Rhodos.

Bellaforest, François de Rhodos. "La ville de Rhodes prinse par Sultan Solyman sur les Cheualliers de Saint Iaen de Hierusalem." Paris Nicolas Chesnau, edited by Michel Sonnius 1575
Wood engraved birds eye town plan of the city of Rhodes from Bellaforest's "La Cosmographie Universelle de Tout le Monde." modern hand colour; set in page of French text; text to verso. Dark impression; historiated initial (coloured), ruled in red ink.

François de Belleforest ( 1530 - 1583)
was a prolific French author, poet and translator of the Renaissance. He was born in a poor family and his father (a soldier) was killed when he was seven. He spent some time in the court of Marguerite of Navarre, traveled to Toulouse and Bordeaux (where he met George Buchanan), and then to Paris where he came into contact with members of the young literary generation, including Pierre de Ronsard, Jean Antoine de Baïf, Jean Dorat, Remy Belleau, Antoine Du Verdier and Odet de Turnèbe. In 1568 he became historiographer to the king.
Belleforest wrote on cosmography, producing a French translation of the Cosmographia of Sebastian Münster. morals, literature and history,
He translated the works of Matteo Bandello, Boccaccio, Antonio de Guevara, Lodovico Guicciardini, Polydore Vergil, Saint Cyprian, Sebastian Münster, Achilles Tatius, Cicero and Demosthenes into French. He is also the author of the first French pastoral novel, La Pyrénée (or La Pastorale amoureuse) (1571) modeled on the Diana of Jorge de Montemayor. His Grandes Annales are a polemic tract against François Hotman. His total output comprises more than 50 volumes.
His most successful work was most likely his translation and adaptation of the "histoires tragiques" by the Italian Matteo Bandello, which built on the work of Pierre Boaistuau and eventually amounted to seven volumes (1564-1582). One of these tales might be the source for Shakespeare's Hamlet.
152 by 210mm (6 by 8¼ inches)town plan ;page 350x245mm.   ref: 2063  €300