Christian-Muslim Exchange (Renaissance and Reformation)

Introduction

The historical relationship between Islam and Christianity has deep historiographical roots; however, given recent events and tensions, it has attracted much renewed interest. For a long time, the primary approach to Christian-Muslim exchange was through the prism of conflict. In time this was supplemented by two new branches, a literature that emphasized the significance of Islamic influences on medieval and early modern European developments, and a wide literature, primarily from the Western perspective, of Christian/European attitudes to and images of Islam and Islamic polities, particularly the Ottoman Empire. On the former point, some concerns have been raised that perhaps the pendulum has swung too far and that Islamic influences on everything from Dante to Copernicus have been exaggerated. In the past two decades, the study of Christian-Muslim exchange has produced a fruitful, more complex understanding of the interrelationship between the two heirs to the Greco-Roman Mediterranean.

General Overviews

Included here are multiauthored works as well as works that broadly survey aspects of Christian/Muslim exchange and relations. Saïd 1979 is essential for any discussion of Christian/Muslim exchange. Bulliett 2004 proposes a provocative reworking of the concept of Judeo-Christian in favor Islamo-Christian civilization. Darling 2006 provides a general overview of the connection between Islam and Christianity, whereas Burnett and Contadini 2000 surveys influences in areas from science to the decorative arts. Venezia e i turchi is a beautifully illustrated overview of numerous aspects of the Veneto-Ottoman relationship, while Carboni 2007 specifically examines artistic and commercial links between the two states.

Bulliet, Richard W. The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
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A provocative essay that emphasizes the shared roots and common history of Islam and Christianity and their long history of exchange and cross-pollination. Through a wide-ranging historical survey, takes the hopeful view that their shared history can be the basis for peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims.
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Burnett, Charles, and Anna Contadini, eds. Islam and the Italian Renaissance. London: Warburg Institute, 2000.
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Examines the reciprocal influences between Italian Renaissance and Islamic culture in a wide spectrum of areas, ranging from science and philosophy to the visual and decorative arts. The primary focus is on Venice and the Ottomans, but other Italian and Islamic regions are also examined.
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Carboni, Stefano. Venice and the Islamic World, 828–1797. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007.
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This colorfully illustrated exhibition catalog illustrates almost a millennium of Venetian contacts and exchange with the Islamic world. It outlines Islamic influences on Venetian arts and sciences, Venetian views of Muslims as depicted in art, and the influence of Islamic cultures on Venetian artisanal styles and techniques.
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Darling, Linda T. “The Renaissance and the Middle East.” In A Companion to the Worlds of the Renaissance. Edited by Guido Ruggiero, 55–69. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
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Concise and useful overview of developments in the Islamic Middle East and their relationship to the European Renaissance.
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Saïd, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1979.
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An indispensable, highly provocative text that looms over all questions of Christian-Muslim relations. Based primarily on modern European literature, Saïd argues that Europeans represented the “Orient” as “other” and essentially inferior and that these views were central to Western imperialism.
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Venezia e i turchi: Scontri confronti di due civiltà. Milan: Electa, 1985.
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A beautifully and extensively illustrated volume of essays on the political, commercial, military, and cultural history of the relationship between the Venetian and Ottoman Empires during the early modern period.
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Artistic Exchange

One of the most fruitful focuses of research in Muslim-Christian relations has been in the area of artistic exchanges. Renaissance studies have long privileged the place of Italy in their narrative, but recent scholarship places many of the characteristic developments of the period into a broader, more Mediterranean context, emphasizing the dialogue between East and West. Much of this literature has focused on Venice, and the Mediterraneanization of the Renaissance has progressed hand-in-hand with the great growth in Venetian studies in recent years. Raby 1982 is an important early work on the interplay of commerce and art, with special attention to Dürer. Campbell, et al. 2005 treats similar ground but focuses on Bellini, while Jardine and Brotton 2000 looks more at material culture. Brotton 2003 picks up these themes, though not without controversy for its seeming overstatement of the originality of its argument and paucity of documentation. Howard 2000 and Mack 2002 are more solidly researched and supported, and they are essential. Necipoğlu 2005 illustrates the importance of Italian Renaissance models on the great Ottoman architect Sinan.

