Ottoman Expressions of Early Modernity and the "Inevitable"

Ottoman Expressions of Early Modernity and the "Inevitable" Question of Westernization Author(s): Shirine Hamadeh Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), pp. 32- 51 Published by: Society of Architectural Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4127991 Accessed: 19/04/2010 03:03

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http://www.jstor.org Ottoman Expressions of Early Modernity and the "Inevitable" Question of Westernization

SHIRINE HAMADEH Rice University

he conspicuousappearance, in 1793, of the Neither its design nor its new colors and novel ornaments have princely pavilion of Negatabad on the shores of ever been witnessed by either Mani or even Behzad.3 the Bosphorus in Istanbul captured the attention of many contemporary observers (Figure 1). Commis- Conceived as an inscription to commemorate sioned by Selim III and designed by the German architect Negatabad and honor its founding patron, Fazil's ode and Istanbul resident Antoine-Ignace Melling, Negatabad sounds, above all, like a tribute to the building's novel aes- was intended as an extension of the eighty-year-old water- thetics and the creative imagination that gave birth to it. front palace of the ruler's sister, Hatice Sultan.' The fol- Overflowing with praise for the pavilion's singular charac- lowing verse by Enderunlu Fazil Bey was among hundreds ter, the poem alludes to its design "of new invention," its of others composed by poets in celebration of the new unique proportions, the symmetrical layout of its fagade, structure:2 and its novel decorative repertoire. Fazil also noted the immaculate white color of its walls, doubtless a reference Come and enjoy the heavenly view from this [pavilion of] to the building's marble revetment, which must have stood Negatabad, out among the dark-red wooden walls of contemporary From this building created deliberately with an innovative princely palaces.4 Although he did not point specifically to design! the bulky central pediment, the Ionic capitals, or the gar- No colors on its walls; in its monochrome garment, it is simply land motifs, his observations clearly convey Melling's dis- perfect tinctively new faqade treatment of the familiar type of Compared to this new edifice, the older palace looks coarse waterfront palace, one that had matured in the course of the It is a pretty young beauty, full of harmony, eighteenth century. Whose symmetrical form is more delightfulthan a boy's grace- Fazil's poem may be regarded as one of the last mani- ful stature festations of the Ottoman architectural discourse of the Its ornamented form is as though cast out of a mold eighteenth century, one of whose central motifs was the cel- It is beyond the reach of the most talented master ebration of novelty. In comparison with earlier periods, the [Its] architect [modeled] its plan on the pattern of the constel- constant recurrence of the notions of innovation, inven- lation of stars tiveness, originality, and creativity in eighteenth-century Never [before] has such a design been seen among the older Ottoman writings on architecture is striking. These refer- masters! ences consist principally of building descriptions and Figure 1 Antoine-lgnace Melling, engraving, ca. 1800s. The pavilionof Nepatabadis in the foreground, and next to it is the main palace of Hatice Sultan at Defterdar Burnu, Istanbul.

accountsof architecturalachievements recorded by histori- orativefeatures, and style (tarz,iislib), the latteroccasionally ans and chroniclers, as well as court poets who created contrasted with the "old or ancient style" (tarz-z rhymed building chronograms,a genre largely overlooked miitakaddimin)of earliermonuments.7 today that gained in popularityfrom the turn of the eigh- To a large extent, the Ottomans' emphasison novelty teenth century onward.' Like Fazil's ode to Negatabad, mirroredthe rapidlychanging landscapeof Istanbulin the rhymed chronograms were composed in celebration of eighteenth century.By all accounts,this had been an extra- architecturalevents and often appearedas inscriptionson ordinarymoment in the architecturalculture of the city. In the buildingsthey celebrated.Besides serving as documen- the hundredyears that followed the decisive return of the tation of a largely lost architecturalworld, they offer rare court of Ahmed III to the capital in the summer of 1703," insights into the understandingand reception of architec- new forms, expressions,colors, designs, and aestheticscon- ture at the time, a subject that has not been sufficiently tinuallyappeared. An unusuallyornate and flamboyantdec- addressedin Ottoman architecturalhistory and in the field orative vocabulary took shape, incorporating new and of Islamic art in general. familiarelements and drawing on earlier Ottoman reper- Although Ottoman writings on the subject of novelty toires and foreign visual cultures.For the first time, archi- did not amount to the kind of philosophical debate that tecture flourished outside the confines of the classical emergedin contemporaryEurope,6 they constituted,in their imperial canon that had been formulatedaround the mid- own way,a distinctiveform of discourseduring a periodwhen dle of the sixteenth century,during the period of state cen- novelty and originalitywere invoked as measuresof archi- tralizationand imperialexpansion under SultanSiileyman.9 tectural appreciation.In poetry and prose alike, terms and While the Ottomans' insistence on conveying visual idioms like nev (new), cedid(new), nev-icad(new invention), expressionsof novelty in their writings was a reflection of taze (fresh),ihtira' (invention), ?ayal (imagination), bedi' and these developments,it also reflected a new attitude toward ibda' (original,to createfrom scratch),and vaguerallusions change, novelty, and a long-establishedarchitectural tradi- to noveltysuch as hiisn-iidiger (a differentsort of beauty)and tion. This was a significantturning point in the Ottomans' iislfib-iferid(a unique style),were all repeatedlyused in con- interpretationof their built environment,and one that has nection with a building'soverall form, fagades,plan, layout, not been given its due in modern scholarship. While a and design. They also appearedin relation to specific ele- recent surge of interest in the artisticand architecturalpro- mentsincluding pillars, cornices, windows, colors, other dec- duction of the eighteenth century has rescued this period

OTTOMAN EXPRESSIONS OF EARLY MODERNITY 33 from its earlier characterization as an era of decline, the charged sense of a deliberate emulation of western ways. In emphasis placed on the influence of European culture and fact, they were hardly exceptional to the history of Ottoman turn- aesthetics and on the role of the Ottomans' westernizing architecture.14 To regard the eighteenth century as a is to aspirations in informing architectural change has consider- ing point in Ottoman interaction with Europe ignore artis- ably eclipsed the extensive and multifarious nature of the over two centuries of virtually continuous cultural and fundamental century's developments. Because Ottoman westernization tic contact. It is also to accept the fallacy of a cul- remains the dominant rhetoric in interpretations of the polarity between the two geocultural entities, whereby of eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, any assessment of tural encounter can occur only in situations unequal Ottoman architecture in the postclassical and the late period power and in the form of "influence," "without a choice by must address the question. While in the context of the nine- the allegedly passive receiver.""s teenth century this concept is identified with the state-led While there is no doubt that in the eighteenth century of Istan- modernizing reforms that started under Mahmud II,'o in western details infiltrated the architectural idiom to the eighteenth century, westernization, understood as the bul more pervasively than they had before, it is crucial visual and chief vehicle of architectural and cultural change, is more reevaluate the significance of this current against broadly circumscribed in the rise of European military architectural evidence, and against the two often diverging supremacy vis-a-vis the Ottomans after the latter's defeat at discourses that emerged among contemporary European char- Vienna in 1683. It has even been argued, in keeping with and Ottoman observers of change. Modern scholars' as the the largely dated paradigm of the "rise and decline" of the acterization of change in the eighteenth century western- empire, that it was the "faltering of [Ottoman] self-confi- beginning of a long and unilinear march toward of reformu- dence""' that lay at the crux of the new westernizing out- ization reflects only one facet of two centuries look, which was to shape the architectural and, indeed, the lation of Ottoman architectural and indeed, sovereign, in a cultural horizon for the next two hundred years. identity. While this search for a new image was, part, In the dominant narrative of Ottoman history, the response to the military blow the empire had just suffered to the eighteenth century inaugurates a new era of peace and at the hands of European powers, it also answered cen- diplomacy with Europe, whose military superiority was at pressure of internal transformations. By the eighteenth the this point widely acknowledged. It is against this backdrop tury, the system of hierarchies that had exemplified contem- that the image of Istanbul emerges, its architectural culture Ottoman world order was eroding. While many breakdown transformed by the energy of a ruling elite engaged in the porary critics saw these changes as signs of the can also cultivation of a new interest in European culture. The of social order and the decline of the empire, they of increasing incorporation of western aesthetics in the be viewed as symptomatic of what, in the distant context Ottoman vocabulary is thus commonly understood as one Europe, is now known as the early modern period.16 led of myriad symptoms of an overarching cultural aspiration. Greater mobility among social and professional groups By and large, architecture is seldom invoked except as a to new social and financial aspirations, increasing material response or a reaction to the West.12 wealth, changing habits of consumption and of recreational marks In seeking to redress the scholarly tendency to regard and cultural practices, and the wearing out of stable the social eighteenth-century innovation as synonymous with western- of distinction. These patterns became integral to ization, I do not mean to suggest that the Ottomans' chang- landscape of the city and began to crystallize in its physical ing attitude toward Europe was inconsequential to some of fabric. the developments that occurred in the capital. There is no This climate of change was accompanied by a wider doubt that the intensification of diplomatic exchange with receptiveness to novelty that was equally inclusive of west- European powers brought about greater exposure to western and eastern, and early and classical Ottoman traditions. ern artistic knowledge and techniques, literary ideas, sartor- A new architectural idiom, profoundly hybrid in aesthetics ial fashions, and material culture.13In architecture, certain and outlook, grew out of the dynamic that was played out in Neoclassical, Baroque, and Rococo elements gradually per- Istanbul between an urban society in flux and a state anxious meated the architecture of Istanbul, especially from the 1750s to reassert its presence in the capital and revamp the image on. Toward the close of the century, it became a common- of sovereignty. Eighteenth-century developments did not place for the court entourage to commission their private res- constitute a sharp break with the past. Rather, they matured idences from European architects. in the context of emerging practices and aspirations that However, these trends were not necessarily indicative started consolidating in the fabric of the city. Nor were they of a sudden inclination toward westernization, in the halted by the modernizing reforms of the following cen-

