Walters Art Museum'deki Kitâb-ı Bahriye: İstanbul ve Kahire

In the thesis, I conduct single-manuscript study of the Walters Art Museum's Kitâb-ı Bahriye, or Book of Sea Navigation, (W.658) an atlas of sea charts and seafaring texts by the Ottoman sea admiral Piri Reis. I argue the manuscript, which is based on the 1526 edition of Piri Reis' work and made during the reign of Mahmud I (1730-1754), has ornamentation and topography reminiscent of eighteenth-century Ottoman architectural styles, print culture, and contemporaneous Ottoman painting. I contend that the interplay of past and present, sixteenth and eighteenth century influences, and painting and print within both the text and image creates a unique and multifaceted eighteenth-century viewer experience. On the foundation of my single-manuscript study, I conduct a dual art historical and urban historical study of the Walters' Kitâb-ı Bahriye sea charts of Istanbul and Cairo, which are elaborately painted city views vastly different in style, perspective, aesthetic, and relationship to the manuscript's text. My study reveals that urban spatial practices, like architectural patronage and imperial use of the city, influenced the Walters' Istanbul and Walters' Cairo's singular depictions, reflecting differing Ottoman imperial engagement with the urban landscape. The result is not two views of eighteenth-century cities, but rather two eighteenth-century painted views of cities with two centuries worth of urban development inventively and originally applied. This thesis is the first singular art historical study of the entire Walters' Kitâb-ı Bahriye (text and image) and the first work on a Kitâb-ı Bahriye manuscript contextualized within its temporal, social, urban and art historical context.