BOSIO, Giacomo - BAUDOIN, Jean. Histoire des Chevaliers de l'Ordre de S. Iean de Hierusalem. Dernier édition.
Paris, Chez Iacques d’Allin, 1658-1659
Three parts in a folio volume. 364 x 235 mm. Contemporary armorial binding. Full brown marbled leather, with a gilt coat of arms of the Tulle de Villefranche family surmounted by a marquis' crown at the center of the covers; a gilt title and decorations on the six-ribbed spine.
Consists of: Engraved Frontispiece, 18 unnumbered pages including printed title page, 510, [24], with numbering errors; 248 pages [recte 252, with repeated numbering 73-76], beginning with the title and date 1658; Pages [24, including title page], 133, [12], 141-196, 18, with two Maltese Crosses woodcut in the text. Illustrated frontispiece engraved with title and date, 65 engravings in the text, 5 plates outside the text, one of which is folded, all copperplate engraved.
Tulle de Villefranche heraldic bookplate glued to the back cover. Binding with some losses and defects, internal stains, browning and signs of wear.
Rare illustrated edition. Very important history for the Order of Malta. Apart from the illustrated Frontispiece with Title and date 1659, the illustrations are all in the third part, with 65 engravings in the text and 5 Plates outside the text. The engravings in the text are: 57 portraits, 1 Genealogical Tree of the Knights of Malta, a large Portrait with the Habit of the Nuns of the Order, two illustrated Title-pages containing the Maltese Cross. Also 4 views and plans of the city: Jerusalem (eiii); Civitas acon sive Ptolomaida (p. 26); Rhodes (53); Valletta (p. 106). The five cartographic maps outside the text, with perspective views of the cities, are: Margat (p. 24), the city of Ptolemaida (folded, after p. 44), Cyprus (p. 46), Valletta (p.90), View and siege of Malta (p. 100).
Giacomo Bosio, was a member and historian of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the Knights Hospitaller. This is one of the first and most complete accounts of the Order, which flourished in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Rhodes, Cyprus and Malta. Bosio's work, published in 1621, concerns the history of the order of the Hospitallers from its origins until 1571 with Jean Parisot de la Valette: it was translated into French by Pierre de Boissat, Jean Baudoin and Frère Anne de Naberat.
Work divided into three parts. “Histoire” followed by, with autonomous title pages: Les statuts de l'Ordre de Sainct Jean de Hierusalem, 1658, by Jean Baudoin; Sommaire des priuileges octroyez a l'ordre de S. Jean, par les Papes, empereurs, ... qu'a Malthe du viuant de tous les Grands-Maistres, auec leurs Portraits & Planches desdites citez, di Anne Naberat. Due to the various translations and additions, the work is sometimes attributed to different authors, Bosio, Boissat, Baudoin, Naberat.
F.G. Hellwald, Bibliographie méthodique de l'Ordre Souv. de St Jean de Jérusalem, p. 28.
See Ioannou, Cyprus and the Levant, p.46 (under Boissat).