Three volumes, 8vo, (215 x 145 mm). 201, xxiv, pp. 268 pp. 270, (1) pp. With the bilingual woodcut printing privilege on last leaf recto of volume I. Original printed wrappers; housed in a custom black morocco case. Some very minor spotting and staining, tears to wrappers at spine. Overall very good condition.

Telling the story of the Turkish Sultan Osman II (1604-22) and his defeat by the Poles at Khotin, its message reflected Counter-Reformation values of faithfulness, political legitimacy, and opposition to the foes of Catholic Christianity. In part inspired by Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata (1581), it was intended to give hope to Christians in the power of God to deliver them from their enemies. As much of the Balkans was at the time under Ottoman rule, this was a message that resonated with South Slavic Christians and Croats in particular, many of whom came to see in this poem an expression of their linguistic and cultural aspirations.

Born to one of the leading noble families of the Republic of Ragusa, Ivan Gundulic's father Frano was a Senator and once envoy to Constantinople. Ivan received a superb education in the humanities and began a political career, holding a position on the Veliko vie e (Great Council) already by the age of 19 in 1608. His poetry is steeped in Baroque richness and eloquence.

An extreme rarity: there are no other copies recorded on the market in the last 50 years. Copies are known in the libraries of five major US universities as well as the Austrian, Czech and Polish national libraries; a copy in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek was destroyed during the War.

An extraordinarily rare copy of one of the pearls of Croatian literature.

Provenance: French private collection.

KNLL VII, 77f. (KLL 7054f.). Zdenko Zlatar, The Slavic Epic: Gundulic's Osman (= Balkan Studies 4) (New York, 1995).