[Persia]. - Lot 203

[Persia]. CHICK, Herbert. A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia and the Papal Mission of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1939. 2 large volumes in-4, XXXII-720 pp, [4] pp, and pp. 721-1376. Publisher's boards in printed dust jacket with flaps (cover slightly soiled with small chips and tears at edges, but a good copy). First edition of this important work on the history of the region, based on exhaustive documentation and illustrated with a portrait, 39 plates and a fold-out map. In 1604, Pope Clement VIII sent a mission of Discalced Carmelites to Persia to seek an alliance with the Shah ʿAbbās I (996-1038 AH / 1588-1629) against the Ottoman Empire. These religious, recruited in Italy to escape the control of the King of Portugal, who then held a monopoly on missions in Asia, were warmly welcomed by Shah ʿAbbās I and allowed to settle in Isfahan in 1608. Direct witnesses to the greatness and then the decline of the Safavid dynasty, as well as to the troubled period that followed, the Discalced Carmelites built up a vast corpus of writings over nearly two centuries. The very rare two-volume Chick Chronicle is a source of prime importance for researchers, bringing together these exceptional documents and offering unparalleled testimony on politics, diplomatic rituals and correspondence. Stamp of the "Bibliothèque Bonne Presse".