Brotton, Jerry. The Renaissance Bazaar: From the Silk Road to Michelangelo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
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An attempt at historical synthesis, arguing that the Renaissance cannot be understood in a narrow, Italian context but rather is heavily influenced by Islamic and Middle Eastern predecessors and models.
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Campbell, Caroline, Alan Chong, et al. Bellini and the East. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.
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An exquisitely illustrated exhibition catalogue on the famous sojourn of Gentile Bellini in Istanbul in the later 15th century and the reciprocal influences on both Venetian and Ottoman art and culture produced by this encounter.
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Howard, Deborah. Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture, 1100–1500. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.
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A meticulous researched and beautifully illustrated volume by an excellent scholar. Surveys in exacting detail the importation by Venetian travelers, merchants, and diplomats of Islamic architectural elements and the ways in which these were adopted and adapted in Venetian architecture.
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Jardine, Lisa, and Jerry Brotton. Global Interests: Renaissance Art Between East and West. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000.
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Demonstrates the East-West exchange of ideas, techniques, and motifs in Renaissance art, focusing specifically on portrait medals, tapestries, and equestrian art.
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Mack, Rosamond E. Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300–1600. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
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Contends that the Italian Renaissance did not occur in isolation but rather was the product of a dialogue with and synthesis of artistic ideas that were heavily influenced by contributions from the Islamic world. This is supported through an analysis of the commercial and artistic exchange between Italy and the Islamic Mediterranean. Chapters treat specific goods, such as glass, patterned silks, ceramics, and carpets, to illustrate how Renaissance Italian patterns and artisanal methods were rooted in the Middle East.
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Necipoğlu, Gulru. The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
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The essential work on the Ottoman architect Sinan. Surveys with vivid illustrations the range of his works, from mosques to more mundane commissions, and situates them in a wider cultural and historical context. Argues that Sinan’s unique designs were heavily influenced by his court patrons and draws parallels with contemporary Italian architecture, knowledge of which she argues circulated widely in the Mediterranean and heavily influenced the Ottoman architect.
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Raby, Julian. Venice, Dürer, and the Oriental Mode. London: Philip Wilson, 1982.
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Examines Venetian Orientalism in the later 15th century and argues that early depictions of Muslims and Islamic motifs in Venetian painting were informed by Venice’s political and commercial links with the Ottoman Empire. In turn, Venetian Orientalism impacted artists well beyond its borders, including Albrecht Dürer.
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Ideas And Technologies

Earlier generations often reduced Christian-Muslim relations to simplistic binaries of opposition and misunderstanding. Lewis 1982, for example, argues that Muslims had little curiosity about Europe until the later early modern period, a view which Matar 2008 challenges. Rodinson 1987 argues that Europeans entertained a range of views toward Islam and is an important corrective to the highly influential work of Edward Saïd (see General Overviews) and much of the literature of image. Saliba 2007 addresses the impact of Islamic science on Europe, and Saliba, et al. 2004 illustrates the influence of Eastern techniques on new European glass and ceramic industries. Wright 1999 is a delightful and eclectic study that posits a shared Mediterranean food culture.

