Grand Turc. / De L’Europe. Figure LXX. 161

Title

Grand Turc. / De L’Europe. Figure LXX. 161

Description

Illustration depicts the Turkish "Grand Turc", Sultan Mehmed IV, who ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1648 to 1687, with a partial view of Istanbul in the background. The reverse side features a description of the world-famous Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. From "Description de l'Univers".

ca. 1683

Artist

Mallet Alain, Manesson (1630-1706)

Alain Manesson Mallet (1630- 1706 ) was a French cartographer and engineer. He started his career as a soldier in the army of Louis XIV, became a Sergeant-Major in the artillery and an Inspector of Fortifications. He also served under the King of Portugal, before returning to France, and his appointment to the court of Louis XIV. His military engineering and mathematical background led to his position teaching mathematics at court. His major publications were Description de L'Univers (1683) in 5 volumes, and Les Travaux de Mars ou l'Art de la Guerre (1684) in 3 volumes. His Description de L'Universe contains a wide variety of information, including star maps, maps of the ancient and modern world, and a synopsis of the customs, religion and government of the many nations included in his text. It has been suggested that his background as a teacher led to his being concerned with entertaining his readers. This concern manifested itself in the charming harbor scenes and rural landscapes that he included beneath his description of astronomical concepts and diagrams. Mallet himself drew most of the figures that were engraved for this book.

Historical Description

The area of today's Turkey has been populated since the Paleolithic. The name of the Turks comes from Central Asia. The immigrants from whom Turkey got its name were the Oghusen and came from the area around the Aral Sea. The Turkish settlement of Anatolia began with the arrival of the Seljuks in the 11th century AD. Around 1299, Osman I, Gazi (1259–1326) founded the Ottoman dynasty named after him, from which the name of the Ottoman Empire (also called the Turkish Empire) ) derives. After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottomans ruled over large parts of the Middle East, North Africa, the Crimea, the Caucasus and the Balkans. After the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Europe was brought to a standstill near Vienna and the Ottoman army was defeated there on Kahlenberg in 1683, the empire was pushed back further and further from its European territories to the tip west of the Marmara Sea, between Istanbul and Edirne. The national movements that emerged from the 19th century onwards led to a gradual fragmentation of the empire, the occupation of Turkish North Africa by European powers and finally the defeat in the First World War resulted in its ultimate decline.