Page 83 - The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent

between the two armies in the center of the folio is the victo- in the Enderun and rose to the rank of officer during the
rious Selim I, pointing to both groups. The moment depicted reign of Bayezid II, retaining this position until his death,
here is not very clear; the scene appears to represent the sur- which is thought to have taken place in 1564. A man of
render of the Safavids, with their commander expressing be- many talents, he wrote prolifically on history, mathematics,
wilderment by biting his index finger, a traditional Islamic and swordsmanship. An expert swordsman himself, he
gesture of astonishment and awe. earned the honorific "el-Silahi/' As observed in his manu-
The following group of manuscripts, composed in Turkish scripts, he also was a competent calligraphier as well as an ex-
prose by Nasuh el-Silahi el-Matraki, known as Matrakci Na- tremely talented draftsman and painter. He came to be
suh, are unique in conception. Transcribed and illustrated by known as "el-Matraki" or "Matrakci" after inventing the
the author, they depict the cities and ports conquered by the game of matrak (played by throwing sticks) during the 1530
Ottomans with extreme realism, showing a firsthand knowl- festival organized to celebrate the circumcision of Süleyman's
edge of those sites. The paintings are devoid of human figures three sons, Mustafa, Mehmed, and Selim. Nasuh left numer-
and represent the flowering of the topographic and maritime ous works of history, which include translation of Tabari's
atlas genres. Universal History from Arabic into Turkish, biographies of
Nasuh, born in the town of Visoka in Bosnia, was educated Bayezid II and Selim I, and detailed eyewitness accounts of