Class Year
2015
Document Type
Student Research Paper
Date of Creation
Spring 2012
Department 1
History
Abstract
Left tattered after centuries of ware, hidden in the walls of Topkapı Sarayı, the 1513 map of the Ottoman cartographer Hacı Ahmed Muhiddin Piri has not been properly contextualized in light of Portuguese cartography of the time. In the map’s colophon, Piri Reis indicated that he utilized Portuguese charts as his sources for cartographic depictions of India and China. Scholars have not inspected the full range of contemporaneous Portuguese charts that depict the Indian Ocean Basin in light of the Piri Reis map. My contribution is to examine several late 14th and early 15th century Portuguese cartographical sources and references to sources to suggest possible connections between the Piri Reis map and contemporary Portuguese mappa mundi.
Copyright Note
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Recommended Citation
Bridges, Robert S., "Off the Edge of the Map: The Search for Portuguese Influence on the Piri Reis Map of 1513" (2012). Student Publications. 191.
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/191
Comments
This paper was presented as part of the Ottoman Cultural History Panel at the Seventh Undergraduate Conference in Medieval and Early Modern Studies Conference at Moravian College, December 1, 2012. Click here to see the conference program.