THEOPHILUS SIEGFRIED BAYER. Theophili Sigefridi Bayeri Regiomontani. Historia Osrhoëna et Edessena ex nvmis illvstrata, in qua, Edessae vrbis, Osrhoën

Only edition, 4to, pp. [10], 362, [10]; printed in Roman, Greek, Syriac, and Arabic fonts; 7 engraved plates of numismatic interest; chronological tables in the text; without front free endpaper, but generally a very good copy in contemporary blue paper-covered boards backed in brown calf, red morocco label (faded to pink) on spine.

Histories of the Kingdoms of Osrhoena and Edessa (now Urfa) in Mesopotamia. Bayer, from the same family as the famous astronomer Johannes Bayer, was a renown polymath, philologist, orientalist, and classicist who lived for many years in St. Petersburg and was a founding member of the Russian Imperial Academy. He published many books on Oriental numismatics. The book is an overview of the history (until about 1400) of Edessa, which was the capital of a small kingdom that kept a relative independence between the Romans and the Persians. Once the Roman Empire fell, Edessa was contended between the Persians and the Byzantines and, later on, it was conquered by the Arabs. Subsequently, it fell to the Franks and then became part of the Turkish Empire. The coins represented in the plates are all from the period of the independent kingdom.

One of the first books printed at the printing office of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, which began its activity in 1727.