a print dated 1553 made after a drawing by the Flemish artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst who had visited Constantinople in 1533. The 'Turkish costume book' became a well-known genre in Western art starting from the 16th century. Pieter Coecke van Aelst's widow Mayken Verhulst published a nearly five-metre-long monumental frieze entitled Ces Moeurs et fachons de faire de Turcz (Customs and Fashions of the Turks), which records the artist's impressions collected during his journey to Constantinople which he made in 1533 as part of the retinue of the Habsburg diplomat Cornelis de Schepper. The French geographer and courtier Nicolas de Nicolay followed with his Quatre premiers livres des navigations (Four first book of travels) published in 1567, which recorded de Nicolay's observations about the Ottoman court and peoples from his 1551 mission to Constantinopel. The text was illustrated with 60 images engraved after original drawings by de Nicolay. These early examples of costume books were followed by others. About 120 costume books or portions of them are currently known in manuscript, in addition to a large number of prints. With the rise of the Ottoman Empire both militarily and politically, the European nations had an interest in learning how to deal with this new power. This created an interest in pictorial representations of Turkish people which gave an impetus to the genre of the Turkish costume book. These depictions familiarized Europeans with the exotic ways of the Turks and gave them clues to how Ottoman society worked. Not only did they serve as guides for diplomats and other visitors to the Sultan's court, but they also satisfied the curiosity and quelled the fear that westerners felt for the Ottomans. These costume books were also meant to entertain the European audiences for which they were intended. Amateur and professional artists aimed to satisfy the demand for such representations. Lambert Wyts was a Flemish courtier who left a diary (kept at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) of his 1572 voyage to Constantinople which contains a series of drawings in the nature of those found in a costume book. His work has sometimes been confused with that of de Vos. In the beginning, most artists were European but from the 18th century such costume books were also produced by local artists in response to the demand for such illustrated publications. The Gennadius Library in Athens has a copy of a Costume Book (MS A.