Lewis, Bernard. The Muslim Discovery of Europe. New York: Norton, 1982.
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An important work that surveys Muslim (primarily Ottoman) perspectives on Europe from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. Contends that in general Muslims exhibited little interest in Europe and European ideas until the beginnings of the modern era—a view that has now been discredited.
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Matar, Nabil. Europe through Arab Eyes, 1578–1727. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
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A collection of North African early modern documents with a thought-provoking introduction. Shows how Muslim observers responded to the rise of European power and undercuts the thesis of Lewis 1982 that Muslims were uninterested in Europe until the later 18th century.
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Rodinson, Maxime. Europe and the Mystique of Islam. Translated by Roger Venius. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987.
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An expansive reflection on European views of the Muslim world from medieval to modern times, this is an important response to Saïd 1979 (cited under General Overviews). Calls for a more nuanced understanding of European’s views of Islam and argues that Europeans had not one but many responses to Islam.
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Saliba, George. Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007.
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Although primarily focusing on the origins of Islamic science in the 9th and 10th centuries, in its final chapters this book also deals with the relationship between European and Islamic astronomy and science in the late medieval and early modern period.
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Saliba, George, Linda Komaroff, and Catherine Hess, eds. The Arts of Fire: Islamic Influences on Glass and Ceramics of the Italian Renaissance. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004.
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This exhibition catalogue demonstrates the role of Byzantine and Islamic artisans in the introduction of glassworking and ceramic techniques in Italy via Venice.
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Wright, Clifford. A Mediterranean Feast: The Story of the Birth of the Celebrated Cuisines of the Mediterranean from the Merchants of Venice to the Barbary Corsairs, with More than 500 Recipes. New York: William Morrow, 1999.
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Inspired by Braudel’s vision of Mediterranean unity, this is a fascinating and eclectic examination of the cross-pollination of cuisine in the Mediterranean.
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Image Literature

One of the most extensive areas of scholarly writing on Christian-Muslim relations has been image literature. This cultural-intellectual history deals with the ways Christian Europeans depicted the alterity of Islam and the Ottomans in art and literature. Pioneering works like Rouillard 1938 and Chew 1937 were followed by a second generation of scholarship, including Daniel 1993 and Schwoebel 1969. These early works underlined the seemingly monotone and stereotypical character of European treatments of Islam. Blanks and Frassetto 1999 and Valensi 1993 provide an important corrective to this view by emphasizing the complexity and breadth of European views. Bisaha 2004 and Meserve 2008 examine not only the ways in which Islam informed the writings of Italian humanists but also the ways these views informed subsequent European attitudes toward Islam.

Bisaha, Nancy. Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
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Through a survey of thirty Italian humanists, Bisaha discusses how their writings grew out of medieval views of Islam and how these Renaissance views in turn helped form subsequent European views of Islam.
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Blanks, David R., and Michael Frassetto, eds. Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Perception of Other. New York: St. Martin’s, 1999.
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The eleven excellent essays in this interdisciplinary volume examine the ways Europe has viewed and interacted with Islam during the medieval and beginning of the early modern period. Collectively they strive to demonstrate that conflict represents only a part of the interactions between East and West, with intellectual and cultural exchange also comprising an important element of relations.
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Chew, Samuel C. The Crescent and the Rose: Islam and England during the Renaissance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937.
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A seminal work that examines the writings on Islam of travelers, pilgrims, and traders and their impact on Renaissance England, including Shakespeare and other contemporary literary figures.
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Daniel, Norman. Islam and the West: The Making of an Image. Rev. ed. Oxford: Oneworld, 1993.
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A seminal study when first published in 1960 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), this volume catalogues in exhaustive detail Western views of and knowledge about Islam as evidenced in religious literature. The focus is primarily on the later Middle Ages and emphasizes the monotone quality of almost everything written in Europe about Islam.
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Meserve, Margaret. Empires of Islam in Renaissance Historical Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
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Examines the ways in which Italian humanists’ histories attempted to explain and understand the rise of the Ottomans, which was primarily in polemical terms. Seeks also to situate this writing in the context of the debate on Orientalism.
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Rouillard, Clarence Dana. The Turk in French History, Thought, and Literature (1520–1660). Paris: Boivin, 1938.
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Provides an overview of the Franco-Ottoman relationship from 1520 to 1660 and the ways in which this was expressed in French culture. Although critical of the Ottomans politically, the French were more inclined to look upon Ottoman culture more favorably.
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Schwoebel, Robert. The Shadow of the Crescent: The Renaissance Image of the Turk (1453–1517). New York: St. Martin’s, 1969.
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Surveys Western attitudes toward Islam and specifically the Ottoman Empire from the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to Martin Luther’s ninety-five theses in 1517. Emphasizes European fears and anxieties of the powerful Ottoman sultans who appeared poised to expand their empire into European lands.
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Valensi, Lucette. The Birth of the Despot: Venice and the Sublime Porte. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.
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Traces Venetian views of the Ottoman Empire, and particularly its rulers, over the course of the 16th and early 17th centuries. Argues for a historically contingent and nuanced view among Venetians rather than the simplistic view often portrayed in earlier image literature.
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Literary Exchange

