The port of Lepante

This large format painting depicts the city of Lepanto, a port on the Gulf of Corinth (Greece) conquered by the Ottomans in 1499 during the reign of Bayazid II (1481-1512).

The mountainous landscape is represented by numerous rocks interspersed with delicate red flowering plants. The walled city is protected by a moat which opens out to the sea through the port, which is also fortified. Different quarters are represented, indicated by inscriptions setting out their names: for example, the Eksfoli quarter with its red houses is visible to the left of the wall and the ‘houses of the sufi mystics’ to the right of the city. The fortresses depicted on both sides of the Gulf were built by Qasim Bey, Süleyman’s vizier and governor of Morea until 1541. On the right of the painting, a system of canals, barrages and watermills is depicted which served to irrigate this agricultural (vineyards) and artisanal (tanneries) region.

The small galleys visible in the Gulf are realistic copies of the ships belonging to the Ottoman fleet in the sixteenth century, which played a significant role in the conflicts for the control of the Mediterranean. The same galleys appear alongside other ships in the views of Istanbul painted by European artists residing in the Ottoman capital[1]. Ships with lateen sails adorn Iznik ceramics from the second half of the sixteenth century and the seventeenth century[2]. In 1571, the Turkish navy met the united fleet of the Holy League, at the famous naval battle of Lepanto. This episode which brought an end to Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean[3]. was depicted by many Italian painters, notably, Veronese

While the representation of the landscape takes into account the mountainous nature of the site and the presence of cultivated areas, it is also marked with pictorial conventions in which the decorative element dominates the naturalistic rendering of the landscape. The representation of the rocks which surround the town and the small clumps of grass are inspired by Iranian painting.  The influence of Iranian painting on Ottoman art followed the the arrival in Istanbul of Iranian artists after 1514[4] (following the Ottoman victory over the Safavids at Chaldiran) and from 1520s with Safavid painting of Shiraz which introduced a more realistic style in which the decorative aspect was still very present.

The search for documentary truth; the concern for the rendering of even the most precise of details and the precision brought to annotations are characteristic of the Ottoman taste for narrating contemporary history. This interest is exemplified in the numerous works chronicling the reigns of sultans, from which many of these paintings of towns originate[5]. These histories were written and illustrated by illustrious artists, such as Matrakçi Nasuh, who also executed a view of the port of Lepanto in his Tarih-i Sultan Bayezid (History of Sultan Bayazid)[6].

This painting with its documentary and topographical intent embodies the wider movement of exploration of the world, typified also by the development of charts, of which Pir i-Reis (admiral of the Ottoman navy)[7] realised several in his Kitab-i Bahriye (Treatise on the Navy). In the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire, an important economic and political power in the MediterraneanBasin, also sought the advancement of geographical and topographical knowledge of the world, a movement in which the Western empires were also engaged[8].

[2] Dish with boat, Iznik, Turkey, end C16th, fritware painted on slip under lead glaze, Copenhagen, Davids Samling, inv. 24/1975.

[3] Paul Veronese, The Battle of Lepanto, Venice, 1572, oil on canvas, Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia.

[4]The director of the royal painting workshop (nakkaskhane) was Iranian at this period.

[5] View of the Port of Nice, Süleymanname, Matrakci Nasuh, Turkey, c. 1545, Istanbul, Library of Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi, inv. H.1608, f. 27b-28a.

[6] View of Lepanto, Tarih-i Sultan Bayezid, Matrakci Nasuh, Turkey, c. 1540, Istanbul, Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi, inv. R. 1272, f. 21b-22a.

[7] Map of the world by Pir i-Reis, ink and colours on gazelle skin, Turkey, 1513, Istanbul, Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi, inv. R. 1633 mük.

[8] For example, in the context of the discovery of America, in 1524, the explorer, Giovanni da Verrazano, then in the service of François I, realised the first charts of the east-American coast.