Administrative Cartography in the Ottoman Empire

Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, v. LIV, 2014

2017

A virtually unknown Ottoman manuscript atlas provides new indications about the flow of cartographical and geographical information between Italy and the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the sixteenth century. Internal evidence suggests that the prototype of the Muhit Atlası was a Venetian set of globe gores, in some way associated with Giacomo Gastaldi's world map of 1561. This globe appears to have been lost, but the atlas enables a reconstruction of its main features. At the same time, the maps in the Muhit Atlası offer an insight into the reception and re-elaboration of European cartography in the Ottoman Empire.

Approaching Religion, 2016

In this article we look at the printing and publishing history of the 1613 edition of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas. Our main focus is on the editions published by the Hondius family in the early seventeenth century. We take a closer look at the 1613 Latin edition, focusing on one specific, previously unrecorded copy currently held by the Donner Institute in Turku. We relate our findings to the more general issues concerning the production, context and history of the atlas.

The purpose of this article is to draw attention to a hitherto unknown source containing toponomastic and historical information on the borderlands of the Ottoman Empire, for which Turkish documentation is scarce. The source to be presented here is the military map of the Danube Vilayet (T. ūnah Vilāyetī Harīt.ahsī) on scale 1:400,000, undated (published ca. 1875). A rare copy of this map is preserved in the collection of the author.

Since prehistoric times, the allure for the inhabited world has always been of interest to mankind. This clearly states that from the earliest times, maps have played a significant role in human history. In present times both these maps and their makers serve as powerful medium to revive forgotten personalities and historical events. The history of map making shows that during ancient times, mapmaking was basically a form of decorative art but the most decorative maps have been produced during the middle age times. Mappe mundi and portolan charts were the two traditions found in the European world. But Muslim scholars were still following Ptolemy " s method and also incorporating writings of travelers and explorers. Through this paper we are making an attempt to have a retrospective view on maps of medieval times and how they laid foundations for scientific modern cartography.

Imago Mundi, 2021

Imago Mundi 64:1 (2012)

2005

The paper is an analysis and comparison of maps of Piri Reis in six different copies of Kitab-i Bahriye. The study is only concerned with the Croatian part of the eastern Adriatic Sea from Dubrovnik to Umag on the Istrian peninsula. Methods of general and special visual comparison were used. Different copies of Kitab-i Bahriye show no significant further development of cartographic content. The later copies were improved in artistic value and decorative impression, especially the manuscripts from Bologna and Berlin.

e- …, 2011

In 1700, Chrysanthos Notaras, a prominent scholar of 18 th c. Greek Enlightenment and later patriarch of Jerusalem, issued a twin hemispherical world map, which was the first printed map in Greek language, printed in Padua. A similar map, in smaller dimensions, printed the same year also in Padua was inserted in Notaras' geography book. In this paper, using digital processing and visualization techniques, we analyze Notaras' world map in comparison with Jan Luyts' World map of the same typology, printed in Utrecht in 1692, which was also inserted in a geography book. The similarities and the differences in the coastline and the toponyms are investigated and evaluated, concluding to the identification of the sources and the maps that Notaras used for the construction of his two 1700 maps.

The History of Cartography, Volume Three : Cartography in the European Renaissance / David Woodward (ed.). – Chicago [etc.] : The University of Chicago Press, 2007. – p. 1296-1383, 2007

Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art, vol. 73, 2023

The struggle against water and the changing coast lines of the Low Countries has strongly defined the art and character of its inhabitants. The silting of the Zwin estuary near Bruges at the end of the fifteenth century would ultimately lead to the city’s demise as a commercial and artistic hub, while in the north decisive efforts were being made to make changing shore lines and polders inhabitable and sea routes more accessible. As a result of this unceasing struggle against the North Sea, many of the cartographical commissions during the late 15th and 16th century were related to large-scale and ambitious hydraulic campaigns. While projects were traditionally dealt with by local building masters or land-surveyors, the visualisation of the area in the form of ground plans and maps, was often relayed to a local painter. Although the well-documented cartographic involvement of painters such as Lanceloot Blondeel (1496-1561), Pieter Pourbus (1523-1584), Jan Van Scorel (1495-1562) and Cornelis Anthonisz. (1505-1553) received some partial academic interest, this paper will make a contextual and comparative analyses of the phenomenon of the painter-cartographer in the Low Countries between 1480 and 1550. Contrary to a previous generation of painters, these artists’ involvement in cartographic mapping projects exceeded a mere chorographic visual input. As their familiarity with geometrical principles and trigonometry increased, so did their involvement shift from a purely aesthetic role towards an active input on the technical and scientific design process. The focus of this interdisciplinary research will be threefold: on the trajectories which allowed geometrical knowledge to disseminate through established social networks, on collaborations between workshop practices and finally on the early development of trigonometry in the intellectual environment around Gemma Frisius (1508-1555) and the university of Leuven. Erudite networks in which artists, scientists, humanists and land-surveyors were key-players, set the stage for professional mapmaking embodied by figures such Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598) and Gerard Mercator (1512-1594).

OSMANLI İ MPARATORLUĞUNDA COĞRAFYA VE KARTOGRAFYA GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 2024

This chapter aims to discuss some Portuguese cartographic representations of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ottoman Empire from the second half of the 15th century until the first decades of the 16th century, a period of cultural, scientific, and technological soaring for Mediterranean and Atlantic societies, generally known as the “era of portolan charts.” To achieve this objective, we must explain how the Portuguese came to map cartographically the Ottoman Empire during this transition period. Therefore, while scrutinizing the possible links between Arabic-Islamic geography of the West of the Iberian Peninsula and the early modern Portuguese cartography, this chapter is divided into three sections: the first one examines the possible links between Arabic-Islamic geography of the Western Iberian peninsula and early modern cartography. It concludes on the importance of the Catalan/Majorcan cartographic school in the production of the first Portuguese nautical charts. Taking into account the Portuguese political presence and economic interests in the East Mediterranean, the second part analyzes the circumstances that enabled the Portuguese to map the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ottoman lands. The third part is dedicated to the early Portuguese nautical charts that sketched the Ottoman Empire, with emphasis on some outstanding cartographic examples: the nautical charts of Jorge de Aguiar (1492), Pedro Reinel (1510), and Francisco Rodrigues (1515); the “Cantino” planisphere (1502); the planisphere of Pedro Reinel (Kunstmann IV, 1519); and the Atlas Miller (1519).

OSMANLI İ MPARATORLUĞUNDA COĞRAFYA VE KARTOGRAFYA GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 2024

This chapter aims to discuss some Portuguese cartographic representations of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ottoman Empire from the second half of the 15th century until the first decades of the 16th century, a period of cultural, scientific, and technological soaring for Mediterranean and Atlantic societies, generally known as the “era of portolan charts.” To achieve this objective, we must explain how the Portuguese came to map cartographically the Ottoman Empire during this transition period. Therefore, while scrutinizing the possible links between Arabic-Islamic geography of the West of the Iberian Peninsula and the early modern Portuguese cartography, this chapter is divided into three sections: the first one examines the possible links between Arabic-Islamic geography of the Western Iberian peninsula and early modern cartography. It concludes on the importance of the Catalan/Majorcan cartographic school in the production of the first Portuguese nautical charts. Taking into account the Portuguese political presence and economic interests in the East Mediterranean, the second part analyzes the circumstances that enabled the Portuguese to map the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ottoman lands. The third part is dedicated to the early Portuguese nautical charts that sketched the Ottoman Empire, with emphasis on some outstanding cartographic examples: the nautical charts of Jorge de Aguiar (1492), Pedro Reinel (1510), and Francisco Rodrigues (1515); the “Cantino” planisphere (1502); the planisphere of Pedro Reinel (Kunstmann IV, 1519); and the Atlas Miller (1519).