34 JSAH / 63:1, MARCH 2004 Figure 2 Mehmed Fatih'sMiddle Gate at the TopkapiPalace, Istanbul,second half of the fifteenth century

tury. To a certain extent, they informed the course of later idence of Neqatabad,""1testifies to his awarenessof the fact change. that the pavilionwas designedby a Europeanarchitect. One Returning to Fazil's depiction of the pavilion, it is curi- could argue that regardlessof how well-informed he was, ous that for all his expressed admiration for the building's Fazil may have deemed any verbalizationof things western innovativeness, the poet's verse does not describe what conceptuallyor ideologicallyoutside the canonof the court seems to a modern eye to be its most flagrant characteristic, poetic tradition. He once temporarilyheld similarlycon- namely, the western decorative style. Fazil's allusion to Mani servative views on the representation of women in court and Behzad (a traditional trope in Ottoman poetry) may be poetry. 19However, this argumentis counteredby the elab- read as a discreet reference to this feature: "Neither its orate descriptionsof Europeanmen and women in his two design nor its new colors and novel ornaments/have ever narrative poems "H banname" and "Zenanname"(The been witnessed by either Mani or even Behzad." In this con- book of men and The book of women), and in any case, text, invocation of these two archetypal artists of the "east- terms like Frengistdn(for Europe)and other western refer- ern" Persian tradition could be interpreted as the poet's ences had been introduced in court poetry more than half defiant championing of the western novelty of Negatabad, a century earlier.20 perhaps even suggesting that by its sheer inventiveness What is perhapsmost frustratingabout Fazil'schoice western art had outdone its eastern counterpart. not to acknowledgethe origin of the featuresof Negatabad However, it should be noted that Fazil makes no direct he so appreciatedis that it upsets our modern expectations reference to the pavilion's European flavor, unlike fifteenth- that by virtue of their nature as western, hence foreign, century commentators such as Tursun Beg or these featureswould have been clearlydistinguishable from Kemalpagazade. In their observations of the Topkapi Palace, the rest. But it is importantto recall here that western aes- for example, both historians identified Mehmed Fatih's gate thetics had long been part of the architecturallandscape of towers, which were modeled after the Byzantine gate of Sta. Istanbul.21Moreover, the religious and ethnic diversityof Barbara and may have involved some European artists, as the empire (unlikethe homogeneity of Europeansocieties) "European towers" (frengi-burgkz) (Figure 2).17 It seems meant that men and women in the capital did not have to inappropriate to conclude that Fazll's failure to overtly rec- relate to things Europeanthrough a processof culturaloth- ognize western elements stemmed from insufficient visual ering. (Hardlyever did the spectacleof westernersin Istan- cognition or from the lack of a priori knowledge that would bul provokethe mixtureof awe and curiositythat Ottoman allow him to perceive such stylistic references. The very title [and Persian] ambassadorsevoked in westerners.) That of his ode, "Chronogram on the New Pavilion Which Is a Fazil'sarchitectural universe was not neatlydivided between European Construction, in the Felicitous Waterfront Res- an East and a West shouldnot be surprising.It was, afterall,

OTTOMAN EXPRESSIONS OF EARLY MODERNITY 35 Figure 3 The Nurosmaniye Mosque, Istanbul,1749-55 Figure 4 A portalof the Nurosmaniye Mosque

the same poet who once declared, in "Ifibanname," that While all Ottoman observersaddressed, in greater or "Now, the most beautifulof all/the cities of the continent of less detail, the innovative character of the mosque, their Europe/Is the one [andonly], the noble city of Istanbul."22 accounts and descriptionsseem incommensuratewith the The elusive treatment of western formal and decora- image of the mosque conveyedby modern historiansas the tive elements is not peculiar to Fazil's poem about archetypalillustration of the westernizing inclinations of Negatabad.Historical accounts of the imperial mosque of the Ottoman ruling elite.25 Eighteenth-centurycommen- Nurosmaniye are remarkablein this respect. Founded by tators remarked on the new style of the Nurosmaniye, Mahmud I in 1749 and completed by his successorOsman pointing to the many features they recognized as novel to III, in 1755,23the Nurosmaniyewas the first Ottoman reli- the mosque idiom of their city: the engaged pillars,whose gious building to exhibit a panoplyof western, particularly, capitalsmerged with a molded cornice, the excessivenum- French Baroqueand Neoclassical,details like scrolls,shells, ber of windows, their round and multilobed arches, the cable and round moldings, undulatingand heavily molded imperialramp and lodge, and the somewhatBaroque foun- cornices, concave and convex faqades, round arches, tain at the outer gate of the complex (Figure 6). engaged pillars, and fluted capitals(Figures 3, 4). In addi- In his Tdril-i Cdmi'-iSerif-i Nuir-i ' Osmani(History of tion to incorporating such elements, it was also the first the mosque of Nurosmaniye), Ahmed Efendi, assistant mosque in Istanbulto introducegenerously fenestrated and comptroller of the mosque'sconstruction, referred to the relatively transparentfaqades, a horseshoe-shaped court- buildingas "thehonorable mosque in the new style"(cami'- yard, and an imposingroyal rampand loggia (Figure 5), the i serif-inev-tarz) and characterizedits profuselyornamented epitome of an idea developed at the beginning of the sev- fountain-sebil as "a skillfully crafted fountain of unique enteenth century at the mosque of Ahmed I (1609-17).24 beauty."26Later in the century,the Armenianchronicler Inci-

36 JSAH / 63:1, MARCH 2004 Figure 5 The imperial ramp and loggia at the Nurosmaniye Mosque

cyan praised the style of the Nurosmaniye as superior to that of all the other mosques in Istanbul. He mentioned its windows, its marble pillars, columns, and capitals as its most appealing features.27 In a brief entry on the mosque in his Hadikat ul-Cevami' (The garden of the mosques), Ayvansarayipointed to its grandiose ramp and loggia (hiinkar mahfili), construing it correctly as a symbol of royalty.28 The Ottomans' reluctance to single out features of western origin becomes all the more interesting when compared to the accounts of their European counterparts. Full of praise for Mahmud I for his "good taste in architecture," James Dallaway, an English visitor who traveled to Istanbul some thirty years after the mosque was completed, explained that the founder of the Nurosmaniye had "pro- cured designs of the most celebrated European churches, [and] wished to have adopted the plan of one of them [as a model for his mosque], but was dissuaded by the ulem'Th [the learned and religious elite]."29 This curious tale was recounted in more detail by the Reverend Robert Walsh, a compatriot of Dallaway who visited the city in the nineteenth century: "In order to make [the Nurosmaniye] more splendid than that of any of his predecessors, Mahmud I sent architects to collect the models of the Christian cathe- drals in Europe, that his mosque might be constructed from the perfections of them all. This heterodox intention, however, was opposed by the Ulemah, who denounced it as a desecration of a temple dedicated to the Prophet; and while Figure 6 Fountain-sebTIof the Nurosmaniye Mosque, 1755 he hesitated in his plans, and before he had matured the

OTTOMAN EXPRESSIONS OF EARLY MODERNITY 37 KOW/iYKAEMWAWHM& AADABAO' K A 5 P 1,AO %\ o 0 La ;_ v~L'(, N,lvu va MR11 v a~ bi dtt~~"i':;1 11 pa~i~------XVOOAOP ? ~ 04~bo::.I -77'iri:iiPii~i 9Sijj~~~ : A5AFGAVHUQEMA13ADLIZ A", KACiiiijHANEK,49il1 VeNI ------o-- i

Figure 7 Sedad HakkiEldem, plan of Sa'dabad, Istanbul, 1720-21

whole design, death overtook him, and he left the mosque such notable features as the horseshoe-shaped court, the unfinished."30 monumental royal ramp, and the abundant fenestration. Whether or not the travelersfabricated the story in its While they recognized western imports as part of the new entirety, or based their accounts on hearsay about the vocabulary,the role of westernizationas an avowedstylistic unusualcharacter or the new style of the mosque, is a ques- or cultural aspiration seems to have been, to their eyes, tion that is impossibleto resolve at this point. But it is odd ratherinconsequential. that not even a hint of such intentions on the part of Mah- Speculations similar to those offered by European mud I should be droppedby the usuallywell informedcourt observersin connection with the Nurosmaniye have sur- chroniclers,or by Ayvansarayiin his meticulous and ency- roundedthe innovationsof the imperialpalace of Sa'dabad, clopedic chronicle of the mosques of Istanbul.This silence builtin Istanbulfor AhmedIII by his grand-vizier,Neveehirli, is all the more perplexingin the case of Ahmed Efendi,who andin modem historiographyanother celebrated monument by virtue of his job and his obvious interest in the mosque's of the Ottomans'western ideals. Written and visual repre- history(testified to by his initiativein recordingit in writing) sentationsof the palaceprecinct, summarized in the recon- should have been, in all likelihood, awareof such a signifi- struction plans of the notable early-twentieth-century cant fact. If we supposethat all these commentatorsthought Turkisharchitect Sedad Hakki Eldem (Figure 7), show that it betterto hush the ruler'spresumably heterodox intentions, its central area comprisedthe imperialpalace, which con- other conservativeand more acerbic critics, like the self- sisted of a harem,a selamlzk(the male quarters),a mosque, a appointed historian Semdanizade, should have been gardenpavilion, a small fountain,and a large pool that was delighted to expose a purportedact of profanity.Given the fed from the nearbyKagithane stream by means of a canal ease with which he unleashed his sharp tongue against all and a complexsystem of conduits,dykes, and cascades(Fig- echelons of society, on issues ranging from women's ures 8, 9). To the south andnortheast of the mainpalace, 170 unseemly d6colletis to the debaucheryof one of the most residencesand gardensfor state officials,"built in a hitherto influentialmen of his time, Grand-VizierNevgehirli Ibrahim unseen style [tarzlarzna-dide] and accordingto a beautiful Pasha,the cursoryremarks he offered on the Nurosmaniye and admirable layout [tarhlarimatbiu( u pesendide]"were and its patronseem surprising,if not incongruous."3 erected on either side of the canaland the river.32 The discrepancy between Ottoman and European According to numerous European travelersand resi- reportsis interestingnot only not only becauseit calls into dents, Sa'dabad was supposedly modeled after a contem- question the ultimate motives of the building patron, but poraryFrench palace, a set of whose planshad been brought also because it casts doubt on the conspicuousnessof west- back from Franceby YirmisekizMehmed Celebi, Ottoman ern stylisticreferences and their significanceto the mosque's ambassadorto the court of Louis XV, in October 1721, that unmistakablynew idiom. Comparedwith the commentaries is, nine months before the constructionof Sa'dabadbegan. of European travelers,the Ottomans' accounts reflected a The Marquis de Bonnac, French ambassador at the horizon of innovations beyond western details, including Ottoman court at the time, and a numberof later European

38 JSAH / 63:1, MARCH 2004 Figure 8 Anonymous painted illustrationof the garden of Sa'dabad at Kagithane,Istanbul, ca. 1720s

