Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq
Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522 in
Early years
He was born the illegitimate son of the
Busbecq's intellectual gifts led him to advanced studies at the Latin-language
Like his father and grandfather, Busbecq chose a career of public service. He started work in the court of the later Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I in approximately 1552. In 1554, he was sent to England for the marriage in Winchester of the English queen Mary Tudor to Philip II of Spain.
At the Ottoman court
In 1554 and again in 1556,[1] Ferdinand named Busbecq ambassador to the Ottoman Empire under the rule of Suleiman the Magnificent. His task for much of the time he was in Constantinople was the negotiation of a border treaty between his employer (the future Holy Roman Emperor) and the Sultan over the disputed territory of Transylvania. He had no success in this mission while Rüstem Pasha was the Sultan's vizier, but ultimately reached an accord with his successor Semiz Ali Pasha.
During his stay in Constantinople, Busbecq wrote his best known work, the Turkish Letters, a compendium of personal correspondence to his friend, and fellow Hungarian diplomat, Nicholas Michault, in Flanders and some of the world's first travel literature. These letters, together with Melchior Lorck's woodprints describe his adventures in Ottoman politics and remain one of the principal primary sources for students of the 16th-century Ottoman court. He also wrote in enormous detail about the plant and animal life he encountered in Turkey. His letters also contain the only surviving word list of Crimean Gothic, a Germanic dialect spoken at the time in some isolated regions of Crimea.[2]
Busbecq discovered an almost complete copy of the
He was an avid collector, acquiring valuable manuscripts, rare coins and curios of various kinds. Among the best known of his discoveries was a 6th-century copy of
Life after Turkey
He returned from Turkey in 1562 and became a counsellor at the court of
Bibliography
- Itinera Constantinopolitanum et Amasianum (1581), later published as A. G. Busbequii D. legationis Turcicae epistolae quattor - Known in English as Turkish Letters. An early 20th-century English translation is available as ISBN 0-8071-3071-0.
- Epistolae ad Rudolphum II. Imperatorem e Gallia scriptae (1630) – Posthumous publication of Busbecq's letters to Rudolf II detailing the life and politics of the French court.
- Vier brieven over het gezantschap naar Turkije (Legationis Turcicae epistolae quatuor), Ogier Ghiselin van Boesbeeck. Translation Michel Goldsteen, Introduction and Notes Zweder von Martels. Available ISBN 90-6550-007-3(uitgeverij Verloren, Hilversum, Netherlands)
- Les écritures de l'ambassade: les Lettres turques d'Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq. Traduction annotée et étude littéraire. PhD Thesis of Dominique ARRIGHI, Sorbonne, Paris, 2006.
- Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq. Les Lettres Turques, translation into French by Dominique ARRIGHI, Honoré Champion, Champion Classiques collection, ISBN 978-2-7453-2038-4, introduction by Gilles Veinstein, Ottoman history professor at Collège de France.
- translated into English as, The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, 1881, by Forster and Daniell available on-line free Vol 1 Vol 2
- Turkish Letters, English, translated by E.S. Forster. Eland Books (2005) ISBN 0-907871-69-0
See also
- Manuscripts Busbecq brought from Constantinople: Minuscule 218, Minuscule 222, Minuscule 421, Minuscule 434, Minuscule 425, Minuscule 719, Minuscule 722
- List of Austrian ambassadors to Turkey
References
- ^ a b c Busbecq, Augier Ghislain de. (2009). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 28, 2009, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9018254
- ^ ISBN 9780521886741.
- ^ Edward Seymour Forster, translator, The Turkish Letters of Ogier de Busbecq reprinted Louisiana State University 2005.
- S2CID 25071279.