The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq
Seigneur of Bousbecque, Knight, Imperial Ambassador

Letters by a sixteenth-century Flemish writer, herbalist and diplomat, including his Turkish Letters, published in two volumes in 1881.

Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq (Author), Charles Thornton Foster (Edited and translated by), F. H. Blackburne Daniell (Edited and translated by)

9781108054560, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 August 2012

352 pages, 1 colour illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2 cm, 0.45 kg

Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522–92) was a Flemish herbalist, diplomat and writer. In 1554, Ferdinand I, soon to be Holy Roman Emperor, dispatched him to Suleiman the Magnificent's court as an ambassador to the Ottoman empire, where Busbecq spent years negotiating a border dispute between his employer and the sultan. While there, he also discovered important manuscripts and sent the first tulip bulbs to Europe. He returned to Vienna in 1562, where he acted as counsellor to Ferdinand, after whose death he continued to serve the Habsburgs. This two-volume work, first published in 1881, contains Busbecq's letters, edited and translated into English from Latin by two Cambridge scholars. Volume 2 contains letters written in France to the Holy Roman Emperors Maximilian II and Rudolph II, and an index and appendix to both volumes, the latter including Busbecq's itineraries and a helpful outline of Hungarian history.

Letters from France to Maximilian
Letters from France to Rodolph
Appendix
Index.

Subject Areas: Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]