Figure 9 L'Espinasse, engraving showing the palace of Sa'dabad and the garden of Kagithane,ca. 1770s

OTTOMAN EXPRESSIONS OF EARLY MODERNITY 39 but vague descriptionof the French palaceand gardenYir- misekiz supplied in his embassyreport to the court on his return from France or, more generally,by his enthusiastic depictions of the sophisticatedjeux d'eauxhe had observed at everyFrench garden he visited.36For it is only much later that visual documentationof Marly becameavailable to the Ottomans,in the form of a book titled Architecturefrancoise, published in 1738, more than fifteen years after Sa'dabad was completed.37 In any case, neither poets nor court historians, who devoted more space in their writings to Sa'dabad than to any other building of their time, offer any clue that the planningof the imperialpalace may have been informedby a western model or that it may have been related in some way to the architectural knowledge Yirmisekiz brought from his embassyto France.Rather, it was in the "East"that Ottoman observerssought to identify architecturalmodels for the palace. I am not referring to symbolic allusions to 10 Cornelius the Figure DeBryn, engraving showing Chaharbagh, legendary monuments of the eastern world, such as the Isfahan, ca. 1700s famed pavilion of Havernak(an old trope of Ottoman literature) but to real architecturalachievements that were invoked by poets and chroniclers to better illustrate the travelers, including Dallaway, Rev. Walsh, the Baron de challenge confronted by their own accomplishments. Tott, CharlesPertusier, and the Comtesse de Fert6-Meun, Consider, for instance, this vengeful-soundingdepre- offered, each in turn, a French model for the palace, cation of Isfahan'sChaharbagh (1596), the famed public whether Versailles,Fontainebleau, or Marly.33 promenade built by the Safavid Shah Abbas I in his new Despite the lack of consensus on the specific source of capital, Isfahan (Figure 10)38:"With blots and scores, it inspiration,in the absence of more revealing evidence we scarredIsfahan's Chaharbagh/Sa'dabad has now become a cannot completely discredit their accounts; nor can we garden upon a hill, my love."'39The verse, written by the exclude the possibility that some of the architecturaland court poet Nedim, was evidently meant to exalt the beauty landscapefeatures of the palace may have been inspiredby of his beloved gardenof Sa' dabad,and to affirmits glaring a French precedent. We could certainly establish a corre- superiority to the Chaharbaghpromenade. Composed in spondence, for instance, between the one-kilometer-long 1722, at a time when the Safavidcapital was badly strug- canal at Sa'dabad and another, equally long and twice as gling against an Afghan occupation, Nedim's poem was, imposing, at Fontainebleau. We could also suggest that without any doubt, a referenceto the bygone glory of Isfa- KiigiikQelebizade's reference to the "hithertounseen style" han. Yet at the same time, it also testified to the continuing of the residences and gardens of state officials may have significance, in Ottoman architectural consciousness, of been an allusionto a new western style.34But given the lack ShahAbbas's magnificent achievement. It is in the samevin- of visual evidence and the scarcity of written descriptions dictive spirit that Nedim described, a few years later, the of the canaland riversections of the palatialprecinct (which Ottoman palatialgarden of $evkabad,built around 1728 by were destroyed some ten years after they were built, in Saliha Sultan, the mother of Mahmud I, in Beylerbeyi40as 1730, in the wake of the PatronaHalil revolt), the sugges- a smashing triumph over a contemporarySafavid master- tion cannot be substantiatedat this point. piece, the palace garden of Ferahabad,which was con- What is certain is that neither in design nor in style, structed in 1700 by Shah Husayn in Isfahan: "How size, or scale can any of the proposedmodels comparewith wonderful!How wonderful,may it be blessed!/Everyone of the central, better documentedpart of the palace. Nor can its shaded avenuesis a sinecure for gay life and pleasure/ the view advancedby some Europeanobservers and recent From envy of its abundantpure breeze,/Isfahan'sFerahbad scholars that Sa'dabad'swaterworks (see Figure 8) were crumbledin ruins."41 based on drawingsof the cascadesat Marly be verified."At Similaranalogies between Ottoman and Safavidmon- best, the feature could have been inspired by the lengthy uments appear in chroniclers' accounts of architectural

40 JSAH / 63:1, MARCH 2004 Figure 12 Shah Abbas II'spavilion of ChihilSutun, Isfahan, 1647

was meant to outdo AbbasII's Chihil Sutun (at least by four pillars)or that the Chaharbaghserved as a model in Ahmed III and Nevgehirli's conceptions of Sa'dabad. We must nonetheless bear in mind that such monumentsof the Per- sian world were known to the Ottomans, at least to those Figure 11 L'Espinasse, engraving showing Mahmud I's pavilionof close to palaceculture, not only throughPersian poems and Bayildimat the Begikta?Palace, Istanbul,ca. 1770s histories, but also from accounts of Safavid,Ottoman, and European diplomats, travelers, and merchants. In their reports of diplomatic visits by Persian envoys, Ottoman events.In his accountof MahmudI's renovation of the Arab court chroniclers often recorded oral exchanges on the iskelesi Mosque in Istanbul, in 1748, the historian architectureand overallbeauty of the two imperialcapitals. Semdanizade alluded to a new imperial pavilion at the The conversationswere part of an entertainmentceremo- nearbypalace of Begikta?,identifying it as fehelsiitin (forty, nial in which the two parties also exchangedpoetic, musi- or many, pillars):"Following the constructionof the cehel cal, and calligraphicskills throughvarious displays of talent sitiin, a mosque located in the [nearby quarter of] Arab seemingly highly competitive in spirit. In the context of iskelesi was enlargedand [re]built."42The pavilion,erected these cultural contests, the Chaharbagh of Shah Abbas by MahmudI and known as IftariyeK6gkii or Baylldim,was enjoyed particular prominence. As early as 1699, the a two-story building fronted by a porch with twenty-two Ottoman envoy to the Safavidcourt, Mehmed Pasha,men- pillarsand a large reflectingpool (Figure 11). Semdanizade tioned the promenadein his report to the Ottoman court, have used the term siitin as a loose reference to it as "a of fame."44Six later, the may rehel describing place year the pavilion'smany pillars. But he may also have meant to Ottoman grand-vizierDizdarzade Ahmed Pasha, anxious allude to his perception (or knowledge) of a visual analogy to demonstrate the splendor of his city to Murtaza Kulu between Mahmud I's Baylldimand the Safavidpavilion of Han, the Persian ambassadoron a mission in Istanbul, Chihil Sutun,which had been constructedin the middle of launched a conversationby declaring"[You] might have a the seventeenth centuryby Shah AbbasII aroundAbbas I's garden called Chaharbaghin your city of Isfahan,[but] we famous Meydan-i Shah in Isfahan.The Chihil Sutun was too [in Istanbul]have a heavenlypleasure [garden]."4s fronted by eighteen pillars,which were reflected in a large The fact that the century-old promenadewas so alive pool, and it had been freshly restored by Shah Husayn at in eighteenth-century Ottoman minds may suggest that the beginning of the eighteenth century (Figure 12).43 poets' repeated allusions to it in relation to Sa'dabadwas It may be far-fetchedto intimate from these allusions not fortuitous,and that in the eyes of contemporaryview- alone that in the mind of Mahmud I the pavilionof Iftariye ers the Ottoman palace did evoke connections with its

OTTOMAN EXPRESSIONS OF EARLY MODERNITY 41 assigned Persian counterpart.Indeed, it is difficult to dis- count the "conceptual,"if not formal,link between, on the one hand, Isfahan'sChaharbagh, a long avenuebisected by a canal and bordering the royal precinct and the gardens and residences of Safavidcourt dignitaries(Figure 13; see Figure 10) and, on the other hand, the stretch of residences of Ottoman grandeesat Sa'dabad,located on both sides of the canalfarther down the Kagithanestream (see Figure 7). Neither in concept nor in planning did Sa'dabad have a precedent in Ottoman imperialpalatine architecture. Equallyrelevant in this regardis the absenceof a solid enclosure around the imperial compound of Sa'dabad. Unlike its sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-centuryproto- types secluded behind walls of cypressesand masonry,such as Siileyman'ssuburban palaces at Beykoz and Iskiidar, Sa'dabadwas only partly enclosed by wooden screens and a pierced masonrywall (see Figures 8, 9). Its visual exposure to the surroundingpublic grounds, notably the adja- cent promenadeof Kagithane,was noted by contemporary observers.46Unprecedented in the Ottoman palatialtradi- tion, this setting echoed ratherthe visual relationbetween the Chaharbagh and the palatial gardens alongside it. Fenced off by lattice screens, the privategardens were par- tially visible from the public promenade(see Figure 10).47 Such a connection would be particularlysignificant, as it bears not only on the planning of Sa'dabad but, more generally, on the development of imperial and grandees' palaces, pavilions, and gardens in the eighteenth century. For unlike earlier suburbanpalaces, which were situated inland and surroundedby walled gardens, or the imperial palace of Topkapi,which was perched on its peninsulaand Figure 13 Plan of Isfahan showing the Chaharbaghpromenade, isolated from the rest of the city behind fortificationwalls Isfahan (Figure 14), eighteenth-centurypalaces and pavilionswere

Figure 14 GuillaumeJoseph Grelot, engraving, ca. 1672. Detail from a panoramicview showing the TopkapiPalace, Istanbul

