First edition of a rare Arabic work, celebrating Napoleon's victories during the Battle of Austerlitz (1805). It describes the battle, which is seen as one of Napoleon's tactical masterpieces, and the aftermath until the Peace of Pressburg (1805). The work was printed using an early 17th-century Arabic type, which is sometimes considered the most beautiful ever created (Conidi).
After the French campaigns in Egypt and Syria (between 1798 and 1801), Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) remained a famous figure in the Arab and Ottoman Worlds. The present work was printed in Arabic in order to present his victories of 1805 to the Middle East. It makes use of the bulletins written during the battle, either by Napoleon himself or under his supervision, which offer important military information as well as fascinating political and social commentary. The end of the text contains the Arabic translation of the Peace of Pressburg, signed on 26 December 1805 by Charles Maurice de Talleyrand for France, as well as Johann I Joseph, Prince of Liechtenstein, and the Hungarian Count Ignác Gyulay for the Austrian Empire.
The Arabic type used for the present work was created in the early 17th century with the support of François Savary de Brèves (1560-1628), a French ambassador in Istanbul and an orientalist, who had the ambition to establish a polyglot printing press. He was finally able to do so when he was dispatched to Rome for a diplomatic mission between 1608-1614. He called his press the Typographia Savariana, and ordered the cutting of new Arabic types, based on the calligraphic scripts found in the manuscripts he had brought from the Middle East. These new types were well received and he printed many publications with them, until his printing press unfortunately ran out of business in 1618. After the death of Savary de Brèves, his types were acquired by Cardinal Richelieu for the Kingdom of France to promote the spread of Catholicism in the Levant. They were then kept in the royal library until 1692, after which they were handed to the Imprimerie Royale and fell into disuse. They were rediscovered and identified by the French Orientalist Joseph de Guignes (1721-1800) in 1787. Napoleon then used these elegant Arabic typefaces as the foundation for his new printing press in Egypt, the Imprimerie Nationale, which was the first modern printing press in the Arab world. They were used, among others things, for the first editions of the newspapers Courier and Décade. The types were brought back to Paris when the French were driven out of Egypt in 1801 and given to the new Imprimerie impériale in 1804, that used them for the present work.
The edges and corners of the boards are very slightly scuffed. Barely noticeable foxing on some of the leaves, the head margin has been cut slightly short, with the loss of a small portion of the decorative headpiece. Otherwise in very good condition. Schnurrer, C. F. von, Bibliotheca Arabica, 1811, p. 497, no. 429; WorldCat 1472886006, 85092075, 1356910650, 57018842, 13021778 (7 copies); Zenker, Th. J., Bibliotheca orientalis, vol. 1, no. 948; cf. Conidi, E., Arabic type in Europe and the Middle East, 1514-1924, pp. 397-412 (the present Arabic type).