Nicolas de Nicolay, Sieur d'Arfeville & de Belair, (1517–1583) of the Nicolay (family) was a French geographer. Biography Born at la Grave in Oisans, in the Dauphiné, he left France in 1542 to participate in the siege of Perpignan which was then held by Emperor Charles V of Austria. In 1547, he sailed to Scotland where his intervention ended the siege of St Andrews Castle. In 1548, he returned to Scotland to take away Mary, Queen of Scots from Dumbarton Castle, sailing around the west coast of Ireland. He travelled around Germany, Denmark, England, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey and served in the armies of most of these countries. On his return to France, Henry II made him Geographer Ordinary and Valet to the Chamber. Around this time, he appears to have made a terrestrial globe that provided the model for the Oterschaden globe of . In 1551, Henry II ordered him to follow Gabriel d'Aramon, envoy and ambassador to the Grand Turk Suleiman the Magnificent. In the course of the voyage, his unofficial mission was to survey the places visited, including Istanbul. It has been suggested that one of his objectives was to spy for the French crown. In 1583, he died in Soissons, where he was commissioner of artillery, after a stay at the royal castle of Moulins. Published in 1567, Quatre premiers livres des navigations (Travels in Turkey) recorded Nicolay's observations about the Ottoman court and peoples from his 1551 mission to Istanbul on behalf of the French government. The book served as the first comprehensive survey of customs and costumes in the Ottoman world, and is hailed as one of the earliest and most accurate depictions of the Islamic world to appear in Europe. Travels in Turkey achieved a high level of commercial success upon its release. It was later reissued and translated for a number of different countries, including Italy, the Netherlands, England, and Germany. The widespread popularity of the book contributed to the proliferation of costume books throughout Europe at the end of the 16th century, and continued to influence Orientalist artists well into the 19th century, such as Eugène Delacroix and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Travels in Turkey is divided in four books, following Nicolay's voyage to Istanbul, accounts of ethnic groups and Ottoman court life, and the religious and military administration in Istanbul. Louis Danet made 60 engravings based on Nicolay's original drawings,