Illustrated Ottoman Cosmographies, C. 1550-1700 - (Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art) by Bilha Moor (Hardcover)

About the Book

The first monograph on illustrated Ottoman cosmographies produced in the capital Istanbul and the Ottoman provinces of Egypt, Syria and Baghdad.

Book Synopsis

This book explores the unprecedented Ottoman interest in illustrated cosmographies and their representation of the world and its inhabitants. It analyses fifteen illustrated manuscripts of four cosmographical texts on the Old and New Worlds (in Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish) produced in the capital Istanbul and the Ottoman provinces of Egypt, Syria and Baghdad, c. 1550-1700.
Overall, dozens of richly illustrated cosmographies were copied across the span of six hundred years, from the late thirteenth until the nineteenth century, in different artistic centres and by different political entities in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and India. This study points to an unprecedented and unparalleled production of illustrated cosmographies in the Ottoman period, in particular during the second half of the sixteenth century. It explores the changes introduced into Ottoman cosmographical manuscripts, including representations of holy geography, popular medicine, the dangers of seafaring, Egyptian antiquities, portraits of the Ottoman sultans and depictions of the Orthodox Christian and European.

Review Quotes

The book is a model of erudition, it covers many aspects of Ottoman and Middle Eastern material and literary culture, and comprises of interesting details, that turn the academic discussion into a fascinating tableau of a pre-modern society.--Rachel Milstein, The Hebrew University

The main theme of the book, that the iconography of these texts reflects changing views of the world, is well argued by a comparative wide-ranging study both of contemporary European manuscripts and of earlier Islamic ones. The depth and range of the author's scholarship is extremely impressive.--Bernard O'Kane, The American University in Cairo