Front endpaper and heading pages illuminations in some Quranic manuscripts belonging to the Herat and Shiraz style of the Safavid period

XVI. era, an important period for Islamic art, is a period in which outstanding developments occured in view of illumination art. Safavid Empire made great contributions to this art. Regarding the political and socio-cultural changes in the era and in the region where Safavid Empire was established, Safavids significantly affected the art in this region. In this process, the Safavid emperors guarded the artists and provided opportunities for the artists to develop art activities, which played an important role in gaining importance of Safavid book art. Hence, Safavid Empire appeared in history with its magnificent and luxury works of art. Safavids especially gave importance to book art and composed various manuscripts. These manuscripts can be observed in Safavids' administrative cities and centers of art such as Herat, Shiraz, Tabriz, Qazvin and Esfahan. Some different decorations in the contents of manuscripts which are composed in centers of art led the emergence of styles of art that go with the name of these centers. In XVI. era Safavids, with the effect of Islam, showed great importance and took great care to the preperation of copies of Koran. Besides, Koran decorations have parallels with the styles of art of important centers of art. Due to these spesific characteristics, the decorations of front endpaper and heading pages of some Koran manuscripts of Herat and Shiraz style of Safavid period are examined in our thesis. Although the topics are handled as a whole, the main aim of this thesis is to examine the styles in Safavid period and reveal the characteristics of styles of the period by taking the similarities and differences between these styles into account. In this way, it is aimed to shed light on the history of Safavid illumination art in this thesis. In this context, 10 copies of Koran which include front endpaper and heading pages (each include 5 works of art) in two different styles (Herat and Shiraz) are selected and examined. This thesis includes two main chapters. In the first chapter; the history, art and styles of decoration of Safavid Empire are examined. In the second chapter; the works of art of Herat and Shiraz styles of Safavid period are examined and front endpaper and heading pages are illustrated in detail. Besides, in this chapter the design schemes of works of art at hand are examined and applications are performed on the styles of decoration which include Herat and Shraz styles.