As with art and architecture, there is a smaller but equally suggestive body of scholarship highlighting the interplay of ideas and styles between Muslim and Christian writers. The earliest work was done on Islamic influences on Dante, which is surveyed in Cantarino 1965. Also focusing on the High Middle Ages is Mallette 2005, which analyzes Sicily’s multilingual and multicultural literary heritage. Preto 1975 is valuable, if encyclopedic. Menocal 1990 is essential, though some critics have questioned her perceived exaggeration of Islamic influences on canonical texts of European literature. Vitkus 2000 presents three early modern English “Turk” plays, which provide a useful window onto the impact of Islamic themes on the English stage. The most important recent work is Andrews and Kalpaklı 2005.

Andrews, Walter G., and Mehmet Kalpaklı. The Age of the Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
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A fine example of collaborative scholarship by specialists on European and Ottoman poetry, this important work illustrates the cross-pollination between Ottoman and European love poetry in the 16th and 17th centuries.
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Cantarino, Vincente. “Dante and Islam: History and Analysis of a Controversy.” In A Dante Symposium in Commemoration of the 700th Anniversary of the Poet’s Birth (1265–1965). Edited by William de Sua and Gino Rezzo, 175–198. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965.
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An invaluable bibliographic essay that examines the literature on possible Arabic influences in Dante’s great Divine Comedy.
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Mallette, Karla. The Kingdom of Sicily, 1100–1250: A Literary History. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
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Analyzes the hybrid literary culture produced in Norman Sicily, which combined elements of Greek, Arabic, and Latin literature. Through the analysis of a wide range of sources, this work argues for a multilingual, shared literary history, rather than the traditional view of the island divided along cultural, linguistic, and religious lines.
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Menocal, Maria Rosa. The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
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A groundbreaking and therefore controversial work that argues for the influence of Arabic literary culture on the shaping of medieval and Renaissance European literature, including Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.
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Preto, Paolo. Venezia e i turchi. Florence, Italy: Sansoni, 1975.
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An expansive cataloguing of seemingly every trace of, or reference to, the Ottomans in Venetian society, with particular attention to literature. Light on analysis, but encyclopedic in its survey of the ongoing effluence of Ottoman culture in Venice over the long course of their complex, close relationship.
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Vitkus, Daniel. Three Turk Plays from Early Modern England. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
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The lengthy introduction to these English plays provides a useful context for understanding the impact of Islamic and Ottoman motifs on the early modern English stage.
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Spain

Because of its lengthy and distinctive political and cultural relationship to Islam, Spanish literature and art, and indeed all of society, has been uniquely marked by Islamic culture. Fuchs 2009 examines Moorish influence on early modern Spanish identity and culture broadly, while Garcés 2005 looks more specifically at Cervantes and his debt to Mediterranean culture broadly speaking. López-Baralt 1992 aims to reinterpret Spanish literature since the Middle Ages in light of its oft-overlooked debt to Spanish-Arab culture.

