EUROPE In truly princely luxury colour: magnificent copies in Utrecht cover from the library of F. C. Chef (Álvarez de Colmenar, Juan). Beschryving van Spanjen en Portugal. 5 parts in 1 volume. 6 Bl., 80; 84; 128; 52; 56 S, 32 Bl. Title in red and black. With 10 (5-8-line) coloured and partly gold-enhancing initials 4 coloured book jewellery Vignettes, engraved title and final vignette, an assembled, fold-out stinged panorama and 164 large aquarelled and partly golden raised text coppers (including 5 surface and border coloured maps; 16 coloured plans) as well as multiple folded border and surface coloured copper map. 32.5 x 22.8 cm. Dark brown marbled and smoothed calfskin band d. C. (joints a little brittle, capitals with small cracks and lice, few cracks or flaws, slightly rubbed and bumped) over 7 frets with gold-embossed RSchild, rich gilding, double gold-embroidered palmette borders with corner fleurons on the lids, flower stamps as well as large inner and outer corner Fleurons, blue green marbled cut. Leiden, Pieter van der Aa, 1707. Palau 212. Tiele 123. – First Dutch and at the same time first folio edition, here in a contemporary coloured magnificient copy. The author was mostly the publisher Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733), but recent researches assign the important, richly illustrated travel and history work on the Iberian peninsula of Juan Álvarez de Colmenars, author of the book "Les Délices de l-Espagne et du Portugal" printed in the same year 1707. With the subtitle "Qui comprend les six provinces de royaume de Portugal: ou l'on voit une description exacte des antiquitez, des provinces, des Montsgnes, des Villes, des Rivieres, Des Ports de Mer, des Fortresses" the text largely corresponds to the present Dutch edition: "waar in, op het naauwkeurigste, al het geene, dat, zooten opzigte van Hunnen ouden, als tegenwoordigen staat, aanmerkens-waardig, noodig en vermaakelijk om te weeten is, verhaald en door art print-verbeeldingen en land-kaarten aangeweezen wird ... te bereyzen Beschryving van Spanjen en Portugaal". Thus also the text coppers of the French Octav edition come from, but here are incomparably much more luxuriant fit into the typography. They show views of Bilbao, Burgos, Cádiz, Gibraltar, Grenada, Lisbon, Madrid, Seville, Toledo etc. The folded view with a panorama of Barcelona, the map shows the Iberian peninsula. Particularly interesting are the numerous detailed views of the Islamic buildings of the Nasrid period in "al-Andalus" e.g. with Veduts of Granada and Seville, views of Alhambra and a crack of the stairways of the famous Giralda. The historical part "Algemeene Beschryving" contains interesting representations, for example the Spanish Inquisition with shocking coppers of the Autodafés in front of the Palacio Real in Madrid - here particularly vividly by the finest, nuanced coloration: "Verooning van de wijze, op welken de mensche, die by de Inquisitie, daar toe veroordeeld zijn, verbrandt" (V, p. 36). The stinging title in the record reads: "Manière de brûler ceux qui ont été condamnéz par l-inquisition". – Only slightly uniformly tanned, occasionally slightly brownish, printed on exceptionally beautiful, solid and broad-edge paper. Also remarkable is the contemporary marbled calf leather band from a Utrecht workshop with two large gold stamped plate arabesques, monogrammed "C.V.H.". It is a master cover of the "Vassplaat-binderij", whose emergency name derives from a central plate, which is often a vase with flowers. The studio can be found between 1710 and 1731 in Utrecht. However, this cover does not show the "Vass" plate, but a plate that, together with stylized flowers, presents the initials "CVH" (over the central oval) and an anchor (under the central ovral). The specimen comes from the famous collection of the Rotterdam and Hague jurists and bibliophile Ferdinand Casper Koch (1873-1957), whose books are partly in a spectacular auction in December 1974 by the Hamburg auction house Hauswedell & Nolte under the title "Die Bibliothek F.C. Cook, The Hague" was sold. However, the present specimen was not part of the collection offered at the time. In fact, in at least the last 80 years no other illuminated specimen or one that would come close to ours in its splendor can be detected. Koch's copy is so luxuriously coloured and minutely gold-enhancing, as it was only common for books from high-prince libraries at all.