Picturing the Ottomans

[JesusA (imported)]

A copy of Emine Fetvaci's recent book Picturing History at the Ottoman Court (Indiana University Press, 2013) recently arrived on my desk. As the author put it:

My aim in this book is to illuminate the nature of Ottoman illustrated histories with regard to their production, uses, purposes, and messages. During the second half of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman court produced an unprecedented number of such books. (p.4)

The book contains six chapters on the production of the illustrated histories and on the patrons who commissioned them, two of whom are of primary interest here:

Chapter 4: Chief Black Eunuch Mehmed Agha: Negotiating the Sultanic Image (pp. 149-190)

Chapter 6: A Venetian Ottomanized: Chief White Eunuch Gazanfer Agha and His Artistic Patronage (pp. 239-266).

Both chapters, of course, focus on the production of illustrated histories of the Ottomans, but also touch briefly on the two individual patrons of the artists and writers.

Below are quotations from the opening sections of each of the two chapters.

4: Chief Black Eunuch Mehmed Agha

During the decade after Sokollu Mehmed Pasha's death, namely the 1580s, the competition over the ideological representation of the Ottoman state came to involve new actors who had emerged on the political scene. Individuals such as the sultan's unofficial companions (like his tutor or his spiritual advisor), the eunuchs of the imperial palace, and members of the royal family became increasingly important in the social hierarchy of the court....

The widened group of political agents also began to guide the court's artistic activities. The manuscript patronage of these individuals reveals substantial visual and verbal documentation of their new-found power. One of the foremost players among this group was Mehmed Agha, the chief black eunuch (ãgã-i darü's-sa'ãde) of the imperial palace between 1574 and 1590. Mehmed Agha was both a supervisor for imperial commissions and a patron in his own right....

A marginal note in a treatise on the merits of eunuchs recounts Mehmed Agha's arrival in Ottoman lands. The author, one of Mehmed Agha's protégés, states that he heard this story directly from Mehmed Agha: a "Frank" had come to Ethiopia to sell a few things, and had bought three "aghas," a euphemism for eunuchs, and set out for "Frengistan," the land of the Franks. After some travel on the boat, they encountered Muslim ships, fought with them, and losing the battle, the Frankish boat and its contents were taken to the governor of Egypt. The governor in turn presented Mehmed Agha to Selim II while he was still a prince (before 1566). Hüseyin Agha, the chief white eunuch (kapi agasi) of Selim II, chose Mehmed for his own service. After a while, the sultan had Hüseyin Agha decapitated (no explanation is given), and appropriated all his belongings, including Mehmed Agha. This story is a more embellished account of the way that most eunuchs were presented to the palace: by the governors of Egypt. The Frankish boats had to be mentioned because in actuality the making of eunuchs was not condoned by Islam, so some story had to be fabricated about their origins.

The chief black eunuch was the highest-ranking servant of the harem, the most private part of the Topkapi Palace where the sultan's family and his female slaves lived. His official title in Ottoman, ãgã-i darü's-sa'ãde, translates as the agha, or master, of the House of Felicity. He was in charge of all the other eunuchs and servants that served in this half of the palace, and controlled the traffic into and out of the harem quarters. The primacy of his regulatory duties is evident from the placement of the chief black eunuch's apartment at the main entrance to the harem such that anyone leaving or entering the harem had to go through the courtyard he watched over. The chief black eunuch, in other words, was the gateway to the sultan's family.

By the sixteenth century, part of the Ottoman sultan's majesty was understood to derive from his seclusion in the palace, "like a pearl inside an oyster," and the eunuchs were guardians of this majesty....

6: A Venetian Ottomanized: Chief White Eunuch Gazanfer Agha and his Artistic Patronage

In 1559, Franceschina Zorzi Michiel, a Venetian woman traveling with her two sons and her daughter, was captured by Ottoman forces in Albania. She managed to ransom herself and her daughter, but not her sons. The two boys entered palace service in Istanbul, and the rest, as they say, is history. Of the two Venetian boys – whose original names are not included in the sources – Cafer lived until 1582 and became the chief officer of the Ottoman sultan's privy chamber. The other brother Gazanfer was even more successful. He served as chief white eunuch and head of the Privy Chamber under both Murad III and Mehmed III. The chief white eunuch oversaw the inner palace (enderūn) where the male pages lived and were educated. He was the head or chief of the Gate of Felicity, and presided over the gate dividing the second and third courtyards. He controlled access to the sultan and the inner part of the palace. The head of the Privy Chamber (hāss oda basi) was usually under the direct command of the chief white eunuch, but Gazanfer occupied both positions and hence controlled most of the administration and ceremony of the male part of the palace. Gazanfer had unusually privileged access to the sultan, and consequently, had the chance to develop a close relationship with him.

The Venetian-born captive, in other words, became one of the most powerful figures in the Ottoman court....

Gazanfer Agha's illustrated manuscripts are examined here to trace the making of an Ottoman courtier. His patronage of scholars and poets identified him as a generous literary patron and demonstrated that he shared the Ottoman elite's intellectual concerns. He commissioned books promoting his allies, employed scholars who were protégés of his colleagues, and collaborated with other courtiers in the production of manuscripts....

Becoming a eunuch was a significant decision intended to bolster Gazanfer's rise through the courtly ranks. According to the contemporary historian Mustafa Āli, Gazanfer Beg and his brother Cafer Beg were courtiers of Selim II during his tenure as crown prince. When Selim rose to the throne in 1566 he asked them if they would agree to be castrated so they could join him and serve him in the inner court of the palace, and they accepted the proposal. Āli writes that Cafer did not survive the operation, perhaps implying that he was not strong enough to withstand the refashioning. Gazanfer, however, continued to be a close friend of the sultan and served as chief white eunuch for thirty years and as head of the Privy Chamber for twenty years. Āli refers to Gazanfer's castration as an unfortunate event, but one that had a grand purpose fashioned by divine will.

Histories from the period rarely mention the castration of eunuchs. Āli's discussion of the event already points to its unusual nature, remarkable especially for its occurrence during Gazanfer's adult years. Most of the eunuchs in the Ottoman palace were castrated as children and were raised in the palace. Āli presents the castration as a sign of God's mysterious ways and of Gazanfer's submission to his sultan's commands....

[Riverwind (imported)]

Sounds like a good read.

River

[dark_soul (imported)]

Very interesting book, thanks for sharing greetings.