Fuchs, Barbara. Exotic Nation: Maurophilia and the Construction of Early Modern Spain. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.
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An ambitious and important examination of the complex, simultaneously quotidian and exotic place of Spain’s Moorish past, not only on its literary culture but also on its architecture, festivities, and dress during the early modern period.
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Garcés, María Antonia. Cervantes in Algiers: A Captive’s Tale. Rev. ed. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2005.
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Situates Cervantes in the context of his five-year captivity in Algiers, which profoundly affected his writings. Provides a sophisticated, wide-ranging reading of the cultural context of the early modern Mediterranean.
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López-Baralt, Luce. Islam in Spanish Literature from the Middle Ages to the Present. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1992.
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An English translation of Huellas del Islam en la literatura española: de Juan Ruiz a Juan Goytisolo (Madrid, Spain: Hiperión, 1985), this book makes a compelling case for a comprehensive reinterpretation of medieval, early modern, and modern Spanish literature by emphasizing its profound debt to Spanish-Arab culture.
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Trade

One of the aspects of Christian-Muslim exchange which attracted some of the earliest scholarly attention was commercial contact between Europe and the Levant. Although much of this literature focuses on the Middle Ages, the Levantine trade remained significant into the Renaissance and early modern period. Earlier generations of studies, such as Heyd 1879, focused on the European side of the Levantine trade, while more recent scholarship has emphasized the reciprocal character of this commerce. Ashtor 1983 is most ambitious in its scope, while Fleet 1999 looks more narrowly at Genoese-Ottoman trade. Kafadar 1986 is important for debunking the myth that Muslim merchants did not trade directly in Christian Europe. Brummett 1994 similarly undercuts traditional interpretations of Ottoman expansion by showing its underlying commercial motive.

Ashtor, Eliyahu. Levant Trade in the Later Middle Ages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
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Provides a solid and broad chronological survey of the Levantine trade from 1300 to 1500. Based on both Arab and European sources, it develops a more multifaceted picture of the trade in its late medieval heyday than Heyd 1879, which views the Levantine trade as a primarily European phenomenon.
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Brummett, Palmira. Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
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Traditional historiography long ignored any explicit commercial motivation in Ottoman policies of expansion. This book shows the commercial intent behind Ottoman expansion, rather than simply being driven by a Gazi ethic of religious warfare.
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Fleet, Kate. European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State: The Merchants of Genoa and Turkey. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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Through an encyclopedic though only lightly analytical examination of the materials and modes of Genoese-Ottoman trade, this work argues for the reciprocal significance of trade on Genoa and the Ottoman Empire as well as for the importance of Genoese capital and expertise on the empire’s early development. Also emphasizes the economic (as opposed to military or jihadist) rationale to the sultans’ expansion.
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Heyd, Wilhelm. Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter. 2 vols. Stuttgart, Germany: J. G. Cotta, 1879.
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A still-valuable overview of the medieval Levantine trade from the fall of Rome to the early 16th century, this work is most easily accessible in the 1885 French translation, Histoire du commerce du Levant au Moyen Âge (Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert, 1983).
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Kafadar, Cemal. “A Death in Venice (1575): Anatolian Muslim Merchants Trading in the Serenissima.” Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 191–218.
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This is paradigm-shifting article contending that, contrary to long-held historical assumptions, Islamic states did not turn over all their trade with Christians to non-Muslim intermediaries, and Muslim merchants were not averse to traveling to Dar al-harb to trade.
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Travel

The growing number of travel accounts that appear from the late 15th century onward has given rise to a rich literature on travel itself, and these numerous travel narratives are also used as sources for scholarly inquiry. Rubiés 2000 is fundamental in its challenge to Edward Saïd’s binary vision of cultural encounters (see Saïd 1979 cited under General Overviews). Yerasimos 1991 and Borromeo 2007 are valuable listings of travel accounts to the Ottoman Empire. Kamps and Singh 2001 and Parker 1999 both excerpt and examine a variety of early modern European travel narratives; the former has more insightful analyses of the texts.

