This is an important resource, but unfortunately is undergoing a make-over. The old maps and resources are available, but things should look even better and more informative soon. https://darmc.harvard.edu/?fbclid…
“Knowledge Is Infinite”: Manuscript of Piri Reis’ Book of Seafaring (ca. 17th Century)
“Hearken to the secrets I reveal and from them know and discern my aim”, wrote the Ottoman cartographer Piri Reis in his Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of Seafaring). “It was with God’s guidance that it became my habit to roam the seas. And so it was: and were I to live forever I would always be at sea.”
Born circa 1465–70, likely in Gallipoli, Piri began his sea life around 1481, working as a corsair with his uncle, Kermal Reis, for 14 years. It was a time of literal sea change: the sailors saw the fall of the Emirate of Granada — a coastal stronghold and the last Muslim polity in Spain — heard news of the “discovery” of North and South America, and witnessed the Ottoman Empire’s fresh outposts in Algiers and Tripoli.
In 1495, Piri and his uncle stopped being pirate, and began serving Sultan Bayezid II, and joined in the Ottoman-Venetian war (1499–1502).
Tragedy struck in 1511 when Kermal’s ship sank in a storm, causing Piri to write “many men go off thinking they will return: those who do not are those who knew little about where they were going. . . The world is vanity; it is every man’s lot to live and die.”
In 1513, Piri started making maps that were among the most accurate of the day. First a world map, only 1/3 of which survives, which combined information from about 30 charts, including one supposedly made by Christopher Columbus from one his uncle had pilfered from a Spanish ship.
On the strength of Piri’s cartography, the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha chose him to pilot a mission to Egypt, where the Vizier was tasked with reforming the local civil and military administration following a revolt. Seeing Piri often consulted a copy of the Kitab-ı Bahriye that he had assembled in 1511, Ibrahim encouraged him to “polish up this book well, all of it, so that it may be much used, [wherever] there are those who will listen.”
Piri dedicating a revised version of the book to Suleiman the Magnificent in 1521.
The Kitab-ı Bahriye records a contentious moment when “the eastern Mediterranean became Ottoman” and the western Mediterranean became a realm of naval skirmishes between the Ottomans and Habsburgs of Spain. Both the original and revised manuscripts have been lost, but more than 40 copies survive. Click on the link below to see a manuscript copy made in the 17th or 18th century from the Walters Art Museum. It contains more than 240 maps that collectively chart the coasts of the Aegean, Adriatic, Black, and Caspian seas, roaming from Palestine through North Africa to southern France. Illustrated in rich, primary colors, the coastlines have a looping, fractal quality. The maps are rendered mainly in a flat, planimetric view, but topographical elevation breaks perspective, for mountains get illustrated as they might appear when seen from afar by a navigator at sea, and are brightly colored.
We do not know what led to Piri death. He commanded the 1548 reconquest of Aden, a former Ottoman territory in Yemen that had fallen under Portuguese control, and received a financial reward.
After an attack on Hormuz in Persia failed, Piri sailed to Cairo, where he was executed in 1554, either due to errors at Hormuz or for “financial indiscretion”.
Words from the Kitab-ı Bahriye serve as a memorial: “I have always been an eager and willing lover of the sea. Knowledge is infinite. By no effort can its end be found.” https://publicdomainreview.org/co…
4 Annotations
First Reading
vicenzo • Link
From Ruben :the splendid site of the Hebrew University contains a lot of old maps.
plus this one of Tangiers :
http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il…
See connections to all the world.: http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il…
and this too of London 1660 and many more :
http://www.library.yale.edu/MapCo…
Second Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
This is an important resource, but unfortunately is undergoing a make-over.
The old maps and resources are available, but things should look even better and more informative soon.
https://darmc.harvard.edu/?fbclid…
Third Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
“Knowledge Is Infinite”: Manuscript of Piri Reis’ Book of Seafaring (ca. 17th Century)
“Hearken to the secrets I reveal and from them know and discern my aim”, wrote the Ottoman cartographer Piri Reis in his Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of Seafaring). “It was with God’s guidance that it became my habit to roam the seas. And so it was: and were I to live forever I would always be at sea.”
Born circa 1465–70, likely in Gallipoli, Piri began his sea life around 1481, working as a corsair with his uncle, Kermal Reis, for 14 years. It was a time of literal sea change: the sailors saw the fall of the Emirate of Granada — a coastal stronghold and the last Muslim polity in Spain — heard news of the “discovery” of North and South America, and witnessed the Ottoman Empire’s fresh outposts in Algiers and Tripoli.
In 1495, Piri and his uncle stopped being pirate, and began serving Sultan Bayezid II, and joined in the Ottoman-Venetian war (1499–1502).
Tragedy struck in 1511 when Kermal’s ship sank in a storm, causing Piri to write “many men go off thinking they will return: those who do not are those who knew little about where they were going. . . The world is vanity; it is every man’s lot to live and die.”
In 1513, Piri started making maps that were among the most accurate of the day. First a world map, only 1/3 of which survives, which combined information from about 30 charts, including one supposedly made by Christopher Columbus from one his uncle had pilfered from a Spanish ship.
On the strength of Piri’s cartography, the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha chose him to pilot a mission to Egypt, where the Vizier was tasked with reforming the local civil and military administration following a revolt.
Seeing Piri often consulted a copy of the Kitab-ı Bahriye that he had assembled in 1511, Ibrahim encouraged him to “polish up this book well, all of it, so that it may be much used, [wherever] there are those who will listen.”
Piri dedicating a revised version of the book to Suleiman the Magnificent in 1521.
San Diego Sarah • Link
CONCLUSION:
The Kitab-ı Bahriye records a contentious moment when “the eastern Mediterranean became Ottoman” and the western Mediterranean became a realm of naval skirmishes between the Ottomans and Habsburgs of Spain. Both the original and revised manuscripts have been lost, but more than 40 copies survive.
Click on the link below to see a manuscript copy made in the 17th or 18th century from the Walters Art Museum. It contains more than 240 maps that collectively chart the coasts of the Aegean, Adriatic, Black, and Caspian seas, roaming from Palestine through North Africa to southern France.
Illustrated in rich, primary colors, the coastlines have a looping, fractal quality. The maps are rendered mainly in a flat, planimetric view, but topographical elevation breaks perspective, for mountains get illustrated as they might appear when seen from afar by a navigator at sea, and are brightly colored.
We do not know what led to Piri death. He commanded the 1548 reconquest of Aden, a former Ottoman territory in Yemen that had fallen under Portuguese control, and received a financial reward.
After an attack on Hormuz in Persia failed, Piri sailed to Cairo, where he was executed in 1554, either due to errors at Hormuz or for “financial indiscretion”.
Words from the Kitab-ı Bahriye serve as a memorial:
“I have always been an eager and willing lover of the sea. Knowledge is infinite. By no effort can its end be found.”
https://publicdomainreview.org/co…