Page 79 - The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent

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scripts. The anonymous painter of the Ravzat el-U§ak applied graphical and maritime studies written by travelers and naval
the same refined execution, documentary realism, and origi- commanders.
nal compositions he employed in the illustrations of Arifi's One of these was Piri Reis, a famous captain in the impe-
historical works, indicating that the classical style of Ottoman rial navy and the nephew of the renowned admiral Kemal
painting was firmly established after the 1550s. Reis, with whom he sailed on many campaigns in the Medi-
The illustrations of literary works produced between 1520 terranean. Piri Reis retired to Gelibolu when his uncle died in
and 1560 reveal both the heterogeneous nature of the nakka§- 1511, but was recalled to duty by Selim I during the 1517
hane and the gradual development of the classical style of campaign to Egypt. He continued working for Süleyman and
painting. As previously discussed, some manuscripts were il- joined the sultan during the 1522 campaign to Rhodes. He
lustrated by artists who followed the traditions of Herat and was later given the command of the Egyptian fleet and was
Tabriz, while others were executed by painters who absorbed active in the Red Sea, Arabian Gulf, and Indian Ocean. Ac-
these traditions and blended them with the preexisting Otto- cused of taking bribes to lift the siege of Hormuz and thus
man styles. failing to capture that important fortress from the Portuguese,
There is yet another group of painters, who remained obliv- he was executed upon returning to Egypt in 1554. Piri Reis,
ious to changes taking place in the nakka^hane and formu- who obviously led a very colorful and controversial life, was
lated their own styles. They worked on contemporary Turkish also a man of diverse talents who was best known for his
texts that had not been previously illustrated and were free to cartographic studies and naval charts.
create their own pictorial cycles. The paintings in such manu- The most renowned of his cartographic works is a parch-
scripts as Musa Abdi's Camaspname (Book of Camasp) dated ment (deerskin) map of the Atlantic Ocean (35) that shows
1527, 64 a copy of the Tercume-i §ahname (Translation of the the western shores of Europe and Africa and the eastern parts
book of kings) of c. 1530, 65 Fuzuli's Hadikat us-Sueda (Garden of Central and South America. The work is the surviving half
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of the fortunates) of c. 1550, and Ceyhi's Hüsrev ve §irin of of a larger map representing the world. 69 Produced in Geli-
c. 1560 67 lack the structured composition and refined execu- bolu in 1513 and presented to Selim I in Cairo in 1517, it
tion of nakka^hane products, but nevertheless display bears a long inscription on the lower left that lists the sources
originality. used to represent different regions. Piri Reis consulted more
There also exist works that were partially illustrated when than thirty maps: twenty were made by ancient cartographers
they arrived at the court and were later completed in the dating from the period of Alexander the Great, eight were
nakka§hane. The most interesting of these is a copy of the drawn by Muslim mapmakers, four others were produced by
Hamse-i Nizami, which was begun in the 1450s at the Kara- the Portuguese, and one was made by Christopher Columbus.
koyunlu court at Shiraz, was continued after 1510 in the Sa- For the depiction of the Antilles and the coastal regions of the
favid court at Tabriz, and was finished in the 1530s or 1540s New World he relied on a copy of the map by Columbus. 70
in Istanbul. 68 He also checked the Portuguese maps of South America and
obtained information from a Spanish prisoner who had par-
ticipated in Columbus' three voyages to the New World.
Illustrated Histories Piri Reis' map includes wind roses and scales of nautical
distances, as well as commentaries and illustrations. It is not
The classical style of Ottoman painting evolved from the tra- only a major cartographic document that compiles early and
dition of illustrated histories, which became firmly established contemporary sources, but also a fascinating painting, with
in the 1560s. This tradition, which visually re-created the vignettes and anecdotes. Ships sail on the seas or rest in
personages and the settings of the events with documentary ports; landmasses are filled with mountains, rivers, fortresses,
realism, was initiated not by court artists but by members of and figures of seated kings, elephants, ostriches, llamas, par-
the administration, such as Piri Reis, Nasuh, and Nigari. It rots, monkeys, and monstrous or fantastic creatures. One
was, however, adapted and taken to its ultimate height by amusing vignette appears on the upper portion, showing fig-
the nakkachane painters. ures building a fire on an island, their ship anchored close by.
Chronicles recording the activities of the state had been According to the inscription, this is the tale of sailors who
produced since the formative years of the Ottoman Empire. mistook a whale for an island and lit a fire on its back; when
In addition, the sultans had established the post of the §ahna- the whale's skin started burning, it dove into the sea and the
meci, whose specific duty was to document the lives and men hurried back to their ship.
achievements of the rulers. Historians were extremely prolific Since the map was published in 1929 scholarly controver-
during Suleyman's reign, writing voluminous texts devoted to sies and hypotheses have developed concerning the identifica-
universal histories, past and present accounts of the Ottoman
dynasty, biographies of individual sultans, and descriptions of 35. Parchment map made by Piri Reis in 1513 (istanbul, Topkapi Sarayi
specific campaigns and political events. There were also geo- Müzesi, R. 1633 mük.)

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