Abstract
Books and Treasures: Some Medallion-Ornamented Manuscripts Prepared for Murad III's Library
In this article, fifteen medallion-ornamented
manuscripts prepared for the library of Murad III, who
was known for his interest in books and illustrated
manuscripts, were examined. While Murad III was the
sanjak chief in Manisa, many books were presented to him
and after his accession to the throne, he encouraged the
preparation of books with illustrations whether written
originally in Ottoman-Turkish or translated from other
languages. The expressions such as ‘hizâne, bi-resm, liresm
' were used within the medallion-ornament in the
manuscripts presented to the sultan, who had a library full
of illustrated books. The medallion-ornamented
manuscripts mentioned in the article belong to many
different fields such as history, geography, hadith, sirah,
astrology, ethics, sufism and fine arts. While ten of the
books in question are illustrated, there are no illustrations
in five of them. Unlike the others, Mehmed Suûdî's work
called Metâli‘ü’s-Sa‘âde was prepared for the sultan's
daughters Fatima and Ayşe Sultan. All of the works,
except Ibretname by Lâmiî Çelebi, either were written or
were translated during the reign of Murad III. It is known
that Seyyid Lokman, Muhyî-i Gülşenî, Mehmed Suûdî
and Cenâbî Mustafa received a certain amount of grants
after having presented their works to the sultan. This shows that the medallion-ornament is used not only for the
library but also for the patronage tradition. The fact that
most of the medallion-ornamented books are in Turkish is
an indication of the importance that the sultan gave to
Turkish language. In the article, it is claimed that
medallion-ornament in manuscripts was used for different
purposes and the medallion-ornamented manuscripts in
the sultan's library were listed along with the notes on
Murad's library and the works with medallions. The
images of the medallions and the Turkish translations of
the texts within the medallions are also included.
Keywords
Murad III, book, illustrated manuscripts, library.