Fall of Constantinople.- [Akominatos or Choniates (Niketas)] Historia degli Imperatori Greci...gli Annali degli Imperatori di Constantinopoli, first edition in Italian, collation: * a-f A-Z Aa-Zz AA-ZZ AAa4, woodcut printer's device on title, repeated on verso of otherwise blank final leaf, woodcut historiated initials, some light foxing, 18th century vellum, leather spine label, 4to, Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1562.

⁂ Very good copy of this important history of Byzantium from 1180-1206, translated by Giuseppe Dondi d'all Orologio and printed in Valgrisi's elegant italic. Niketas Akominatos (1140-1213) was born in Phrygia, studied in Constantinople and held many political posts under the Angelus emperors. Following the Fall of Constantinople in 1204 he fled to Nicaea and the court of Theodorus Lascaris where he devoted himself to writing. This work on the emperors of the period, especially the Comneni dynasty, includes his vivid eye-witness account of the Fall of Constantinople. It also contains Hayton the Armenian's history of the Tartars and his journey to the Holy Land; a further translation by Lodovico Dolce was published in 1569.

Provenance: contemporary name inked out at foot of title.

Literature: EDIT 16 CNCE 38134; Not in Adams; cf Cordier, Sinica 2003.