A Letter of Murad III to the Doge of Venice, of 1580

Extract

Thanks to the kindness of Dr. Andreas Tietze I have at my disposal the illustrated catalogue recently issued by the Istanbul antique dealer Nurettin Yatman (“Eski Istanbul”, Meşrutiyet cadd. 185, Beyoǧlu). It shows among others, in a reproduction just readable by a practised and self-sacrificing eye, an Ottoman document (wrongly ascribed to the fifteenth century) with a richly decorated, wonderfully executed ṭurā(apparently in various colours) of Murad III (1574–1595). An “imperial cypher” of such splendour may, indeed, be expected in an “imperial letter” (nāme-i Tumāyūn) to a foreign sovereign, for such is this document of March 1580, addressed to the Doge of Venice. On the other hand, the eleven lines of the text are written in ordinary dīvānī without calligraphic pretensions; this may be due to the fact that the letter was, as we shall see, to be presented not by a messenger of the sultan but by an agent of the person in whose favour it was issued.