Two Ottoman works in one volume: Fetihname-ye Karaboğdan ('Conquest of Moldavia'), dated 1002 AH/1594 AD and a Persian-Ottoman lexicon, Turkey, 18th century

Ottoman Turkish manuscript comprising two parts: first section 65 leaves, 15 lines to the page, written in black nasta’liq script on dark cream and pale pink paper, keywords picked out in gold, f.1a with medallion with cusped edge containing text in blue and black nasta’liq with interlinear gold floral sprays, following page with illuminated headpiece in blue and gold, second section 74 leaves, 9 lines to the page, written in black and gold naskh script, opening illuminated headpiece, stamped and tooled brown leather binding

In good overall condition, some waterstaining but pages generally clean, spine repaired, as viewed.
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The first of the two works in the manuscript is entitled the Fetihname-ye Karaboğdan ('The Book of the Conquest of Moldavia'), and relates the campaign of Suleyman the Magnificent against the Peter IV Rares, the Voievod of Moldavia in 1538. The work also contains details of other Ottoman campaigns in the same year, most significantly the Ottoman naval campaigns against the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, including the conquest of the Yemen and the siege of Diu.

An inscription in the medallion at the beginning of this manuscript explains that the work is taken from the Tabakat’ül-memalik ve Derecat’ül-mesalik, a history of the reigns of Selim I and Suleyman the Magnificent by Celalzade Mustafa Çelebi (d.1567). Born in Tosya in the Black Sea region, the author rose through the Ottoman government to become Nişancı in 1534, a high bureaucratic post responsible for sealing the documents issued by the sultan and the grand vizier and maintaining the extensive system of land grants to the bureaucratic and military elite. The manuscript is to be distinguished from another work of the same name and dealing with the same subject by the historian and painter Matrakçı Nasuh.