Page 70 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

'THE GORGEOUS EAST': TRADE AND TRIBUTE IN

THE ISLAMIC EMPIRES

/. Michael Rogers

The Ottomans and Constantinople

I . n 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Mehmed n did not neglect the East, however.
Sultan Mehmed n, "the Conqueror" (cat. 107). Within ten years Trebizond, the last Byzantine
To Europe it appeared to be a catastrophe, but stronghold, had fallen (1461) to his troops, and
the city was in fact no great prize, little more the capture of Caffa and other Genoese trading
than a collection of villages and virtually "the colonies on the Crimean coast in 1475 made
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dead centre of a dead empire/' Mehmed n, who the Black Sea an Ottoman lake. Mehmed's cam-
aspired to conquer all the lands that the Byzan- paigns in Anatolia, on the other hand, brought
tines had formerly ruled, chose it as a fitting him up against a complex mosaic of ruling
capital. To restore its economic prosperity he dynasties of almost kaleidoscopic confusion.
transferred populations from the provinces — The Mamluks, in a last flash of glory under the
wealthy Muslim merchants, skilled craftsmen, Sultan Qa'it Bay (r. 1470-1496) (cats. 85, 86,
and notables from Bursa; Greeks from the 95) controlled Egypt, Syria, and Southeastern
Morea (1460-1462); Muslims and Armenians Turkey; Baghdad to Tabriz was under the sway
from central Anatolia and Karaman (1468- of the tribal confederation of the Aqqoyunlu
1474); and Armenians, Greeks, and Jews from (White Sheep) Turcoman, whose notable ruler,
the former Genoese colony of Caffa in the Uzun Hasan (d. 1478) appears, anachronistic-
Crimea (1475) —simultaneously converting ally, in Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the
the city into a Muslim capital by encouraging Great; and while the rest of Iran, up to the
the building of mosques and other pious limits of Transoxania, was ruled by Timurid
foundations. epigones in full decline, the court at Herat
Already at the accession of Bayazid n in 1481, rivaled in splendor those at Tabriz and Istanbul.
Constantinople/Istanbul had regained its status Within a decade, however, the Timurids had
as a great metropolis. The conquest of Constan- fallen to a new Turkish confederation, the
tinople turned the Ottoman sultans' attention Uzbeks; the Aqqoyunlu had fallen to the Safa-
more than ever towards Europe. Beneath the vids (Turks, but champions of Iranian national- fig. i. Sinan Beg, Portrait of Mehmed. Topkapi
city walls in 1452 Mehmed had discoursed on ism); and in two decades the Mamluks were Sarayi Museum, Istanbul, Library JR-K
history and empire with the Italian antiquarian absorbed into the Ottoman empire.
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Ciriaco dAncona. Mehmed's library contained The activities of Mehmed n's successor, Baya- required before his body was returned to Bursa
European classics as well as Arabic, Persian, and zid n (r. 1481-1512), on the European front for burial. Cem's potential value in an anti-
Turkish literature. He summoned to his court were hampered by his younger brother, Cem 8 Ottoman crusade was in fact never realized, but
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Italian medalists and portrait painters, the most (cat. 91), with whom he had disputed the suc- Bayazid was made to regret bitterly that he had
famous of whom was Gentile Bellini in 1479. cession. Cem was defeated and fled straight to survived so long. The code of laws promulgated
And from the monasteries and churches of Cairo, but on his return to southeastern Turkey by Mehmed n had provided that, to avoid civil
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Constantinople, the Balkans, and Anatolia , in 1482 Bayazid stood firm. Cem then turned to strife, a sultan on his accession should have his
Mehmed collected, not altogether impiously, the Knights Hospitallers of Rhodes, to whom brothers killed. Selim i, who gained the throne
remarkable Christian relics. His successor, Bay- Bayazid agreed to pay a lavish annual subven- in 1512, did not repeat Bayazid's mistake.
azid n, had no use for his father's Italian pic- tion to keep him captive. He remained a pris- In the East, Bayazid n continued his father's
tures, and the Italian merchant Angiolello, who oner of the Knights in France for seven years campaigns against the Mamluks but with indif-
wrote a history of Bayazid's reign, says that but in 1489 he reached Rome, where Matthias ferent success. To counter this threat to their
they were sold off in the bazaar and collected by Corvinus of Hungary and Qa'it Bay of Egypt, trade, Venice and Genoa had pursued alliances
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Italian merchants. The great Jewish diaspora who had been at war with Bayazid since 1485, with the Aqqoyunlu ruler, Uzun Hasan, in
following the fall of Granada in 1492, however, contended for his support. Bayazid was forced Tabriz, but these initiatives came to nothing
further strengthened the Ottomans' links to to buy off the pope with further largesse and because the essential artillery from Venice had
Europe, for, in addition to the fact that a com- some choice specimens from his father's collec- failed to reach Uzun Hasan in time to prevent
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munity of Sephardic Jews settled at Salonike tion of relics. Notwithstanding, Cem was his defeat by Mehmed n at Ba§kent near Erzin-
(transforming it into the most important com- released into the hands of Charles vn of France, can in 1473. Although the Mamluks were favor-
mercial city of the eastern Mediterranean), who took him off to Naples in 1493, where he ably disposed to such an alliance, Uzun Hasan
Bayazid took as his physician Joseph Hamon, died two years later. Further gifts of both relics had been no less anti-Mamluk than anti-
a Jewish refugee from Andalusia. 7 and cash, as well as copious threats, were Ottoman. The struggle with Iran continued

EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 69