Borromeo, Elisabetta. Voyageurs occidentaux dans l’Empire ottoman (1600–1644). 2 vols. Paris: Masionneuve and Larose, 2007.
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A useful list of published and manuscript travel narratives of travelers to the Ottoman Empire in the early 17th century. Expands on Stéphane Yerasimos’s work on the 14th through the 16th centuries.
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Kamps, Ivo, and Jyotsna G. Singh, eds. Travel Knowledge: European “Discoveries” in the Early Modern Period. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
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A collection of twenty-three excerpts from European travel narratives on the Levant, India, and Africa, with thoughtful interpretative essays that provide a solid overview to European travel during the Renaissance and the early modern period.
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Parker, Kenneth, ed. Early Modern Tales of Orient: A Critical Anthology. London: Routledge, 1999.
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Brings together excerpts from the accounts of eleven English travelers of the 16th and 17th centuries—from diplomats, to merchants and explorers—and demonstrates the complex range of motivations and responses that informed each traveler’s experiences.
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Rubiés, Joan-Pau. Travel and Ethnology in the Renaissance: South India through European Eyes, 1250–1625. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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Though focusing primarily on travel to India, this important cultural history challenges the binary paradigm of Edward Saïd and suggests a more nuanced and complex approach to travel literature and European encounters with and perceptions of other peoples.
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Yerasimos, Stéphane. Les voyageurs dans l’Empire Ottoman (XIVe–XVIe siècles): Bibliographie, Itinéraires et Inventaire des Lieux Habités. Ankara, Turkey: Imprimerie de la société turque d’histoire, 1991.
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A comprehensive listing of published and manuscript travel narratives produced by Western travelers to the Ottoman Empire. Includes descriptions of the sources and detailed overviews of the traveler’s itineraries.
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Sources

There are numerous narratives composed by European travelers to North Africa, the Middle East, and beyond in the Renaissance. Some of the most popular and influential include a French traveler (Nicolay 1968), an Englishman (Dallam 1893), the imperial ambassador Busbecq (Foster and Daniell 1881), and a 14th-century German pilgrim (Letts 1946). Fewer accounts of Muslim travelers to European and other lands exist: Ibn Battuta (Gibb 1958–2000) is the most influential, and Matar 2003 contains insightful excerpts from early modern travelers to Europe from Islamic lands.

Dallam, Thomas. “The Diary of Master Thomas Dallam, 1599–1600.” In Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant. Edited by J. Theodore Bent. London: Hakluyt Society, 1893.
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A charming and insightful account of the experiences of Thomas Dallam sent to install an organ sent as a gift to the sultan in the last years of the 16th century.
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Foster, Charles Thornton, and F. H. Blackburne Daniell, eds. The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq. London: Kegan Paul, 1881.
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A classic narrative of the travels of the Holy Roman ambassador to the Sultan Suleiman II from 1555 to 1562.
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Gibb, H. A. R., and C. F. Beckingham, trans. and eds. The Travels of Ibn Battuta, A.D. 1325–1354. 4 vols. London: Hakluyt Society, 1958–2000.
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The great medieval Muslim travel narrative, this expansive text covers the quarter century of travels of the Moroccan Ibn Battuta throughout the Mediterranean, Africa, and into Asia. Full of fascinating ethnographic details.
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Letts, Malcolm, ed. and trans. The Pilgrimage of Arnold von Harff, Knight from Cologne, through Italy, Syria, Egypt, Arabia, Ethiopia, Nubia, Palestine, Turkey, France and Spain, which he accomplished in the years 1496 to 1499. London: Hakluyt Society, 1946.
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Recounts the late-15th-century pilgrimage by the German Arnold von Harff to the Holy Land.
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Matar, Nabil, ed. In the Lands of the Christians: Arabic Travel Writing in the Seventeenth Century. New York: Routledge, 2003.
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A valuable collection of Arabic texts by Muslim and Christian travelers between 1611 and 1700. Destinations range from the Maghreb, to Europe, to Spanish America. This collection offers a great variety of nations viewed from the Muslim perspective.
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Nicolay, Nicholas de. The Navigations into Turkie. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1968.
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A detailed account of the travels of the Frenchman Nicolay to the Ottoman Empire, which had a profound impact on many subsequent travel accounts. Includes a series of delightful and important woodcuts. Originally published in French in 1568, the English translation dates to 1585.