42 JSAH / 63:1, MARCH 2004 Figure 15 Antoine- Ignace Melling, engraving showing the pavillionof Bebek, Istanbul,ca. 1800s

built mostly along the open shores of the Bosphorus and Siileyman, and the palace of Tokat, erected by Mehmed the Golden Horn. Their generous fenestration, their airy Fatih in Beykoz and so named in commemoration of the wooden structures, and the lightness of their garden enclo- conqueror's victory over the citadel of Tokat, imperial pala- sures lent them a remarkable transparency that was clearly tial gardens were, until the beginning of the eighteenth cen- conveyed in contemporary pictorial representations (Fig- tury, plainly called haysbagfe (imperial garden) and identified ure 15; see Figure 1).48 Their partial exposure to public view by their location. The fifteenth-century garden of Tokat, comes across wonderfully in two painted garden scenes we learn from the poet Nevres, was renamed Hiimayun- from the 1720s: in the first, two peeping toms sneak a look abad (the Imperial Abode) only upon its restoration by at a group of women entertaining themselves in the garden, Mahmud I: "Cruel fortune had made it such ruins/That the and in the second an exhibitionist exposes himself through architect had to envision [even] its minutest details/By mak- the fence of a private garden (Figures 16, 17). ing the necessary restorations, he built it such/That the We must also note the curious kinship of the newly mind of the creator gave it the name of Hiimaytina-bad."s0 acquired names of Ottoman imperial and grandees' palaces Limited as the evidence may be, it suggests that the and gardens with those of the Safavid, like Sa'd-abad with emblematic power of Safavid Persia as a model to mea- Sa'adet-abad, one of Shah Abbas's private gardens in Isfa- sure up to strongly resonated in eighteenth-century han, both meaning the Abode of Happiness. In an entry in Ottoman consciousness. The same could be argued in his personal diary dated 10 August 1722, the bureaucrat connection with the development of a new Ottoman Mustafa Efendi reported that in the wake of the construc- imperial image and the increasingly public nature of court tion of Ahmed III's palace the place previously known as ceremonial that paralleled the formal evolution of impe- Kagithane was increasingly referred to as Sa'dabad.49These rial palaces and gardens. Indeed, in contrast with the ideal eponymous associations with Safavid monuments and, more of the ruler's seclusion and invisibility, which had gov- generally, the trend of ascribing garden palaces of the impe- erned Ottoman court etiquette since its codification in rial and ruling elite with poetic names in the manner of their the second half of the fifteenth century, the new imperial Persian counterparts, as with Feyzabad, Hurremabad, and image thrived on visibility and public display.5"Surely, the Negatabad, dated only to the reign of Ahmed III (r. change in behavioral code was first and foremost a 1703-30). With a handful of exceptions like the Kule response to the social and political environment of the Bahqesi, a waterfront garden built in (engelk6y by Sultan time, a reflection of the state's anxiety to reaffirm its legit-

OTTOMAN EXPRESSIONS OF EARLY MODERNITY 43 Figure 16 Painted illustrationof a garden scene, ca. 1720s

Figure 17 Scene of a private garden portrayingthe adventures of an exhibitionist, ca. 1720s?

imacy in the wake of defeat and reassert its physical pres- Beg Munshi, was requested.That it was commissioned by ence in the capital city. As the veiled symbolism of tradi- Nevgehirli Ibrahim Pasha, the grand-vizier reputed for tional forms of imperial representationno longer seemed his interest in western culture, is all the more significant.54 suitable, it is not surprising that models for the new im- While the idiomaticlink between Ottomanand Safavid perial image were sought in other imperialtraditions. And architecturalcultures establishedby the sources may have while it has been suggested that this shift reflected an been, ultimately, more symbolic than stylistic or icono- attempt to emulate the image of contemporary French graphic,it clearly indicates that architecturalexemplars of kings,52we could also argue that the change may have SafavidPersia must have been alive in the Ottoman archi- been inspired by the famed public image that the Safavid tecturaland literarydiscourse, until at least aroundthe mid- Shah had cultivated for himself more than a century ear- dle of the century.Gradually, after the disastrousOttoman lier.s3 Other evidence points to an active interest in the campaign in Persia in 1730 and the rapid downfall of the universe of this charismatic figure and once-powerful Safaviddynasty, vivid architecturalimages such as those we rival to the Ottoman empire. For the first time, in the encountered in the poetry of Nedim, or in Semdanizade's 1720s, an Ottoman translationof the most importanthis- history,began to lose both their interest and immediacy.In tory of the reign of Shah Abbas, Tdrikh-i 'alam-drd-yi the latter part of the century,while Isfahan(and Mani and 'Abbdsi,written by one of his chief secretaries, Iskander Behzad)maintained their symbolic role of witnesses to the

44 JSAH / 63:1, MARCH 2004 architecturalmagnificence of the Ottomans, specific archi- terpretationof variousnew and familiaridioms can be noted tecturalconnections to Persia slowly disappeared. in other culturalspheres, including painting, clothing fash- The discussion of the predominance of the Persian ion, court music, and poetry.As in architecture,some of the model is not intendedto suggest an East-Westpolarity. But novelties that were introducedin court poetry in the eigh- in view of the tendencyin scholarshipto overplaythe role of teenth century,such as folk forms and genres and colloquial westernizationin interpretationsof change in this period, it idioms, were not entirely new to the Ottoman tradition. is importantto bearin mind that innovationsexisted within Earlierattempts at breakingaway from the classicalcanon, a much broader discourse, in which Persia, for example, however, as with the movement known as tiirk-i basit(sim- remaineda potent challengeto, as well as a culturaluniverse ple Turkish)adopted by some late-fifteenth- and early-six- in continuouscontact with, the Ottomanempire.55ss The same teenth-century poets, met with negative reception. By can be said about the Mughal world, whose aestheticsand contrast, experimentation with new themes, genres, and decorative styles and techniques penetrated the Ottoman diction by such court poets as Nedim or Enderunlu Fazil vocabularymore thanever before.56 As statedearlier, western was widely acclaimed.More important,it became institu- imports were one element in a wide search for a new and tionalizedin the mainstreamculture. Novelty and original- independentaesthetic that drewas much on SafavidPersian, ity became subjects of an open debate among court poets MughalIndian, and Ottomanpreclassical and classicalvisual throughout the eighteenth century.58 repertoires.By their appropriationand integration in this While the innovationsthat occurredwithin the realm stylisticallyuncommitted visual environment, they defiedany of architecturewere remarkable,what really distinguished attemptby observersto singlethem out, let aloneinvest them this era was that architecture, like painting, music, and with a particularcultural signification. poetry, reflected a changing disposition toward tradition With thisin mind,it is importantto reconsiderour under- and innovation, and this new disposition ensured the sur- standingof the conceptof "influence,"which is often assumed vival and appreciation of attempts to redefine Ottoman by artand architectural historians to be hegemonicand unidi- architecturalidentity beyond the classical idiom. We can rectional,especially in contextscharacterized by an imbalance better appreciatethis development by looking at the way of power.Suffice it to recallhere the trend of turqueriesthat the notion of novelty was construed in the sixteenth and sweptthe spheresof architecture,landscape, painting, and sar- early seventeenth centuries: as the emulation and refine- torialfashion in eighteenth-centuryEurope, which was largely ment of admiredmodels. As Giilru Necipoglu has demon- construedas a fad for exotic stuff that expressedan urge to strated, while Sinan, the chief architect at the court of reassessthe parametersof the seventeenth-centuryclassical Siileyman,represented himself as an innovator,his build- ideal."While it may be too soon (andultimately, impossible) ings remained"self-referential exercises within the confines to arguefor a comparableOttoman inclination for the exotic, of the canonicalimperial idiom which he codified,"59and it there is little doubt that the sensibilityfor novelty and origi- is in relation to the parametersof this canon that his inno- nality was shared by Ottomans and Europeans.Notwith- vations, or refinements, were assessed and appreciatedby standing the specifics of each of the two cultural and his contemporaries.By the eighteenth century,the concept intellectualmilieus, one cannotbut wonderwhat makes a car- of refinement(nezaket) had vanishedfrom the architectural touche on a fountainin Istanbulan index of westernization, discourse. Along with it, deferential allusions to classical and a Turkishpavilion in Viennamerely an Orientalfolly. monuments of the glorious past and to the idiom to which If the architecturalidiom of the eighteenthcentury was they subscribedslowly disappeared.60 far more hybrid than the notion of westernizationimplies, To a certain extent, this aesthetic and culturalopening it was also a vocabularyin which novelty was sought inde- was occasioned by a wider exposure to foreign ideas and pendently or regardless of stylistic genealogies. In this material culture. But the greater receptivenessto innova- respect, the aesthetic judgments of Ottoman contempo- tion grew primarilyout of a long process of transformation rariesclosely mirroredthe built environmentof their time. in the Ottoman social order that had begun to crystallizein They bespeak a notion of architecturalbeauty and excel- the architecturaland cultural landscapeof Istanbul in the lence that upheldinnovation, not a particularaesthetic incli- eighteenth century. New arenas for the dissemination of nation, as its operativecriterion. This bearsnot only on the culture-notably painting and poetry-emerged, targeting natureof architecturalchange duringthe period under dis- new groups and tastes. With the growing involvement of cussion, but also on a more general transformationin the men and women acrossthe social spectrumin the sphere of natureof Ottoman culturalsensibility. The high regardfor patronage,a broaderand more diverserange of tastes,prac- innovationas an essentiallyhybrid appropriationand rein- tices, and aspirationsgradually infused Ottoman architec-

OTTOMAN EXPRESSIONS OF EARLY MODERNITY 45 Figure 18 Thomas Allom, engraving depicting Mahmud II'snew •iragan Palace, Istanbul,ca. 1840s

tural culture.61 In this environment, in which the size and as influenced by Europeanpalatial architecture, mainly on lavishness of a building and the practice of architectural account of their fagadesdisplaying Neoclassical featuresor patronage became viable manifestations of social distinc- overwhelmingassortments of Ottomanand FrenchRococo tion for more than a few men in the ruling elite, the im- details (Figures 18, 19).63But it is importantto point out perial state attempted to reassert itself, and new modes of that formally,spatially, and conceptually-by their setting, representation and a display-conscious image of Ottoman their ample fenestration,their openness, and their empha- sovereignty were sought. This climate of social change bred sis on the view-these palaces were a product of the the wider receptivity toward innovation and the hybrid aes- Ottoman palatialidiom as it had been reformulatedin the thetic sensibility that characterized architecture at the time. eighteenth century.In plan, too, they remainedunchanged The question that remains concerns the extent to which until the end of the nineteenth century, with rooms that these changes can alter our understanding of the concept of were arranged on either side of a large central hall and "early modern period" as pertinent only to Europe and, to looked out to the waterfront. quote Craig Clunas, "as the inevitable, if implicit, prelude to Greater efforts toward redrawing the boundaries modernity proper."62To invoke the concept in the Ottoman betweenthe two centuriesmight help us reconsiderwhether, context is not only to suggest that changing attitudes, tastes, as is generallyperceived, westernization was the only form of and practices resonated with some of the transformations that continuity between them. The evidence so far points in unfolded in contemporary European cities. It is also to stress anotherdirection. As has recentlybeen shown, by the 1860s that the changes were not thwarted by the lack of the advent and 1870s the Ottomansconsciously and manifestlyharked of modernity, nor were they completely superseded by the backto the rich hybridityof the decorativevocabulary of the modernizing programs of the following century. eighteenthcentury in theirquest for a new architecturaliden- It becomes evident as we reassess the period that the tity.64It is clearthat some of the developmentsthat unfolded architectural legacy of the eighteenth century survived in the decadesof architecturalmodernization and western- through most of the following century, and that many trans- izationunder Mahmud II andAbdiilmecid, from the 1820sto formations that have commonly been ascribed to later the 1860s, were rooted in changes that cannot be squarely processes of change and modernization are in fact anchored identifiedwith westerninfluences but rathergrew for the most in earlier developments. The nineteenth-century waterfront partout of theirown socialclimate. While considerablework palaces that lined the shores of Istanbul have long been seen has been done by socialhistorians in recentyears to uncover

