Ibrahim Müteferrika and Zaïd Aga Effendi], 1730. Small in-4. Contemporary havana half-basin, spine with 4 false nerves, covers in antique oriental dominoté paper with floral motifs, edges speckled with red (wear to edges and corners, headpieces missing, discreet foxing). First edition of Holdermann's Turkish grammar, the first book printed in French in Turkey by Müteferrika. First Franco-Turkish grammar printed in the first Turkish press established in Constantinople in 1726. Consists of a title page with blank verso, [3] ff. dedicatory epistle and preface, [7] pp. introduction, the book begins on the verso of the last page of the introduction with an unencrypted page, and a copper-engraved Turkish alphabetical table on double page numbered 2, with equivalents in Roman characters. Followed by text pp. 3-194, and finally [6] pp. table of contents and [2] pp. errata. Woodcut vignette, entablature and cul-de-lampe. It has been suggested that the total print run did not exceed 100 copies (according to O'Neill). A Jesuit missionary in Constantinople, Jean-Baptiste-Daniel Holdermann (1694-1730) undertook, at the request of the French Embassy and with the help of the scholar Ibrahim Müteferrika (1674-1745), this Franco-Turkish grammar, dedicated to Cardinal de Fleury, Louis XV's Minister of State. Several copies were sent to Paris and presented to the Collège des Jésuites by Abbé Bignon, librarian of the Bibliothèque du Roi. Complete with 2 errata pages and engraved alphabet table. A good, fresh copy. "L'ouvrage est peu commun et assez recherché" (Sommervogel, II, 177). Atabey, 586. Blackmer 824. O'Neill, Impressions of Istanbul, I, 110.