Ramsay/Schley - Histoire du Vicomte de Turenne - 1749

RAMSAY, CHEVALIER DE. — HISTORY OF THE VICOMTE DE TURENNE (AMSTERDAM & LEIPZIG, 1749).
Amsterdam and Leipzig: Arkstée & Merkus, 1749.
4 volumes in 12mo. Full dark brown mottled calf of the period, spine with raised bands ornamented.

The illustration includes a frontispiece portrait engraved; a title-frontispiece (in vol. III), vignette on the title pages, a drop cap, and thirteen folded maps and plans.

Famous military and political biography of the great Turenne, written by the Chevalier de Ramsay (disciple of Fénelon). This reference work traces his dazzling campaigns, his strategy, and the moral grandeur of one of the most illustrious marshals in the history of France under Louis XIII and Louis XIV.
Published by the renowned Anglo-German and Dutch booksellers Arkstée & Merkus in Amsterdam and Leipzig in 1749, this edition is distinguished by the exceptional finesse of its Dutch engravings, notably the magnificent portrait of Turenne by Van der Schley after Meissonier.

A fine homogeneous collection in period bindings. Brown leather showing rubbing and wear to the crowns and corners, but the bindings are solid and the spines retain their gilded glare. Very clean interiors on laid paper, well complete with frontispiece, engraved titles, and geographical maps/tactical plans.

The Chevalier de Ramsay was commissioned by Turenne’s family to write this exemplary biography, conceived both as a treatise on military art and as a mirror of princely virtues.
The collaboration between the Amsterdam-Leipzig publisher (Arkstée & Merkus) and the Dutch engraver Jacob van der Schley lends this 1749 edition a status particularly sought after by collectors of illustrated eighteenth-century military history works."