Publisher's Synopsis
This volume has been published to provide a description of the most important illuminated codices in Turkish held by the Manuscript Collection of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. These codices are furnished with gilded ornamental decorations as well as, in some cases, representational, symbolic or figurative/ narrative book illumination. This work is part of an ongoing project of cataloguing illuminated Islamic manuscripts. For this volume, one of the oldest European collections of Turkish manuscripts, in this case mainly Ottoman manuscripts, was examined. Manuscripts have been selected from the Alter Fonds, namely two lavishly illustrated genealogies of the Ottoman dynasty, one from the estate of Prince Eugene, and also from the Neuer Fonds, the second Hammer-Purgstall Collection, sold to the Imperial Library in 1842. Also material from the Historia Osmanica, the first Hammer-Purgstall Collection that was sold to the Imperial Library in 1832, is included, namely a historical manuscript from Szolnok dated 1575, with an enthralling presentation of the Battle of Mohacs, fought in 1526. The still-growing Codices mixti collection contains miniatures, calligraphies, representations of Islamic pilgrimage sites and maps from works on geography. Detailed descriptions, historical references within the manuscripts themselves, comparable material from the National Library or other libraries, and scholarly literature on art history and codicology were used in order to place each manuscript into a historical context. This should make the manuscripts more accessible for future research. The documentation is further enhanced by a richly illustrated volume of plates.
