The collection of images in Matrakçı Nasuh’s Menazilname serves as an “account of Sultan Süleyman Süleyman Khan’s Iraqi campaign,” according to an article on the map from Facsimile Finder. In this book there are 107 paintings printed with ink on paper. These paintings show, in stylized detail, the places that the Ottoman army visited while traveling from Istanbul to Baghdad and their return. The artist was a Bosnian in the Ottoman court who is regarded as a talented geographer, historian, and mathematician, but was not on the court of painters. The type of cartography that Nasuh illustrated matched the tradition of Ottoman cartography at the time: highly stylized and not based on navigational accuracy, instead displaying conditions and places at the time the Ottomans encountered them. Whether it be the vast countryside in spring with vibrant greens, Mesopotamian villages, or major cities with landmarks represented, this type of map serves as an aid to visualize the landscape of the campaign, even centuries later. When you look at this book, each flip of the page shows an entirely different image. As the campaign enters a desert area, the landscape turns tan; as the weather changes from springtime, when the campaign started, to other seasons, the viewer can tell by the color scheme. Interspersed between full-page landscape images are passages in Ottoman Turkish regarding the details of the map. Sometimes the text is written on full pages, with no images; at other times, it is included in the images, describing the qualities of the illustrations. The image of Istanbul, depicted in this manuscript is centered on the Golden Horn and is rich with detail. However, with further analysis, one will note that no people are shown, a stylistic choice standard for Ottoman cartography in this time period. There are also no roads between buildings. The Hagia Sophia, Topkapı Palace, Galata Tower, and even the Maiden Tower are all shown. The map is positioned lengthwise on two sheets of the facsimile. The Galata Tower marks the edge of the city, beyond which is the countryside. Because the map positions the Galata Tower at the top of the page, it does not point due north, further indicating that these maps are for commemoration rather than geographical or navigational knowledge. The city is surrounded by the Walls of Istanbul, which would have stood at the time of the campaign. As the campaign moves out of Istanbul and into the small cities and countryside, the map starts to depict Ottoman camps. The camps do not impose on the landscape, but instead appear as small clusters outside of the cities. The same arrangement of tents—one large red one surrounded by four or five smaller brown ones—comes up frequently, but still people are not shown. This depiction of the Ottoman military campaign by Nasuh serves as a different approach to regional and itinerary mapping. It is a commemoration rather than a domination, and highlights the beauty of architecture and nature in one work. (Melissa Uc 2024) Author’s Note: While referred to as “Mezailname,” (the primary title), other scholarship, referring to a work with the same shelf number and the same images and page numbers call the work “Mecamū‘a-i menāzil.”
Nasuh, Matrakçı. Beyân-ı Menâzil-i Sefer-i Irâkeyn-i Sultân Süleymân Hân; Menazilname. Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Kütüphanesi, 1537.
Nasuh, Matrakçı. Swordsman, Historian, Mathematician, Artist, Calligrapher Matrakçı Nasuh and His Menazilname : Account of the Stages of Sultan Süleyman Khan’s Iraqi Campaign. İstanbul: MASA, 2015.
Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
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Presentation at Facsimile Finder
View of Istanbul at Wikimedia Commons
Special Collections (Books, Quarto) ; DR507.N373 A83 2015