Page 98 - The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent

and a universal history, the Zübdet ut-Tevarih (Cream of histo- most spectacular ones were compiled for Süleyman around
ries). 85 This prolific §ahnameci, who composed both in Turk- 1560 and for Murad III in 1572/1573. The same interest in
ish and Persian, was also responsible for the voluminous Sur- making imperial albums existed in Safavid and Mughal
name (Book of festivals), which narrates the 1582 fete courts; some albums are preserved in the Topkapi Palace.
organized for the circumcision of the son of Murad III. 86 Not all the single paintings and drawings produced in the
Lokman was followed by Talikizade, who held the post of nakka^hane were intended for albums. Some paintings were
the §ahnameci until 1600, working primarily with Hasan, a meant to be studied as individual works, others were sketches
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famous statesman with a remarkable talent for painting. The that were later considered for albums.
last of the great court biographers was Nadiri, who chose as One of the single examples is a fairly large painting that
his painter another member of the administration, Ahmed represents the city of Lepanto (44) and must have been used
Nak§i. 88 as a topographic map of the region. 90 Executed in the style
The tradition of illustrated histories, which was established initiated by Nasuh, it depicts the city situated at the mouth of
during the reign of Süleyman and flourished under the pa- the Gulf of Corinth (an inlet of the Ionian Sea) with two for-
tronage of his followers, lost its impetus after the middle of tresses guarding the narrow entrance to the strait on the left.
the seventeenth century. Although there were sporadic at- Several ships are anchored in the port; in one of them a
tempts to re-create the lives and activities of the sultans in group of sailors hoists the sails and prepares the ship to leave.
later periods, the energetic output observed in the second half In the center is the main fortress surrounded by high walls
of the sixteenth century was never equaled. and towers, divided into several districts also supplied with
As observed in the manuscripts described above, the legacy fortified enclosures. At the lower portion is a circular inner
of Süleyman went far beyond his age. He was the only Otto- harbor, protected by additional towers and a heavy chain
man sultan whose reign was so profusely documented by barricading its entrance. Inside the walls are mosques, foun-
writers and painters, and whose personal and ceremonial ac- tains, a large bath surrounded by a garden, and a number of
tivities and political and social achievements were recorded in residential and administrative buildings. The hills outside the
such detail and so gloriously preserved. compound are sprinkled with villages, some of which have
their own mosques and hospices with courtyards. Careful at-
tention was given to documenting the water supply of the
Single Paintings, Drawings, and Albums city, with a large aqueduct and several waterwheels repre-
sented on the right. Major gates, towers, and buildings are
Although the primary duty of the artists of the nakka§hane identified by inscriptions.
was to illuminate and illustrate religious, literary, and histori- In contrast to Nasuh's paintings in the Tarih-i Sultan Baye-
cal texts, their energies were not totally consumed by the zid (see 38), this example is more schematic. It also contains
production of manuscripts. They also executed single paint- human figures. In addition to the sailors in the ship, there is
ings and drawings that were free from the restrictions of the a courtly personage holding a hawk who walks on a bridge
texts. These individual studies were so highly regarded that connecting the inner fortress with the villages on the left;
they were later incorporated into imperial albums. above is an archer aiming at unseen prey and a janissary fir-
Compilation of the works of esteemed calligraphers and ing his gun toward an unidentified target on the right.
painters into albums was a special form of art; single sheets The contents of the albums produced during the reign of
were organized in a predetermined sequence and pasted onto Süleyman are extremely valuable for the development of the
the pages alone or in groups; the margins were carefully de- saz style, which coexisted with the genre of historical paint-
signed and decorated to enhance the contents; and finally the ing and flourished in the 1550s. The word saz was recently
folios were compiled and the volume was bound. identified as being of ancient Turkish origin and applied to an
The interest in album making appears as early as the fif- enchanted forest filled with fantastic spirits. 91 The themes em-
teenth century, as observed in a group known as the "Fatih ployed in album drawings are closely related to the original
Albums" housed in the Topkapi Palace. These volumes, how- definition of the word and represent an imaginary world
ever, are almost scrapbooks with illustrations chosen at ran- filled with composite blossoms growing amid highly exagger-
dom and pasted on the pages; their contents range from east- ated leaves, frequently inhabited by peris and dragons. The
ern and central Asian themes and fourteenth- and fifteenth- stylized floral elements abstracted from these drawings be-
century Islamic manuscript illustrations to European prints. 89 came the most characteristic decorative feature of the age and
The majority of Ottoman albums produced between the were applied to all Ottoman arts. The ingredients of the saz
sixteenth and nineteenth centuries were carefully prepared; style, which had its roots in the fifteenth-century traditions of
some were appended with a number of new folios and re- both Timurid Herat and Akkoyunlu Tabriz, also left an im-
bound at a later time. Several sixteenth-century examples are pact on early-sixteenth-century Safavid art. In the Ottoman
truly imperial in quality, each folio a work of art. Two of the world it was formulated into a major decorative style and

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