Description
Extraordinary and beautiful facsimile edition made in 2006 of the manuscript The site of Rhodes, dated between 1482 and 1483, whose original is in the National Library of France, sign. Ms. 6067. Made in the fifteenth century by Gérard Louf, Master of the Cardinal of Bourbon.
Facsimile format 21.5 x 29.5 cm. 456 pages beautifully illuminated containing 146 miniatures, 52 of which are works of art to full page with profusion of gold, 4 large capitulars with beautiful borders and golds, and 90 beautiful initials in grisalla decorated with fantastic plants and animals.
Artisan binder in green leather back on board, engraved in dry the cross of the Knights of San Juan, Rhodes and Malta. Loin with nerves.
World-wide edition limited to 575 copies, numbered and notarially authenticated.
Accompanied by the corresponding book of studies, format 22 x 30.5 cm, which includes the translation of the original texts into Spanish, comments and catalog of miniatures.
The site of Rhodes is a codex that collects the “Site of Rhodes” by the fleet and the Turkish army in 1480 and the heroic resistance of the Island by the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem under the command of Pierre d’Abousson, to The season Grand Master of the Order. The story of Guillaume Caoursin, the deputy chancellor of the Order and witness to the events, tells us with all fidelity the harassment, the battles, the great earthquake of 1481, the asylum of the Turkish prince Zizim, pacts, betrayals, murders and, Above all, the great political and diplomatic skill of the Master for the solution of the conflict. A great story worthy of the best current film superproductions.
This manuscript would go unnoticed on the shelf of the Library if it did not open. But as soon as you start to look through it, the reader is trapped from the first parchment page. Its interior contains a rigorously historical account, added to a set of beautiful full-size miniatures that describe the facts with an artistic quality that make it worthy to enjoy each of its pages. A codex to enjoy!
In 1314 the first Turkish siege took place in Rhodes, north of the island, which failed for the defense of the Knights and the timely arrival of the fleet of the Count of Savoy. In 1440 the Egyptian fleet attacked Rhodes and was defeated by the eight galleys of the Order. In 1444 a new attack by the Egyptian soldier fell on the island: eighteen thousand Mamelukes and an important equestrian force were rejected by the sanjuanistas Knights after forty days of siege. In May 1453 the powerful Sultan of Turkey Mohamed II, called the Conqueror, took Constantinople and ended the Latin Empire of the East. In 1480, Mohamed II tried to conquer Rhodes, last Christian bastion in East and strategic enclave to continue its advance towards the West. He died on May 3, 1481 in full campaign.
After the Turkish assault (f. 79r), along the walls of Rhodes are hundreds of mutilated corpses and the army retires delaying its lines. The second attack on the tower of St. Nicholas took place on July 16, 1480. In the foreground (80v) the main port and the tower of St. Nicholas half-destroyed by hundreds of shots of the Turkish heavy artillery, which bombs the tower From the north of the port of Mandraccio. The floating bridge that had been prepared by the Turks, has been broken by shots of the guns of Rhodes. Two relief ships full of soldiers, sent, according to Caoursin, by King Ferdinand of Sicily (future Fernando the Catholic), try to force the blockade and are ready to enter the port of Las Galeras.
Mohamed II had left two children: Bayaceto and Djem (or Zizim). The empire was inherited by the first of them with the opposition of the second. The latter, pursued by his brother who considered him a danger to his throne, sought asylum from the Sanjuanists. The Knights sent a fleet composed of a ratchet, three galleys and a caravel under the command of Admiral Alvaro de Zuniga, to collect the Turkish prince. A Turkish spy came to poison the fountain of Belvedere, whose waters filled the table of Zizim; But was discovered and hanged.
D’Abousson decided to send Zizim to Paris to protect him from Bayaceto, and on August 30, 1481, he was seated at his table to announce his decision. It is a curious scene where you see the Turkish prince sitting in the western way. An English musician plays “with four flutes united in fan”, diverse pieces that they bore to Zizim. In view of that he makes come a Turkish slave who plays an oriental instrument, while the servants bring fountains with delicacies. The next day, after forty-two days in Rhodes, Zizim left for France. From there he was sent to Rome where he was a prisoner. Charles VIII of France rescued him, and in 1495 he died, possibly poisoned. Earlier, in 1486 Bayaceto wrote to Charles VIII a letter of brotherhood. A copy is added in Les Passages D’Outremer (The Overseas Passages), whose facsimile we also have available.
Already in France, Zizim, Sultan Bayaceto receives Guido de Montearnaldo and Leonardo de Prado in Constantinople, sanjuanist knights sent by the Grand Master to treat peace (193r). An interpreter, kneeling before the Sultan, facilitates the conversation. The viziers and pachás surround the dais of Bayaceto. “An alliance was in fact agreed on equitable terms, after sharply rejecting any shameful covenant.”
After the march of Zizim and the signing of the peace with the Knights of Jerusalem and Rhodes, in November of 1482 Bayaceto reunited to his viziers. The scene depicts a banquet presided over by the Sultan (f 217r) in his palace of Edirne (Adrianople). A Turkish servant, by order of the Sultan, kills six stab wounds in the back to the great vizier Pasha Geduk Ahmed, “fiery enemy of the Christian people” and commander of the Turkish navy, who was under suspicion to pass to the cause of Prince Zizim.
These and other historical curiosities will find them in this beautiful manuscript, with which you can enjoy again and again, delighting with the beautiful miniatures, capitulars and curious initials, works of art in which you will always discover new details.
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