The Multiple Heritages of the Ottoman Empire: Monumental Architecture in Constantinople

Assigned Reading:

Imber, chapter 1, section titled "Conquest and Consolidation, 1451-1512."

Gülrü Necipoğlu, "From Byzantine Constantinople to Ottoman Kostantiniyye: Creation of a Cosmopolitan Capital and Visual Culture under Sultan Mehmed II," in From Byzantion to Istanbul: 8000 Years of a Capital, ed. Koray Durak (Istanbul: Sakip Sabancı Müzesi, 2010), 262-77.

Primary Sources: Inscriptions on the Üçşerefeli Mosque, Edirne, translated by Fokke Theodoor Dijkema.

The Süleymaniye mosque-complex in Istanbul. For this week, I want you to think about how we can use buildings as historical sources. In preparation, please briefly research the Süleymaniye which is one of the most famous landmarks in Istanbul. Find some pictures of it (there are lots online), find out what it is and the details of its construction, etc. What can it tell us about the sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire?

Seminar Questions:

What image or images was Mehmed II trying to create with the monumental architecture he commissioned in Constantinople?
To what extent did the fifteenth-century Ottoman Empire participate in the Italian Renaissance?
What imperial traditions did the Ottoman dynasty draw on?

Further Reading:

Lisa Jardine and Jerry Brotton, Global Interests: Renaissance Art between East and West (Cornell UP, 2000).

Çiğdem Kafesçioğlu, Constantinopolis / Istanbul: Cultural Encounter, Imperial Vision and the Construction of the Ottoman Capital (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009).

Gülrü Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire (London: Reaktion, 2005).

Gülrü Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power: The Topkapı Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992).

Gülrü Necipoğlu, “Süleyman the Magnificent and the Representation of Power in the Context of Ottoman-Hapsburg-Papal Rivalry,” Art Bulletin 71 (1989), 401-27.

Gülrü Necipoğlu-Kafadar, “The Süleymaniye Complex in Istanbul: An Interpretation,” Muqarnas 3 (1985), 92-117.

Julian Raby, “A Sultan of Paradox: Mehmed the Conqueror as a Patron of the Arts,” Oxford Art Journal 5 (1982), 3-8.

Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh, The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Brill, 2004).