46 JSAH / 63:1, MARCH 2004 1. On the palace of Hatice Sultan, see Antoine-Ignace Melling, Voyagepit- toresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphore;d'apris les dessins de M. Melling avec un texte ridige par M. Lacretelle (Paris, 1819), 27; Tiilay Artan, "Hatice Sultan Sahilsarayi" (The palaces of Hatice Sultan), DuindenBugiine Istanbul Ansiklopedisi(Encyclopedia of Istanbul; hereafter DBIA) (Istanbul, 1994), 4: 19-20; on Melling's building activity in Istanbul, see Cornelis Boschma and Jacques Perot, Antoine-Ignace Melling (Paris, 1991); Jacques ' Perot, "Un Artiste lorrain la cour de Selim III. Antoine-Ignace Melling (1763-1831)," Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire de l'Art Franfais (1987), 125-50; Necla Arslan, "Melling," DBIA 5: 387-88; and Jacques Perot, Fred6ric Hitzel, and Robert Anhegger, Hatice Sultan ile Melling Kalfa Mek- tuplar (The correspondence of Hatice Sultan and Melling), trans. Ela Giin- tekin (Ankara, 2001). 2. Fazil himself wrote seven odes to Nefatabad. See Divan-i Fdtil Enderin (Anthology of poems by Fazil Enderun), MS Topkapi Sarayl Miizesi Kiitiiphanesi (Topkapi Palace Museum Library; hereafter TSMK), H. 906, fols. 66a-68a; H. 893, fols. 89a-b. 3. Gel temaga-yl cinan et bu NeIataibad'dan Ba hustis ihdas olan bu tarh-1 nev-iciddan Bi televvun hakk bu kim ol came-i yekreng ile Eski talkvimikabai g6rdiik bu nev biinyaiddan Side-ri bir dil-rubadir kim tenlisub iizredir Hey'et-i mevziini lho6dur kaimet-i ?im-ad'dan ... Geldi tarh etti anlfi ?eklince bu icadi kim Resmini goirmii? degil iistadlar ecdfiddan Resmi dursun inda elvin-1 cedid ii nak-1i nev Hig ne Mani'den g6riilmii0diir ne had Behzfid'dan." "Tarib berai-yl kIasr-i cedid-i fireng-tegyiddir der slhilbhane-i Neditabid ma'mur-bid" (Chronogram on the new pavilion which is a European construction, in the felicitous waterfront residence of Negatabad), dated 1210 (1795), Divdn-z Fdtl Enderuin,MS TSMK, H. 906, fols. 67b-68a. 4. On the paint colors of buildings and their social and religious significance, see, for example, Tari -i Ins ' il 'Aszm Efendi ef-Sehir bi Kiifiik Qelebi- zade (History of Ismail Asim known as (elebi-zade), in Figure 19 Gate of the palace of Dolmabahqe, Istanbul, 1851-55 Kiitiik Tarih -i Raid (Rapid's History), vol. 6 (Istanbul, 1282 [1865]), 53-54; Fazil Ilk6zlii, ed., "BaybakanllkArgivinde yeni bulunmug olan ve Sadreddin Zaide Telhisi Mustafa Efendi tarafindan tutuldugu anlaillan H. 1123 (1711)-1184 (1735) ylllarmnaait bir Ceride (Jurnal) ve Eklentisi" (The journal of Sadred- patternsthat echo, in manyways, what in Europeanhistori- din Zade Telhisi Mustafa Efendi between the years 1711 and 1735, found has been characterizedas a within in the Prime Ministry Archives), VII. Tiirk Tarih KongresiII (Proceedings of ography process early the Seventh of Turkish Thomas architectural behind. With Congress History) (Ankara, 1973), 525; modernity, history lags parallel Allom and Robert Walsh, Constantinopleand the Sceneryof the Seven Churches in various of nonwesterncul- developmentssurfacing spheres ofAsia Minor: Illustrated in a Series of Drawings from Nature by ThomasAllom tures,65comparative studies with eighteenth-centuryJapan, with: a Historical Account of Constantinopleby the Rev. Robert Walsh, LL.D., Ming China, or Russia,for example,are likely to yield new Chaplain to the British Embassyat the Ottoman Porte, 2 vols. (Paris, 1838), 1: Antonio e descritta con notizia su le perspectiveson the natureand significanceof changeduring 65; Baratta, Costantinopoli,effigiata una celebri sette chiese dell'Asia Minore ed altri siti osservabili del Levante (Turin, this time, as they might also leadus eventuallyto redefinethe 1840), 548; Guillaume Antoine Olivier, Voyage dans l'empire ottoman, notion of modern the westerncontext. "early period"beyond I'Egypte et la Perse (Paris, 1799), 109; Charles Pertusier, Promenades pit- toresquesdans Constantinopleet sur les rives du Bosphore,2 vols. (Paris, 1815), 2: 94-95; and Ahmet Refik, Hicri On ikinciAsirda Istanbul Hayatt 1100-1200 (Life in Istanbul in A.H. 12th century, from A.H. 1100 to 1200) (Istanbul, Notes 1988), 66-67, 158. I extend special thanks to Peter Parshall, whose insightful comments on an 5. On rhymed chronograms, see Ismail Yalkt, EbcedHesabh ve Tarih Di4iirme early version of this paper gave it shape as an article. For quotations from (Alphabet numericals and chronograms) (Istanbul, 1992); and Ahmet Zeki chronograms and for publication dates given in the Muslim calendar, I Vehidi Togan, Tarihte Usul (The rules of chronograms) (Istanbul, 1950). have provided the A.H. (anno hegirae) dates of the Muslim calendar with 6. In eighteenth-century Europe, novelty and originality were beginning corresponding c.E. dates in parentheses. All translations of Turkish verse to be viewed as positive qualities and entered the aesthetic discourse. See are mine. Luc Ferry, Homo Aestheticus: The Invention of Taste in the Democratic Age,

