Pius II, Pont. Max. (formerly Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini):

$30,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

EPISTOLA AD MAHUMETEM. From the collection of R. David Parsons. The remarkable letter written by Pope Pius II to the great conqueror of Constantinople, Mehmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, inviting him to convert to Christianity. The letter was written in 1461 but never sent to Mehmed; it was made public in Europe only after the death of Pius in 1464. Hardly naive enough to hope for the sultan's conversion, Pius clearly planned the letter as a propaganda tool and ideological support for Christians in their fight against the Ottomans. This is the second of three similar editions printed at Cologne by Ulrich Zell around 1469-72. No editions precede Zell's, though other editions later appeared at Rome and Treviso. Other than the present, we have traced only two copies at auction in the past fifty years.After the fall of Constantinople, Pius II subordinated all other interests to the war against the Turks, taking the initiative in proclaiming a crusade - his letter to the sultan marks an attempt to project intellectual power in furtherance of this goal. Pius II was perhaps the last pope to take the hope of a crusade seriously, and Europe remained on the defensive against Ottoman armies for many years to come: "Crusade and argument, preaching and persuasion, alike faded into the background" (Southern, p.104). Despite Europe's inability to unite behind the pope to launch a formal crusade, "Christian resistance to the Turks continued, clearly in the Crusading tradition, long aft

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