Isabella Piccini (1644–1734), engraver; Paul Rycaut (1629–1700).

Istoria dello stato presente dell’Imperio Ottomano.

Venice [Venetia], presso Combi, & La Noù, 1672.

4to. [16], 296 pp., including an engraved additional title; 20 half-page engravings in the text and a small engraved vignette of a turban. Woodcut printer’s device, initials and ornaments.

Contemporary vellum, spine lettered in manuscript, red edges.

               An extensive illustration programme by the Venetian engraver Isabella Piccini, created for the first Italian edition of Rycaut’s account of Ottoman government, religion and military organisation. Her signed additional title and nineteen signed text engravings form the core of the volume’s imagery. Alongside these are two unsigned illustrations: the small turban at p. 65 and the women of Constantinople at p. 209. Her signatures establish a substantial, securely documented contribution to the volume. This is the first edition with her engravings in it.

The engravings offer a vivid succession of courtly, religious and military subjects. Mehmed IV sits beneath a richly patterned canopy; the grand vizier rides with his attendants; the chief emir appears on horseback before an animated urban setting. The scene of deaf attendants and court dwarfs gives particular prominence to gesture and exchange. Above the sultan’s portrait, the words “Suor Isabella Piccini” are followed by an abbreviated reference to her convent. Such signatures bring the woman responsible for engraving these images directly into the reader’s encounter with the Ottoman world.

Born Elisabetta Piccini into a Venetian family of engravers, she trained under her father Jacopo and obtained a Venetian printing privilege in 1663. In 1666 she entered the Franciscan convent of Santa Croce, adopting the name Isabella while continuing her professional work. Her commissions extended across devotional and secular publishing. Her surviving correspondence with the Remondini reveals an artist managing orders, materials and payments, whose earnings supported both her convent and her family. The Rycaut illustrations belong to the early years of this long career within the convent.

Klara Ćapalija and Ivana Čapeta Rakić’s 2025 study traces this edition’s imagery from Ottoman costume albums through London, Paris and Amsterdam to Venice. They identify Piccini’s work as a process of visual translation: her immediate models were probably chiefly Amsterdam prints derived from Sébastien Leclerc’s French illustrations, although she may have used several editions or intermediary drawings. The Kalenderi dervish at p. 201 offers a telling example. Piccini’s engraving reverses the Parisian composition, whereas another dervish group follows an Amsterdam arrangement. Their findings place her within the international networks through which images were copied, adapted and circulated, supported by Combi & La Noù’s foreign connections. This provides a precise basis for valuing the book as evidence of a woman’s substantial contribution to the production and transmission of knowledge about the Ottoman Empire.

Condition:

Vellum rubbed, mottled and unevenly darkened, with small bumps and light wear at the edges and corners. A short neatly repaired wormtrack in the upper corner of the engraved additional title; endpapers with minor defects. Contents lightly browned, with occasional slight spotting, soiling and offsetting; the illustrations remain crisp and strongly printed. A sound and attractive copy.

References:

Ćapalija, Klara, and Ivana Čapeta Rakić. “From Ottoman Costume to Venetian Print: Isabella Piccini and the Istoria dello stato presente dell’Imperio Ottomano.” Il capitale culturale: Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage, no. 32, 2025, pp. 571–606. https://doi.org/10.13138/2039-2362/4187.

Di Fazio, Laura. “Elisabetta Piccini.” Enciclopedia delle donne, 2012, updated 2023. Biography.

Mellby, Julie. “Engravings by Suor Isabella Piccini (1644–1734).” Graphic Arts, Princeton University Library, 11 Aug. 2021. Article.