MONUMENS DES GRANDS-MAITRES DE L'ORDRE DE SAINT-JEAN DE JÉRUSALEM, ou vues des tombeaux élevés à Jérusalem, à Ptolémaïs, à Rhodes, à Malte, etc., accompagné de notices historiques sur chacun des grands-maîtres, des inscriptions gravées sur leurs tombeaux, de leurs armoiries, etc.
Paris: J.-J. Blaise Libraire, 1829. First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo, two volumes: [iv], xx, 317, [3] pp. + [iv], 467, [1, blank] pp. with the lithographed extra title pages and 81 plates, including 16 folding. Brown pebbled cloth-covered boards over brown morocco spines, with gilt-stamped titling, borders, and Maltese cross ornaments, coated white endpapers, and a green silk ribbon marker. Additionally, a gilt and blind-stamped blue calf titling panel is inlaid on each front board. The edges are stained blue with a gilt-stamped Maltese cross pattern. Scattered mild foxing to the contents. The ink ownership stamps of E.L. Touriel (1905-77), a Rhodian-born Los Angeles physician and scholar, appear on the title pages, with an old bookseller's description affixed to the half-title, opposite a related clipping, in the first volume. A pair of mailing labels from C.E. Rappaport, Roma, are laid in the second volume, with some related light offsetting to the preliminary blank leaf. Some minor offsetting from old acetate wrappers, now removed, to the prefatory and concluding leaves. Light wear to the corners and tips. Touriel's name is stamped in gilt on the spine heels. A striking set.
The scarce first edition of this important work on the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, also known as the Knights Hospitaller, who have been associated with the Island of Malta, and indeed the Mediterranean, from 1530; defending it in 1565 and later losing it in 1798 to an act of subterfuge by Napoleon Bonaparte. Established in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem after 1080, the order relocated to Rhodes, which they ruled as a sovereign state after leaving the Holy Land in the late 13th century, and then to Malta, where they administered a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily. Item #80783
Price: $1,000.00