Matrakci Nasuh

Matrakçı Nasuh , born in the Bosnian town of Visoko, was a gifted Janissar who went through both the Infantry and devsirme system, a gifted swordsman, and sharpshooter well known for his intellect; he spoke five languages and was recruited into the Ottoman Nav.

Although born to Bosnian Muslim parentage, Nasuh was drafted into the devsime system, otherwise reserved for the Christian populace of the empire. Exceptionally, however, in Bosnia, the devşirme was also extended to local Muslim families.

After a long period of studies on mathematics and geometry, he wrote his works Cemâlü'l-Küttâb and Kemalü'l- Hisâb and submitted them to the Ottoman sultan Selim I. He wrote also the two books named Mecmaü't-Tevârih and Süleymannâme. They deal with the history of the period of 1520–43. He also wrote a historical piece on the Persian campaign of Suleiman I titled Fetihname-i Karabuğdan. A recent study of his book Umdet-ul Hisab revealed an unknown fact that Matrakçı had invented some genuine multiplication methods. One of the significant results displayed in this book was that the lattice method had been widely used in the Enderun School nearly 50 years beforejohn Napier reintroduced it to Europe.

Besides his works on mathematics and history, he is famous because of his miniatures. He created a naturalist style which focuses on panoramic views of landscapes and cities painted with the greatest detail (his most famous work, the Istanbul landscape picture, shows almost every street and building of the city). In Ottoman miniature art, this was later known as the "Matrakçı style". The most important of his four historic volumes of miniatures is the one dealing with Suleiman I’s first iran-iraq campaign in 1534-35, upon which he had written his historical work Fetihname-i Karabuğdan. Besides illustrating the march of the Ottoman army from Istanbul to Baghdad and then Tabriz and its return via Halab and Eskisehir, Nasuh also includes all the cities met by the army along the way. The Library of istanbul University hosts the only copy of this work.

By: Greta Palinkas