This six-volume work, published in Vienna between 1860 and 1890, contains a selection of documents in Greek which throw light on the history and politics of the Byzantine Empire in the Middle Ages. The editors, Franz Miklosich (1813–91), philosopher, linguist and Slovenian nationalist, and Josef (or Giuseppe) Müller (1823–95), a Greek scholar who also translated many important works by German classical historians into Italian, used as one of their their sources the volumes of Greek manuscripts brought back to Vienna by Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522–92), who had acted as Imperial Ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Other manuscripts came from libraries in Ancona, Malta, Turin, and Venice. Volume 3 (published in 1865) consists of documents concerning the diplomatic and trade relations between Byzantium/Istanbul and the Italian city-states between 1188 and 1711, and in particular between the Ottoman conquerors and Venice.