Seljuk Past and Timurid Present: Tile Decoration of the Yeşil Külliye in Bursa PATRICIA BLESSING Pomona College Abstract n a hilltop in Bursa, a city in the western Anato- lian province of Bithynia (Fig. 1), a mausoleum This article focuses on the Yeşil Külliye in Bursa, Turkey, built covered in turquoise-glazed tile reaches into the in 1419–24. Even though it is one of the major Ottoman mon- sky. Together with several nearby monuments, uments of the early fifteenth century, the complex—a mosque- the mausoleum forms the so-called Yeşil Külliye, or Green zāviye, madrasa, mausoleum, bath, and kitchen—has not been oComplex, built between 1419 and 1424. Commissioned by viewed in the broader context of its time, when the political sit- the Ottoman sultan Mehmed I (r. 1413–21) and a major focus uation forced the Ottoman sultan to reposition his struggling of his patronage, this multifunctional complex consists of a empire between Anatolia, Timurid Central Asia, and the Bal- mosque-zāviye (a mosque combined with a structure intended kans. Whereas early Ottoman architecture, from the emer- for Sufis), madrasa, mausoleum, bathhouse, and kitchen.1 In gence of the principality until the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, has been reevaluated in recent years, the late fourteenth what follows, I argue that the elaborate tile decoration of the and early fifteenth centuries are only gradually receiving in- Yeşil mosque and mausoleum creates a deliberate dialogue creased scholarly attention. The Ottoman sultan Bayezid I, de- with earlier—mostly late twelfth- to thirteenth-century— feated by the Mongol conqueror Timur, was led into captivity Islamic architecture in Anatolia and with the broader Persian- after the battle of Ankara in 1402, and his son Mehmed Çelebi ate culture of Iran and Central Asia after the fall of the Mongol eventually emerged victorious from a civil war with his broth- Empire. More than other elements of the architecture, the tiles, ers. In 1413 he came to the throne as Mehmed I, ruling as sul- with their varied techniques, color schemes, and visual refer- tan of the Ottoman Empire until his death in 1421. The Yeşil ences, suggest how early fifteenth-century Ottoman visual cul- Külliye was a focus of Mehmed I’s patronage. I argue that the ture reflected the constant renegotiation of power, rule, and rep- elaborate tile decoration of the mosque and mausoleum cre- resentation that involved the sultan, historians, and builders. ated a deliberate dialogue with both the Anatolian heritage of Seljuk architecture and the broader Persianate culture of post-Mongol Iran and Central Asia. With their varied tech- Timurid Invasion and Ottoman Recovery niques, color schemes, and visual references, the tiles signal the extent to which Ottoman visual culture in the early fif- After his 1402 defeat at the battle of Ankara by the Cen- teenth century mirrored the constant renegotiation of power, tral Asian conqueror Timur (r. 1370–1405), the Ottoman sul- rule, and representation that involved the sultan, his histori- tan Bayezid I (r. 1389–1402) was led into captivity together ans, and his builders. with two of his sons, Musa and Mustafa.2 For the next eleven For funding that facilitated research and redrawing of maps and plans, I am grateful to the Barakat Trust, the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, and the Society of Architectural Historians. I thank Stephen J. Campbell, Linda T. Darling, Thomas Dittelbach, Heather Ferguson, Cornell Fleischer, Cemal Kafadar, Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Beatrice E. Kitzinger, Lorenz Korn, Selim S. Kuru, Baki Tezcan, Heghnar Z. Watenpaugh, and Ali Yaycıoğlu for comments on this project. Preliminary findings were presented at the Ottoman Topologies conference at Stanford University in May 2014; at the 10. Kolloquium der Ernst Herzfeld Gesellschaft, Hamburg, in July 2014; and at the Western Ottomanist Workshop at the University of California, Davis, in January 2015. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for Gesta and editors Linda Safran and Adam S. Cohen for their insightful comments and suggestions. 1. Halil İnalcık, “Mehemmeḍ I,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. J. Bearman et al., http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912 _islam_COM_0728. 2. Dimitris J. Kastritsis, The Sons of Bayezid: Empire Building and Representation in the Ottoman Civil War of 1402–1413 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 41. Gesta v56n2 (Fall 2017). 