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The Topkapı Manuscript of the Jāmiᶜ al-Tawārikh (Hazine 1654) from Rashidiya to the Ottoman Court: A Preliminary Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Mohamad Reza Ghiasian
Mohamad Reza Ghiasian*
Affiliation:
University of Bamberg and University of Kashan
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Abstract

The famous Persian version of the Jāmiᶜ al-Tawārikh (Hazine 1654) has never been studied with the care it deserves. Since its transcription was completed a year before Rashid al-Din’s execution, it remained unfinished while approximately seven illustrations were inserted into it, and the locations of other illustrations were left blank. Careful examination of the manuscript reveals that almost all of the empty spaces left for narrative illustrations were painted during the last decades of the fourteenth century. Having decided to improve the quality of the manuscript, the kitābkhāna of Shāhrukh, in the fifteenth century, completed the missing passages of text and restored or overpainted some of its illustrations. The dedicatory inscription of Farhād Khān Qarāmānlu indicates that the manuscript was refurbished again in the Safavid period. The last artistic additions to the manuscript were overpainting an illustration and insertion of two illuminated friezes in the Ottoman Istanbul. This paper, which is a result of close examination of the original manuscript, explains the complicated life history of the book.

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Iranian Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , May 2018 , pp. 399 - 425
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Association For Iranian Studies, Inc

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Footnotes

The author would like to express his sincere gratitude to two anonymous readers who provided penetrating comments on this paper; and also to Professor Charles Melville for his valuable suggestions on an earlier draft.

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