BUSBECQ, OGIER GHISLAIN DE Flem ish author, ambassador of the emperor Ferdinand I. at Constan tinople, was born at Comines, Flanders, natural son of the lord of Busbecq. After serving under Charles V. he entered the service of Ferdinand of Austria, king of the Romans, and was sent by him to the court of Suleiman the Magnificent in and again in 1556, where he suffered imprisonment and ill-treatment at the hands of the Sultan, whose mind had been poisoned against him by the French ambassadors. Finally, however, he succeeded in framing terms of peace, which were ratified on his return to Vienna in 1562. After this he held various posts at the imperial court, Ferdinand having succeeded his brother Charles V. as emperor. He collected Greek mss. (now in the national library at Vienna), coins, Greek inscriptions, and introduced various plants into Germany. He also discovered the Monumentum Ancyranum; in the Crimea he found a community of Goths still retaining the Gothic customs and languages.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Busbecq's Itinera Constantinopolitum et Amasianum Bibliography.-Busbecq's Itinera Constantinopolitum et Amasianum (Antwerp 1581 and 1582, Paris 1589 under the title A. G. Busbequii Legationis Turcicae Epistolae IV.) is an important source for the history of Turkey at this time; Eng. trans., by E. S. Forster (192 7) ; his Epistolae ad Rudolphum II., Imperatorem a Gallia scriptae (Louvain, 1630) describe the French court.