0031-8248/2017/7703-0004 $10.00. Copyright 2017 by the International Center of Medieval Art. All rights reserved. v56n2, Fall 2017 Tile Decoration of the Yeşil Külliye D 225 Figure 1. Map showing major cities mentioned in the text (map: author, based on Google Maps). years, the sultan’s remaining sons fought one another in a The Yeşil Külliye presents clear stylistic connections to bloody civil war to regain fragments of the Ottoman princi- Timurid Central Asia and pre-Ottoman Anatolia. While the pality and challenge Timurid domination. Over the course of term “pre-Ottoman” can be problematic, in that it may imply the conflict they came into contact with post-Mongol Anato- a potentially teleological perspective focused on the rise of the lia, Iran, and Central Asia, and the resulting change in Otto- Ottomans, I use it here as a way of moving beyond the spec- man outlook is evident in the arts of the period. ificity of such dynastic terms as “Seljuk” or “Ilkhanid,” which In 1413 Mehmed I emerged victorious from the civil war have their own distinct historiographies in the context of me- and rebuilt the Ottoman principality from his base in Bursa. dieval Anatolia.3 “Seljuk”—used here to designate architectural The city became the site of the sultan’s mosque complex and, forms—refers to the architecture established in Konya and a few years later, of his tomb. Mehmed I’s son and successor, the surrounding region in the late twelfth and early thirteenth Murad II (r. 1421–44 and 1446–51), commissioned the mau- century, when the Anatolian Seljuks were at the peak of their soleum. The conflict with the Timurids, rebuilding the Otto- power. The patronage of Sultan ᶜAlā al-Dīn KayqubādI man principality (used here in approximation of the Turkish (r. 1220–37), in particular, led to the emergence of an archi- term beylik) on an Anatolian base, and the emergence of a tectural style associated with the ruler.4 While some features, newly confident polity had far-reaching implications for the such as monumental muqarnas (honeycomb) portals with dec- dynamics of artistic agency, patronage, and style during the orative frames, took hold elsewhere in Anatolia, a unified form first half of the fifteenth century. of architecture did not emerge. The Mongol conquest of Ana- My analysis of the Yeşil Külliye in Bursa addresses three central questions: How did the tile decoration on and in 3. Oya Pancaroğlu, “Formalism and the Academic Foundation of the buildings fit into the framework of a Timurid aesthetic? Turkish Art in the Early Twentieth Century,” Muqarnas 24 (2007): How did the engagement with Timurid art intersect with the 67–78; Scott Redford, “‘What Have You Done for Anatolia Today?’: Islamic Archaeology in the Early Years of the Turkish Republic,” reframing of Ottoman identity? And how was the Seljuk and, Muqarnas 24 (2007): 243–52; and Patricia Blessing, Rebuilding An- more broadly, the Islamic past of central and eastern Anato- atolia after the Mongol Conquest: Islamic Architecture in the Lands lia involved in this process? In the political reconstruction and of Rūm, 1240–1330 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 1–7. architectural rebranding of his realm, Mehmed I drew on the 4. Scott Redford, “The Alaeddin Mosque in Konya Reconsidered,” work of architects and craftsmen who perhaps had access to Artibus Asiae 51, nos. 1–2 (1991): 54–74; Suzan Yalman, “ᶜAla al-Din ” or at least knowledge of multiple models available in the Ot- Kayqubad Illuminated: A Rum Seljuq Sultan as Cosmic Ruler, Muqarnas 29 (2012): 151–86; and eadem, “Building the Sultanate toman realm and in neighboring regions. The tile decoration of Rum: Religion, Urbanism, and Mysticism in the Architectural Pa- notably engages the viewer with an array of local, global, his- tronage of ᶜAla al-Din Kayqubad (r. 1220–1237)” (PhD diss., Har- torical, and contemporary points of comparison. vard University, 2011). 226 E Gesta v56n2, Fall 2017 tolia in 1243 led to the disappearance of royal Seljuk patronage, tionship between center and provinces in the expanding Ot- and all standardizing efforts in architecture were abandoned. toman Empire.8 In the following decades and into the fourteenth century, re- While Bursa emerged as the Ottoman cultural center, gional styles—often centered on such major cities as Sivas, Mehmed I looked east as he began to rebuild the realm. Ta- Erzurum, Kayseri, and Konya—were consolidated as local pa- briz, in western Iran, was an important economic and artistic trons came forward in the absence of centralized rule and pa- center, a role it had held since the late thirteenth century, when tronage.5 The breakdown of Mongol power in Anatolia in the the Mongol Ilkhanids made it their capital. After their fall 1330s only added to this politically and culturally fragmented in the 1350s, the city changed hands among various succes- picture, and similar dynamics remained in place well into the sor dynasties. In the following decades, Tabriz remained in fifteenth century. the shadow of the Timurids, who invaded it several times Bursa was the center of the realm under Mehmed I, but in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. With the not the capital; Edirne retained this role from about 1368 un- Timurid invasion of the Ottoman lands and the defeat of til the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. While Bursa was Bayezid I, the Ottoman territories became connected to the at the cultural heart of Ottoman architectural innovation, it larger Timurid realm.