OTTOMAN EXPRESSIONS OF EARLY MODERNITY 47 trans. Robert de Loaiza (Chicago and London, 1993);Journal of Medieval Faroqhi et al., An Economic and Social History, 2: 639-758; Thomas Naff, and EarlyModern Studies 28, no. 1 (winter 1998) (issue editors, Neil de "OttomanDiplomatic Relationswith Europe in the Eighteenth Century: Marchiand Hans von Miegroet),which is entirelydevoted to the subjectof Patterns and Trends,"in Thomas Naff and Roger Owen, eds., Studiesin novelty in early modern Europeanvisual culture, literature, consumption, Eighteenth Century Islamic History (Chicago, 1977), 88-107; Naff, "Reform economics, morality,and legal discourse;and RolandMortier, L'Original- and the Conduct of Ottoman Diplomacy in the Reign of Selim III, ite. Une Nouvelle Catigorie esthetiqueau siecle des lumieres. Histoire des idies et 1789-1807," Journal of the American Oriental Society 83 (1963), 295-315; critique litteraire 207 (Geneva, 1982). Faik Regit Unat, Osmanli Sefirleri ve Sefaretnameleri (Ottoman ambassadors 7. Such referencesabound in the accountsof contemporarychroniclers and and embassies)(Ankara, 1987); Ismail Hakki Uzunqarglhs,Osmanli Tarihi. in poets' building chronograms.They are examinedin more detail in my Karlofta Anlapnasindan XVIII. Yiizythn Sonlarina Kadar (Ottoman history dissertation,Shirine Hamadeh, "The City'sPleasures: Architectural Sensi- from the KarlofqaTreaty to the end of the eighteenth century) (Ankara, bility in Eighteenth-CenturyIstanbul" (Ph.D. diss.,M.I.T., 1999), 264-69. 1978), 1-95. Numerous translationsof Europeanworks, especiallyin the 8. For much of the latterhalf of the seventeenthcentury, the Ottomancourt fields of geography,science, and technology, were published on the new was involvedin war campaignsand residedmainly in the city of Edirne, in Ottoman printingpress of IbrahimMiiteferrika, which he startedin 1720. Thrace. See Adnan-Adivar, La Sciencechez les turcs ottomans(Paris, 1939); and Niyazi 9. Some of the architecturaldevelopments of this period are explored in Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal, 1964). The Tiilay Artan,"Architecture as a Theatre of Life: Profile of the Eighteenth- acquisitionof Europeangoods becamemore widespreadamong the middle- Century Bosphorus"(Ph.D. diss., M.I.T., 1988); and Hamadeh, "City's and low-incomesegments of the populationboth in the capitaland the out- Pleasures,"chs. 1, 3. On the decorativevocabulary of the period, see Ulkii lying provinces.See the articlesby Donald Quataert,Suraiya Faroqhi, and Bates,"Eighteenth-Century Fountains of Istanbul,"Ninth International Con- Charlotte Jirousek in Donald Quataert, ed., ConsumptionStudies and the His- gress of Turkish Art (23-27 September 1991), vol. 1, 294-95; and Shirine tory of the Ottoman Empire, 1550-1922 (New York, 2000), 1-13, 15-44, and Hamadeh,"Splash and Spectacle:The Obsessionwith Fountainsin Eigh- 201-41, respectively; and Fatma Miige G6qek, Rise of the Bourgeoisie,Demise teenth-CenturyIstanbul," Muqarnas 19 (2002), 123-48. ofEmpire: Ottoman Westernizationand Social Change (New York and Oxford, 10. Godfrey Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture (London, 1971), 1996), 97-100. 409-27; Dogan Kuban, Diinya Kenti Istanbul/Istanbul World City (Ankara, 14. Surelythe trendswere more in vogue in the fifteenth and the firsthalf 1997), 346-80; Oktay Aslanapa,Osmanli Devri Mimarisi(Ottoman archi- of the sixteenth century,but despite our limited knowledge of the post- tecture) (Istanbul, 1986); Sedad Haklk Eldem, Korklerve Kastrlar(Kiosks Siuleymanicculture, evidence points to the continuityof Ottoman interest and pavilions)(Istanbul, 1977). in variousspheres of Europeanculture and technology.On Ottoman-Euro- 11. Bernard Lewis, The Muslim Discoveiy of Europe (New York, 1982), 239. peanartistic and culturalinteraction, see EsinAtil, "AhmetNakli. An Eclec- 12. See Ayda Arel, Onsekizinci YiizyzlIstanbul Mimarisinde Batlrlapma Siireci tic Painter of the Early 17th Century," in Fifth International Congress of (The developmentof westernizationin the architectureof eighteenth-cen- TurkishArt (Budapest,1978), 103-21; Cemal Kafadar,"The Ottomansand tury Istanbul)(Istanbul, 1975); Ulkii Bates, "The EuropeanInfluence on Europe,"in Thomas Brady,Jr., Heiko Oberman,and James Tracy,eds., OttomanArchitecture," in AbrahamAsher et al., eds., TheMutual Effects of Handbook of European History 1400-1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissanceand the Islamic and Judeo-Christian Worlds:The East European Pattern (New York, Reformation. I: Structures and Assertions (Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1979), 167-81; Bates,"Eighteenth-Century Fountains of Istanbul,"294-95; 1994), 589-635; (igdem Kafescioglu,"The Ottoman Capitalin the Mak- Serim Denel, Batlhlampa Sitrecinde Istanbul'da Tasarim ve DzSMekanlarda ing: The Reconstruction of Constantinople in the Fifteenth Century" De4i?imNedenleri (The concept of westernization in Istanbul) (Ankara, (Ph.D. diss., HarvardUniversity, 1996); RhoadsMurphy, "The Ottoman 1982); Emel Esin, "Le Mahbfibiye.Un Palais ottoman alla franca,"Varia Attitude towardsthe Adoption of Foreign Technology: The Role of the Turcica3 (1986), 73-86; Semavi Eyice, "XVIIIYiizyllda Tiirk Sanati ve EfrenciTechnicians in Civil andMilitary Applications," in Jean-LouisBac- Tiirk MimarisindeAvrupa Neo-Klassik Uslubu" (Turkishart in the eigh- que-Grammont and Paul Dumont, eds., Contributionsi l'histoireeconomique teenth centuryand the western neoclassicalstyle in Turkisharchitecture), et sociale de l'empire ottoman (Paris, 1983), esp. 288-96; Giilru Necipoglu, SanatTarihi Yidh•l (Art history annual) 9-10 (1980), 163-89; Dogan Kuban, "Siileymanthe Magnificentand the Representationof Power in the Con- Turk Barok Mimarisi Hakkinda Bir Deneme (Essay on Turkish baroque archi- text of Ottoman-Habsburg-PapalRivalry," Art Bulletin71 (Sept. 1989), tecture)(Istanbul, 1954); Kuban, "Influences de l'art europeen sur l'archi- 401-27; Necipoglu, "The Life of an ImperialMonument: Haghia Sophia tecture ottomane au XVIIIe siecle," Palladio5 (1955), 149-57; and Filiz after Byzantium,"in RobertMark and Ahmet Cakmak,eds., HaghiaSophia Yenilehirlioglu,"Western Influences on OttomanArchitecture in the Eigh- fi-om the Age ofJustinian to the Present (Cambridge, England, 1992), 195-225; teenth Century," Das OsmanischeReich und Europa 1683 bis 1789, Konflikt, Donald Quataert,introduction to Quataert,Consumption Studies, 1-13; and Entspannung undAustauch, vol. 10 (Vienna, 1983), 153-78. Giinsel Renda,"Traditional Turkish Painting and the Beginningsof West- 13. Western-stylereforms were sought in the spheresof educationand the ern Trends,"in Selman Pnar, ed., A Historyof TurkishPainting (Istanbul, military, mostly in piecemeal fashion until the 1790s and more radically and 1987), 49-51. with considerable help from European experts in the reign of Selim III (r. 15. Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds:The Constructionof the Ottoman State 1789-1808). For an overview of the nature of military, trade, and diplo- (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1995), 24. Roger Chartier's and Carlo matic reforms, see Edhem Eldem, French Trade in Istanbul in the Eighteenth Ginzburg's alternative paradigms of "appropriation" and "circularity," Century (London, Boston, and Cologne, 1999); Suraiya Faroqhi, "Crisis and respectively, are extremely useful here, as they productively circumvent Change, 1590-1699," in Suraiya Faroqhi, Bruce McGowan, Donald polarities and help rethink the notion of unilateral influence. See Roger Quataert, and Sevket Pamuk, eds., An Economic and Social History of the Chartier, "Culture as Appropriation: Popular Cultural Uses in Early Mod- Ottoman Empire, vol. 2, 1600-1914 (Cambridge, England,1994), 413-31, ern France," in Steven Kaplan, ed., Understanding Popular Culture: Europe 441-42; Robert Mantran, "L'Etat ottoman au XVIIIe sihcle. La Pression from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century (Berlin, New York, and Ams- europfenne," in Robert Mantran, ed., Histoire de l'empire ottoman (Paris, terdam, 1984), 229-53; Carlo Ginzburg's second preface to The Cheeseand 1989), 267-73; Bruce McGowan, "The Age of the Ayans, 1699-1812," in the Worms: The Cosmosof a Sixteenth-Century Miller, trans. John and Anne

48 JSAH / 63:1, MARCH 2004 C. Tedeschi(New York,1989); and esp. Ginzburg,"Titian, Ovid, and Six- Mosques:Icons of ImperialLegitimacy," in Irene Bierman,Rifaat Abou el- teenth-CenturyCodes for Erotic Illustration,"in Clues,Myths, and the His- Haj, and Donald Preziosi, eds., The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Struc- toricalMethod, trans. John and Anne Tedeschi(Baltimore, 1986), 77-95. ture and Social Order (New York, 1991), 212-17. 16. For recent studies on the Ottoman "literatureof decline,"see Walter 25. See, for example, Goodwin, OttomanArchitecture, 383; Denel, Batlilapma Livingston Wright, introduction to Ottoman Statecraft: The Book of Counsel SiirecindeIstanbul'da Tasarim,28 (see n. 12); Giinsel Renda, Batlhlapna Done- Vezirs and for Governors-Nasa'ih iil-vitzera ve'l zimera of Sarz Mehmed minde Tiirk Resim Sanati, 1700-1850 (Turkish painting in the period of Pasha, the Defterddr, ed. Walter Livingston Wright (Princeton, 1935), 1-55; westernization, 1700-1850) (Ankara, 1977), 19 n. 13; Yenilehirlioglu, Pal Fodor,"State and Society,Crisis and Reform,in the 15th-17th Century "WesternInfluences," 158 (see n. 12);Artan, "Architecture as a Theatre of Ottoman Mirror for Princes," Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hun- Life," 59 (see n. 9); Bates, "EuropeanInfluence," 178 (see n. 12); Kuban, garicae40 (1986), 217-40; A. Howard, "OttomanHistoriography and the Istanbul,351 (see n. 10). Literatureof 'Decline' of the Sixteenthand SeventeenthCenturies," Jour- 26. "Musanna'-kir ii ni-dide bir gelme-s ir." Tdrih-i Cdmi'-i Serif-i Nfir-i nal ofAsianHistory 22 (1988), 52-77; BernardLewis, "SomeReflections on (Osmani,repr. with originalpagination in Pia Hochhut, Die MoscheeNiiru- the Decline of the OttomanEmpire," Studia Islamica 9 (1958), 111-27. For osmaniye in Istanbul. Beitrdge zur Baugeschichte nach osmanischen Quellen, a revisionist interpretationof Ottoman decline consciousness and social IslamkundlicheUntersuchungen 130 (Berlin, 1986), 14, 26. This account transformationsin the postclassicalperiod, see VirginiaAksan, An Ottoman was first published in Tdrth -i 'OsmdaniEnciimeni Mecmin 'asz (Journal of the Statesman in War and Peace:Ahmed Resmi Efendi 1700-1783 (New York, Lei- Commissionof Ottoman History) (Istanbul?,1918), 3-51. den, and Cologne, 1995); Faroqhi, "Crisesand Change,"413-636; Nor- 27. P. G. incicyan, 18. AsirdaIstanbul (Istanbul in the eighteenth century), man Itzkowitz, "Men and Ideas in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman ed. and trans.Hrand D. Andreasyan(Istanbul, 1976), 50. Empire,"in Thomas Naff and Roger Owen, eds., Studiesin Eighteenth-Cen- 28. HIiiseyinAyvansarayl, Hadikat ul-Cevami' (The garden of the turyIslamic History (Chicago, 1977), 15-26; Itzkowitz, "Eighteenth-Cen- mosques),Ha.fiz 2 vols. (1281 [1864]),2: 22-23. tury Ottoman Realities,"Studia Islamica 16 (1962), 73-94; Cemal Kafadar, 29. James Dallaway, ConstantinopleAncient and Modern, with Excursionsto the "The Myth of the Golden Age: Ottoman Historical Consciousnessin the Shores and Islands of the Archipelago (London, 1797), 62. Post-Siileyminic Era,"in Halil Inalclkand Cemal Kafadar,eds., Siileyman 30. Allom and Walsh, Scenery of the Seven Churches,2: 12 (see n. 4). the Secondand His Time(Istanbul, 1993), 37- 48; Kafadar,"The Ottomans 31. Munir Aktepe, ed., Sem'ddniz-zdde Fndzkhhl Siileyman Efendi Tarihi: and Europe," 613-15; Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922 Miir'i't-Tevdrih(Semdanizade's history: The passingof times),2 vols. (Istan- (Cambridge,England, 2000), 37-53; Ariel Salzmann,"An Ancien Regime bul, 1976/1980), 1:31. Some suggestiveexamples of his criticalstyle appear Revisited:'Privatization' and Political Economy in the Eighteenth-Cen- in 1: 3-4, 26, 97, 165-69 passim, 179; and 2: 12. tury Ottoman Empire,"Politics and Society21 (1993), 393-423; and Made- 32. "Qehelsiitfin binismdan sonra... Arab-iskelesi'ndeviki' ckmi tevsi' line The Zilfi, Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Post-ClassicalAge ve bini olundu." Tarir-i Isma-'il (A4sm Efendi, 42 (see n. 4). Lengthy (1600-1800) (Minneapolis, 1988). descriptions of the palace are offered in Tdrit -i Radid,5 vols. (Istanbul, 17. Giilru Necipoglu, Architecture, Ceremonial,and Power: The TopkapiPalace 1867), 5: 443-49; and 'Asm Efendi, 41-45; see also the infor- Tarih-iIsmd'il in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge, Mass., and London, mative, albeit brief depictions by Incicyan, 18. Asirda Istanbul, 95; 1991), 14. G61lpinarll,Nedim Divanz, 52-53 (see n. 20); and the monographby Sedad 18. "Taribber--yl kasr-1cedid-i fireng-te yiddir der Negatib-d HakkilEldem, Sa'dabad(Istanbul, 1977), which bringstogether a vast num- ma'mur-bid." Divan-i FdidzlEnderin, MS TSMK, H.s.hilhane-i 906, fol. 67b. ber of visual and textualsources of documentationon the palace. 19. Hiibdnnameve Zendnndme,MS IstanbulUniversitesi Kiitiiphanesi (Istan- 33. Marquis de Bonnac, Mimoire sur l'ambassadede France ai Constantinople bul UniversityLibrary; hereafter IUK), Ty 5502, fol. 76. Such contentions (Paris, 1894), 84-85; Dallaway, Constantinople Ancient and Modern, 118; were also expressedby the late-eighteenth-centurypoet SiinbiilzadeVehbi. Allom and Walsh, Scenery of the Seven Churches, 1: 58; Baron de Tott, See Jan Schmidt,"Siinbiilzade Vehbi's Sevkengiz," Turcica 25 (1993), 13. MImoires du Baron de Tott sur les turcs et les tartares, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 20. See the poetry of Nedim and SeyyidVehbi: Abdiilbaki Galpinarlh, ed., 1785), 2: 4 (the referenceto a Frenchmodel could be an editorialnote from NedimDivani (Anthologyof poems by Nedim) (Istanbul,1972), XIX; and 1785); Pertusier,Promenades pittoresques, 1: 337 (see n. 4); Fertd-Meun, Kemal Silay, Nedim and the Poetics of the Ottoman Court, Turkish Studies Lettressur le Bosphore(Paris, 1821), 62-63. These accountsare often cited series 13 (Bloomington, 1994), 60-61, 72, 110-11. in modern scholarship;see Eyice, "XVIIIYiizyllda Tiirk Sanati,"168 (see 21. Necipoglu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power; Necipoglu, "Life of an n. 12); Denel, Batlhla?ua Siirecinde Istanbul'da Tasarim, 19; Esin, "Le ImperialMonument"; and Kafescioglu,"Ottoman Capital." Mahbfibiye,"74 (see n. 12); and Yenigehirlioglu,"Western Influences," 22. "Ciimlenifieltafi gimdi amma/Semt-i iklim-i bilad-1 Urpi/Andadir lehr- 157-58, 168 n. 6. Sitambul-i i ?erif."Hiibdnndme (Book of men) (Istanbul,1253 [1837-38]), 34. "Qrb g ismiyle?6hret-?i'ar olan malhalle,"Tdri -i Ismd'il 'As•m Efendi, 26. I am grateful to Cemal Kafadar, who recalled these lines and drew them 42. to my attention, and to Selim Kuru, who helped me find the reference in the 35. This suggestion has been repeated by several architectural historians; see first printed edition of the Hibadnname. n. 33 and Eldem, Sa'dabad, 6. Visual representations of Louis XIV's palace, 23. The Nurosmaniye Mosque was part of a larger complex that included gardens, and cascades at Marly (1679-85) are included in Bernt H. Dams a madrasa, a soup kitchen, a fountain-sebil, a library, a mausoleum, and and Andrew Zega, Pleasure Pavilions and Follies in the Gardens of the Ancien shops. See Dogan Kuban, "Nurosmaniye Kiilliyesi - Kiitiiphanesi" (The Rigime (Paris and New York, 1995), 56; and Eleanor P. Delorme, Garden Nurosmaniye complex: The library), DBIA 6:100-104; Kuban, Istanbul: Pavilions and the 18th Century French Court (Suffolk, England, 1996), 61. An Urban History (Istanbul, 1998), 149-51; and Goodwin, Ottoman Archi- 36. His account was recorded by the court chronicler Raiid in Tari -i RaSid, tecture, 384-87 (see n. 10). 5: 372-98. It was published in 1757 in Relation de l'ambassade de Mvlehmet 24. See Aptullah Kuran, "Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Architecture," in Efendi it la cour de France en 1721 6crite par lui-mime et traduite par Julien Naff and Owen, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Islamic History, 313 (see n. Galland, trans. Julien Galland (Constantinople and Paris, 1757), rendered 16). On their royal symbolism, see Howard Crane, "The Ottoman Sultan's

