Comidas de Carbognano C.: “Descriptioni Topographica dello Stato presente di Constantinopoli arricchita di figure.” Basano 1794 First and only edition. Tall in 4to 27x22cm, contemporary publishers blue papercovers, paper spine weak, text clean and bright, 26 folded copper engraved plates as call for, few plates with light marginal water stain far from printing areas, overall very good. Cosimo (Cosmas) Comidas de Carbognano (Keumurdjian), 1757-1807, was an Armenian Dragoman (interpreter) in Constantinople. With provenance from an old Armenian family of Constantinople, serving for generation the embassy of Naples to the Ottomans, his grandfather Italianized their surname to Carbognano, in the middle of 18th century. After the death of his father in 1763, he was sent to Naples for studies. Back in the 1770s he became intimate with the ambassador Ludolf and Comidas passion for painting had been firstly mentioned by the traveler Sestini who spent several months in 1778 in the embassy of Two Sicilies in Constantinople and reported some of his drawings. Later, in 1794 he became Dragoman in the Spanish Embassy and his reputation in Constantinople circles rise, he was able to join the higher society of Pera and to marry Maria Komnini. He had published also a Turkish-Italian grammar. It seems that took him many years for the publication of his main work, this Topographia of Constantinople. Sestini reported in the late 1770s that the young Comidas liked to venture in several districts of Constantinople and its suburbs, studying monuments and prepared drawings of them. Sestini was certain that someday a full set of drawings for many places of Constantinople would appear from Comidas hand. In the mid 1780s, a French publication (L’ Esprit des Journaux, Mai 1783)mentioned that Comidas worked that time to prepare one topographic description of Constantinople and its surroundings including figures of churches, mosques, costumes, castles, palaces and many other monuments. Although Comidas never learned how to draw, his drawings, for an amateur, were very interesting. And as a native of Constantinople he had plenty of time to remark and improve his drawings. His main issue was that in Constantinople no engraver was present and was obliged to send his drawings abroad. Some of them, according to recent research, had been separately published in Venice in late 1780s, as the design of the Serail (the Ottoman Palace) and Comidas had paid 100 ducats for that, a high price and, additionally, the engraving result was not good enough. In Constantinople he could sell it for 30 piastres, (or 33 colored) a quite high price and the business probably stopped. Few years later decided to make an attempt to publish his own Topographia with many of his drawings. Europe was ravaged by wars after French revolution and this Bassano Publication, despite its 26 fine original drawings and its detailed information for the topography of Constantinople and its monuments, commercially failed. Scholars since the early 20th century remarked its high value for the content description and especially for the unique drawings of different dimensions, some of very large, never republished, as they are the only survived collection of Constantinople drawings prepared by a local in 18th century. The richly illustrated book became extremely rare even in the early 19th century. Not in Atabey (although he mentioned it), Blackmer 386. Sothebys remarked that no copy has appeared in auctions for 25 years after Blackmer sale (lot 133/May 2013). Extremely Rare