2025/03/10 by Saygın Salgırlı · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies #Eurasian Exchange Networks #Byzantine Studies and History
paper · doi:10.1163/15700658-bja10099
openalex publication_date 2025/03/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract In 1416, an anonymous group of artists produced a painted copy of the poet Ahmedī’s Iskendername (Book of Alexander the Great). As the earliest known example of a painted Ottoman manuscript, the tome included twenty paintings and one astronomical chart, but only three of the paintings, now heavily damaged, were original. The rest were collages and cut-and-paste images from two different fourteenth century manuscripts from the Greater Iran of the post-Mongol period. Approaching the paintings of the Iskendername with a methodology inspired by the works of the medievalist Michael Camille and cultural theorist Jeffrey J. Cohen, this article explores the ceremonial potential of its paintings in both content and use. It argues that the particular monstrosity of the images were central to their ceremonial potency.