Piri Reis and Turkish Mapmaking After Columbus

The Ottoman naval commander and cartographer, Piri Reis played a leading role in transmitting the discoveries made by Columbus to the inhabitants of Muslim lands. This study shows how Reis' work represented a fusion of the Islamic world view with European map-making traditions. The Ottoman naval com [...]
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The Ottoman naval commander and cartographer, Piri Reis played a leading role in transmitting the discoveries made by Columbus to the inhabitants of Muslim lands. This study shows how Reis' work represented a fusion of the Islamic world view with European map-making traditions. The Ottoman naval commander and cartographer Piri Reis (1475-1554) played a leading role in transmitting the discoveries made on Columbus' first voyage to the New World to the inhabitants of the Muslim lands around the Mediterranean. His work is known from fragments of two world maps, and from his "Kitab-i-Bahriye" ("Book of Seamanship"), which he illustrated with hundreds of charts derived principally from medieval portolans. "The Khalili Portolan Atlas" is a fine, hand-drawn example of the cartographic tradition established by Piri Reis. It also contains a series of city views, including unprecedented depictions of Galata, on the northern shore of the Golden Horn, and of Candia in Crete, which reflect the vitality of Ottoman topographical painting in the late 17th century.Professor Soucek shows how Piri Reis' works represented a fusion of the Islamic world view with European map-making traditions, modified by his own experience as a navigator, and by the recent discoveries of Columbus. The third part of his study is devoted to a detailed analysis of the contents of the Khalili Portolan Atlas.