OTTOMAN EXPRESSIONS OF EARLY MODERNITY 49 in modern Turkish in $evket Rado, Yirmisekiz .Mehmed Qelebi'nin Fransa (quadripartite enclosed garden) in Istanbul, namely, the Karabali garden in Seyahatnamesi (Yirmisekiz Mehmed Celebi's embassy to France) (Istanbul, Kabata?. However, the absence of references to this garden in contempo- 1970), reissued as Mehmet Efendi, Le Paradis des infidels. Un Ambassadeur rary accounts may suggest that it was no longer extant by the beginning of ottoman en France sous la Regence, 1715-1723, ed. and trans. Gilles Veinstein the eighteenth century. On the Karabali garden, see Giilru Necipoglu, "The (Paris, 1981), and was the subject of a study by Fatma Miige G6oek, East Suburban Landscape of Sixteenth-Century Istanbul as a Mirror of Classi- Encounters West: France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century cal Ottoman Garden Culture," in Petruccioli, Gardens in the Time of the (New York and Oxford, 1987). Great Muslim Empires, 32-33. References to Abbas I's Chaharbagh also 37. Architecturefi-anfoise(Paris, 1738). This book, a collection of plans and appear in the context of the embassy of Diirri Efendi to the court of Shah drawings by Jules Hardouin Mansart of, among other projects, the palaces Huseyn in 1721 (A.H. 1134) and that of his counterpart in Istanbul in an of Chantilly, Marly, Meudon, and Versailles, is now located at the Topkapi audience with grand-vizier Nevlehirli that same year; Tdrib -i Rdaid, 5: Museum Library, H. 2607. See Gill Irepoglu, "Topkapi Sarayi Miizesi 372-98, 466. Hazine Kiitiiphanesindeki Batili Kaynaklar LUzerine Diiliinqeler" 46. Mouradgea D'Ohsson, Tableaugeneral de l'empire othoman, 7 vols. (Paris, (Thoughts on western documents in the Topkapi Palace Museum Treasury 1788-1824), 4: 185. Library) TopkapiSarayi Miizesi YdI~ig(Topkapi Palace Museum annual) 1 47. See Giilru Necipoglu, "Framing the Gaze in Ottoman, Safavid and (1986), 68. Marly, built by Mansart in 1679-85, was initially conceived by Mughal Palaces," Ars Orientalis:A Special Issue on Pre-Modern Islamic Palaces Louis XIV as a pleasure retreat after Versailles became the seat of his gov- 23 (1993), 307-9. ernment in 1682. It followed a fate similar to that of Sa'dabad, as it was 48. Sixteenth-century suburban palaces of Istanbul are examined in detail in eventually looted and destroyed during the French Revolution. Necipoglu, "Suburban Landscape," 32-71. On the Palace, see Topkapl 38. On the Chaharbagh, see Mahvash Alemi, "The Royal Gardens of the Necipoglu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power (see n. 17). On eighteenth- Safavid Period: Types and Models," in Attilio Petruccioli, ed., Gardensin the century palaces, pavilions, and gardens, see Artan, "Architecture as a The- Time of the Great Muslim Empires, Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture, atre of Life," ch. 3 (see n. 9); and Hamadeh, "City's Pleasures," 56-70, Supplements to Muqarnas (Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1997), 72-96; 85-93, 163-212 (see n. 7). and "Il Alemi, giardino persiano. Tipi e modelli," in Petruccioli, ed., Il gia- 49. "Bir Osmanh Efendisi'nin Giinliiuii: Sadreddinz^ide Telhisi Mustafa rdino islamico.Architettura, natura, pesaggio (Milan, 1994), 39-62. Efendi ve Ceridesi" (The diary of an Ottoman Efendi: Sadreddinzade Tel- 39. limdi hisi Mustafa Efendi and his in Eriinsal, "•arbafg- isfahanl eylemigtir d-g dig/Oldu Sa'dabaid sevdigim journal), excerpted ismail Kaynaklar dag iistii bdg." "Sarki"(Song), in Halil Nihad, ed., Nedim'in Divani (Anthol- (Sources) 2 (winter 1984), 81 (entry dated 27 Sevval 1134 [22 August 1720]). of ogy poems by Nedim) (Istanbul, 1338-40 [1919 -21]), 193. 50. "$6yle virmnlfidaetmilti siphir-i gaddlr/Ki ide burdi am mi'mir tasavvur 40. M. Tayyib Golbilgin, "Tarihte Bogaziqi" (The Bosphorus in history), abid/Yapti bir gOne ki talhsin-i zaruri ederek/'Akl-1 kill naim kodu afia Islam Ansiklopedisi(Encyclopedia of Islam) 2: 689. Hiimayuin-abaid." "TIril-i ta'mir-i kasr-i Baigqe-i Tokft ki bi-ferman-1 41. "Habbeza miibarek-baid/Her i•yabanl miift-i 'ayv u tarab/Her sultan Malhmid" (Chronogram on the construction of the garden pavilion .habbeza buin-i nalil nakd-1 vakt-1 murad/Reek-i feyz-i nesim-i of Tokat by imperial order of Sultan Mahmud) (n.d.), Divdn-i Nevres, MS safindan/Fera.habad- 1 isfahan berbad." "Der vasf-1 Sevkabaid" (Description of Sevkabad) (n.d.), IUK, Ty 3414, fols. 38b-39a. in Nihad, Nedim'in Divdan, 127-28; and G61lpinarll, Nedim Divani, 138. 51. On the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, see Necipoglu, "Framing the 42. Mitr'i't-Tevdrih, 1: 133, 143 (see n. 31). In an anecdote related to the Gaze," 303-6; and Necipoklu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 15-30, name of this pavilion, a group of women exclaimed on seeing it, "Bayildim!" 61-69. Eighteenth-century developments and their reflection in the archi- (I was enraptured), ibid., 1: 144. On the expansion of the palace of Begikta? tectural vocabulary are explored in more detail in Hamadeh, "City's Plea- in the first half of the century, see Eldem, Kbikler ve Kasnrlar, 2: 124-50, sures," ch. 1. 212-22 (see n. 10); Necla Arslan, "Begikta? Sarayi" (The Belikta? Palace), 52. Necipoglu, "Framing the Gaze," 306. Ninth International Congressof TurkishArt, 1: 185-96 (see n. 9); Tiilay Artan, 53. Shah Abbas's lack of ceremony was frequently observed and noted by his 2: "Belikta?," DBIA, 161-63; Qelik Giulersoy, Dolmabahte Palace and Its contemporaries. See Iskandar Munshi, Tadrkh-i 'alam-ara-yi 'abbdsi (His- Environs (Istanbul, 1990), 6-43. On the mosque of Arab Iskelesi and its tory of the Persian world), published in English as The History ofShah 'Abbas restoration by Mahmud I, see Ayvainsarayl, IHadikatul-Cevdmi', 2: 94-98 the Great, trans. Roger Savory, 2 vols. (Boulder, 1978), 1: 529; and Pietro (see n. 28). della Valle, Delli conditioni di Abbas Ri di Persia (Venice, 1628), 17-18, 26. 43. A description of the Chihil Sutun is offered by the French travelerJean 54. Munshi's Tdrikh was translated into Ottoman by the miiderris, or college du Chevalier en Nebih Efendi on the of Neviehirli. The Chardin, Voyages Chardin Perse, et autres hreuxde l'Orient, teacher, Mehmed request manu- Louis Langles, ed., 10 vols. (Paris, 1811), 5: 468-500; see also Giuseppe script is now located at the Topkapi Palace Library, MS TSMK, H. 1426. Zander, ed., Travaux de restorationde monuments historiques en Iran (Rome, 55. As Donald Quataert points out, while Ottoman diplomacy with Europe 1968), 291-3 82; Donald Newton Wilber, Persian Gardensand Garden Pavil- was certainly important in this period, it was also very active on the Persian ions (Washington, D.C., 1979), 39-53 passim; and Heinz Gaube, Iranzan front, with eighteen ambassadors sent to the Ottoman court between 1700 Cities (New York, 1979), 82-96. and 1774; see Quataert, Ottoman Empire, 85 (see n. 16). On Ottoman- 44. Abdiilkadir Ozcan, ed., Anonim OsmanklTarihi (1099-1116/1688-1704) Safavid relations in the first half of the century, see Ernest Tucker, "The (Anonymous Ottoman history, 1688-1704) (Ankara, 2000), 141 (facs., fol. Peace Negotiations of 1736: A Conceptual Turning Point in Ottoman-Iran- 154a). I thank Ariel Salzmann for bringing this reference to my attention. ian Relations," TurkishStudies AssociationBulletin 20 (spring 1996), 16-37. 45. "Sizin belde-i Isfahan'da girbag nfamgillzlrnmz var ise bizim dahl 56. See Hamadeh, "Splash and Spectacle," 131-33 (see n. 9). gibi cay-1 behcet-islmsz vardlr." Tdrih-i Raid, 3:186 (see n. 32). It is diffi-.isiar 57. See Dams and Zega, Pleasure Pavilions and Follies (see n. 35); Delorme, cult to determine which garden is alluded to here. The term hisar in "bisar Garden Pavilions (see n. 35); John Dixon Hunt, Gardensand the Picturesque: gibi cay-1 behcet-isIm" means both "heaven/a garden like heaven" and Studies in the History of LandscapeArchitecture (Cambridge, Mass., 1992); "enclosed/fortress-like." The reference could be to any enclosed suburban Peter Hughes, Eighteenth-Century France and the East (London, 1981); Jean garden from earlier periods or, specifically, to the only Chahar-bagh Starobinski, L'Inventionde la liberte, 1700-1789 (Geneva, 1987);John Sweet-

