Moyen orient

Folio (225 x 332 mm). 2 parts in one vol. (12), 143, (1) pp. (6) pp., 1 blank f., 96 pp. With printer's woodcut device to both title-pages. Contemporary half vellum over papered boards with faded handwritten spine title. Second edition of this "at least linguistically rather unusual combination of a Georgian and a Turkish grammar, using the Georgian types first displayed in 1629" (Smitskamp). This is "an almost line for line reprint of the 1643 edition, only distinguishable by the 'Iterum imprimatur' [...] The work is set in mkhedruli type that has no upper case, but upper and lower case khutsuri type (the sacred script) is also displayed, absent in the 1629 'Alphabetum'. In the second part, containing a Turkish grammar (the third of its kind, after those by Megiser [1612] and du Ryer [1630]), the Hebrew and Syriac scripts [...] are also discussed as vehicles of the Arabic or Turkish language. Maggio mentions della Valle as his instructor in Turkish [...] At the end of the second part a Turkish translation is printed of the 'Corolla B.M. Virginis', a widely used devotional prayer" (ibid.). - Binding lightly rubbed. Some browning throughout; occasional worming in the margins. A few contemporary ink corrections in Georgian script. Removed from the library of the Capuchin mission to Trabzon, Turkey (Missione dei Cappuccini di Trebisonda) with their stamp to the title-page. Smitskamp, PO 227. Lang 167. Vater/Jülg 140.