Introduction

This chapter looks at German-speaking travellers to the Ottoman Empire and how these artists and writers represented the empire, specifically the sultan and his Islamic court, in printed images and accompanying text produced upon their return. The travellers were often diplomats or members of diplomatic entourages, and many were also antiquarians, linguists, artists and writers. The images influenced broader perceptions of the culture, customs and costume of the people in the Ottoman Empire. They also distinguished differences between the society they were visiting and their own, often commenting as much on the concept of Christian Europe as on that of the Islamic Ottoman Empire and its people. Works under consideration in this chapter were created by artists and writers such as Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502–50), Nicolas de Nicolay (1517–83), Ogier Ghislan de Busbecq (1521/2–92) and Melchior Lorch (1526/7–83). They constituted some of the major primary representations of Turks available to sixteenth-century German-speaking audiences and were often reproduced in costume books and encyclopaedias, including those produced well into the eighteenth century.

Increasing contact between the courts of the Holy Roman and Ottoman empires resulted in a significant expansion of the availability of source material about the city of Constantinople and its inhabitants. As travellers to the Ottoman Empire were often diplomats, their material focused on the court, courtiers and specifically the Ottoman sultan.