50 JSAH / 63:1, MARCH 2004 man, The Oriental Obsession:Islamic Inspiration in British andAmerican Art and 20 (spring/summer1993), 91-115; and Hamadeh,"Splash and Spectacle," Architecture,1500-1920 (Cambridge,England, and London, 1988),44-110. 123-48. 58. The late-fifteenth-centurylinguistic movement of tiirk-ibasit is exam- 62. Craig Clunas, Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China (Princeton, ined in Mehmet Fuad Koprilii, "Milli Edebiyat Cereynimlnn Ilk 1997), 10. Miibe?girleri"(The pioneers of the nationalist literary movement), in 63. Goodwin, Ottoman Architecture,409-27 (see n. 10); Kuban, Diinya Kenti Devri Mimarisi n. Mehmet Fuad K6priilii, Edebiyat Aragtirmalari (Research in literature) Istanbul, 346-80 (see n. 10); Aslanapa, Osmanlz (see 10); 6-43 (Istanbul, 1989), 271-315; Alessio Bombaci, Histoire de la littdrature turque, Eldem, Ko6klerve Kasirlar (see n. 10); Giilersoy, Dolmabahfe Palace, (see and Pars trans.Irene Melikoff (Paris, 1968), 279-94 passim;Silay, Nedim and the Poet- n. 42); Giilersoy, The Qeragan Palace(Istanbul, 1992); Tuglacl, Ailesi era of west- ics of the Ottoman Court, 14-21 (see n. 20); and Walter Andrews, Poetry's OsmanlzMimarlikinda Batililapna Dinemi ve Balyan (The Voice,Society's Song: Ottoman Lyric Poetry (Seattle and London, 1985), 57-58. ernizationin Ottomanarchitecture and the Balyanfamily) (Istanbul, 1981). 'Ottoman Renaissance':Archi- On the innovations that permeated eighteenth-centurypoetry, see Ilhan 64. Ahmet Ersoy, "On the Sources of the Era Basg6z,"Nedim'de Halk EdebiyatmnnIzleri" (Evidence of folk literaturein tectural Revival and Its Discourse during the Abdiilaziz (1861- 76)" 348-69. Nedim's [poetry]),in ilhan Bagg6z,ed., FolklorYazzlarz (Writings on popu- (Ph.D. diss., HarvardUniversity, 2000), 106-16, 256-60, 305-19, lar culture) (Istanbul, 1986), 285-86; Ahmet Evin, "Nedim: Poet of the 65. See Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social TulipAge" (Ph.D. diss., ColumbiaUniversity, 1973), 93-112, 234-56; Elias Status in Early Modern China (Urbana and Chicago, 1991); James McClain, John Wilkinson Gibb,A Historyof OttomanPoetry, 6 vols. (London, 1967), John M. Merriman, and Ugawa Kaoru, eds., Edo and Paris: Urban Life and and M. Lot- 4: 14-29; Victoria Holbrook, The UnreadableShores ofLove: TurkishModer- the State in the Early Modern Era (Ithaca and London, 1994); J. nity andMystic Romance (Austin, 1994); Holbrook, "ATechnology of Ref- man and B. A. Uspenskij, The SemioticsofRussian Culture (Ann Arbor, 1984). erence:Divan andAnti-Divan in the Receptionof a TurkishPoet," Edebiyat: A Journal of Middle Eastern and ComparativeLiterature 4, no. 1 (1993), 49-61; Illustration Credits des Holbrook, "Originalityand Ottoman Poetics: In the Wilderness of the Figure 1. Antoine-Ignace Melling, Voyagepittoresque de Constantinopleet New," Journal of the American Oriental Society (1992), 440-54; Silay, Nedim rives du Bosphore(Istanbul, 1969), pl. 27 author and the Poeticsof the Ottoman Court;Hasibe Mazloglu, Nedim'in Divan Siirine Figures 2-6. Photographsby the GetirdigiYenilik (Novelty in the court poetry of Nedim) (Ankara,1957); Figure 7. Eldem, Sa'dabad,20-21 Ahmet Hamdi Tanpmar,"Nedim'e Dair Bazi Diipiinceler"(Some thoughts Figure 8. HIfibanna-meve Zenanname, MS IUJK, Ty 5502, fol. 78 on Nedim), in Tanpinar,Edebiyat Uzerine Makaleler (Writings on literature) Figures 9, 11. D'Ohsson, Tableaugdneral de l'empire othoman, 3 door (Istanbul,1995), 169-73. I examinethe parallelcourses of transformation Figure 10. Cornelius deBryn, Cornelis de Bruins reizen over Moscowie in poetry, architecture,and landscapein more detail in Hamadeh, "City's Persie en Indie (Amsterdam, 1711) Pleasures,"72-113, 163-212. Figure 12. Photographby May Farhat 59. Giilru Necipo&lu,"Challenging the Past: Sinan and the Competitive Figure 13. Originalpublished in Necipoglu, "Framingthe OttomanGaze," Discourseof EarlyModern IslamicArchitecture," Muqarnas 10 (1992), 173. 335, fig. 11 60. An exceptionto this is the continuingfascination with Haghia Sophia, Figure 14. Grelot, Relation nouvelle d'un voyagede Constantinople(Paris, 1680) du to which eighteenth-centurycommentators still referredin their accounts Figure 15. Melling, Voyagepittoresque de Constantinopleet des rives Bosphore of newly built mosques; see Tarih-i Cami'-i Serif-i Nifr-i 'Osm~ni, 14 (see n. (Paris, 1819), pl. 29 26). On the long historyof fascinationwith this monument,see Kafescioglu, Figure 16. Collection of Prince and Princess SadruddinAga Khan;repro- "OttomanCapital," 120-55 passim(see n. 14);and Necipoglu, "Challeng- duced from Sheila Canby, Princes, Poets, Paladins: Islamic and Indian Paint- ing the Past," 171-76. ings from the Collectionof Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan (London, 61. See Metin And, "17. Yiizyll Tiirk Carli Ressamlarlve Resimlerinin 1998), 102 BelgeselOnemi" (Seventeenth-century Turkish street painters and the doc- Figure 17. Hamse-i'At yi, MS WaltersArt Gallery,Baltimore, W.666, fol. umentary significance of their paintings), Ninth International Congress of 91a vol. 1 TurkishArt 1: 153-62 (see n. 9); Tiilay Artan,"Mahremiyet: Mahrumiyetin Figure 18. Allom and Walsh, Scenery of the Seven Churches, Resmi"(The privaterealm: The paintingof destitution),Defter (Notebook) Figure 19. Photographby Ahmet Ersoy

OTTOMAN EXPRESSIONS OF EARLY MODERNITY 51