[Autograph album of Johann Joachim Prack von Asch]

ursus; Assessed: Condition report in research file; Title devised The manuscript consist of 320 unnumbered leaves, including 167 sheets of Turkish silhouette paper, 71 sheets of Turkish marbled paper, 21 sheets sprinkled with gold and silver, and 61 sheets, some of which are glazed or burnished. It is illustrated with 140 hand-painted miniatures, including 110 coats-of-arms, many of which are painted in gold, silver and other heraldic tinctures, and 30 hand-painted miniatures of Istanbul, Venice, a Commedia dell'Arte scene, armorial supporters, standard bearers, men-of-war, Turkish scenes, a representation of Leda and the Swan, and other scenes The name of Johann Prack von Asch is mentioned in Latin on leaf 136 recto: Joannis Joachimi Prack ab Asch, and on leaf 254 recto: Nobili viro dm̃o Johanni Joachimo Prack ab Asch; and in Italian on leaf 170 recto: Amico Joanni Joachimo Brack de Asch The liber amicorum or friendship book belonged to Johann Joachim Prack von Asch from Lüttach in Tyrol, who most likely was a diplomatic attaché from Vienna assigned to the Ottoman court in Constantinople under the directorship of Dr. Barthlmä Pezzen, who personally inscribed his autograph alongside his emblazoned arms in Prack's album. The entries span between 1587 and 1612 and are mainly penned in Istanbul, but also in other regions traversed by Prack during his diplomatic peregrinations, including Prague, Vienna, Würzburg, Cologne, Jülich, Düsseldorf, Scutari near Constantinople and Adrianople, today called Edirne, a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey Among the autographs are those of Johann Wilhelm, Duke of Cleve, Jülich and Berg and his wife Jakobe of Baden, who was assassinated in 1597; the Duke's sister Princess Sibylle, Margravine of Burgau and her brother-in-law, Landgrave George Ludwig von Leutenberg, as well as the Duke's Master of Horse, Wilhelm von und zu Cortenbach. There is even a record of Prack's excursion to the fortress in Raab, Hungary on 25 August 1594, while it was besieged by the Turks Bound in late eighteenth-century quarter red morocco over glazed red boards, with spine richly gilt and lettered. Preserved in modern red cloth case