festivities in the Hippodrome below with a look that bespoke His satisfaction. His face, even though not so detailed as to permit one to distinguish Him from others by features alone, was drawn adeptly and with reverence. As for the right side of the double-leaf picture showing Our Sultan on the left, there were viziers, pashas, Persian, Tatar, Frankish and Venetian ambassadors standing in the arched colonnades and windows. Because they were not sultans, their eyes were drawn hastily and carelessly and focused on nothing in particular besides the general commotion in the square. Later, I noticed in other pictures that the same arrangement and page composition repeated-even though the wall ornamentation, the trees and terra-cotta shingles were depicted in different styles and colors. Once the text was written out by scribes, the illustrations completed and the book bound; the reader, turning pages, would each time see completely different activities in completely different colors in the Hippodrome which remained under the same watchful gazes of the Sultan and His crowd of guests-who always stood identically, forever gazing at the same area below.
There before me I saw people scrambling for hundreds of bowls of pilaf that were placed in the Hippodrome; I saw the live rabbits and birds emerge out of the roast ox and startle the crowd that had descended upon it. I saw the master coppersmiths’ guild riding in a wheeled cart before Our Sultan, its members hammering away at copper but never striking the one among them lying in the cart with the anvil balanced on his bare chest. I saw glaziers embellishing glass with carnations and cypresses as they paraded before Our Sultan in a wagon; confectioners reciting sweet poems as they drove camels laden with sacks of sugar and displayed cages holding sugar-parrots; and aged locksmiths who showed off a variety of hanging locks, padlocks, dead bolts and gearlocks as they complained of the evils of new times and new doors. Butterfly, Stork and Olive had worked on the picture that depicted the magicians: One of them was causing eggs to march down a pole without dropping them-as if on a broad slab of marble-to the beat of a tambourine played by another. In one wagon I saw precisely how Sea-Captain Kılıç Ali Pasha had forced the infidels he’d captured at sea to make an “infidels’ mountain” out of clay; he’d then loaded all the slaves into the cart, and when he was right before the Sultan, he exploded the powder within the “mountain” to demonstrate how he’d made infidel lands wail and moan with cannon fire. I saw clean-shaven butchers wielding cleavers, wearing rose- and purple-colored uniforms and smiling at the pink carcasses of skinned sheep hanging from hooks. The spectators applauded lion tamers who’d brought a chained lion before Our Sultan, provoking and enraging it until its eyes shone bloodred with rage; and on the next page, I saw the lion, representing Islam, chase away a gray-and-pink pig, symbolizing the cunning Christian infidel. I indulged my eyes at length on a picture of a barber suspended upside down from the ceiling of a shop built onto a cart, as he shaved a customer while his assistant, dressed in red, held a mirror and a silver bowl containing fragrant soap, waiting for baksheesh; I inquired after the identity of the magnificent miniaturist responsible for the piece.
“It is indeed important that a painting, through its beauty, summon us toward life’s abundance, toward compassion, toward respect for the colors of the realm which God created, and toward reflection and faith. The identity of the miniaturist is not important.”
Was Nuri the Miniaturist, who was much more subtle in thought than I’d assumed, being reserved because he understood that my Enishte sent me here to investigate, or was he merely parroting Head Illuminator Master Osman?
“Is Elegant the one responsible for all this gilding work?” I asked. “Who’s doing the gilding
There before me I saw people scrambling for hundreds of bowls of pilaf that were placed in the Hippodrome; I saw the live rabbits and birds emerge out of the roast ox and startle the crowd that had descended upon it. I saw the master coppersmiths’ guild riding in a wheeled cart before Our Sultan, its members hammering away at copper but never striking the one among them lying in the cart with the anvil balanced on his bare chest. I saw glaziers embellishing glass with carnations and cypresses as they paraded before Our Sultan in a wagon; confectioners reciting sweet poems as they drove camels laden with sacks of sugar and displayed cages holding sugar-parrots; and aged locksmiths who showed off a variety of hanging locks, padlocks, dead bolts and gearlocks as they complained of the evils of new times and new doors. Butterfly, Stork and Olive had worked on the picture that depicted the magicians: One of them was causing eggs to march down a pole without dropping them-as if on a broad slab of marble-to the beat of a tambourine played by another. In one wagon I saw precisely how Sea-Captain Kılıç Ali Pasha had forced the infidels he’d captured at sea to make an “infidels’ mountain” out of clay; he’d then loaded all the slaves into the cart, and when he was right before the Sultan, he exploded the powder within the “mountain” to demonstrate how he’d made infidel lands wail and moan with cannon fire. I saw clean-shaven butchers wielding cleavers, wearing rose- and purple-colored uniforms and smiling at the pink carcasses of skinned sheep hanging from hooks. The spectators applauded lion tamers who’d brought a chained lion before Our Sultan, provoking and enraging it until its eyes shone bloodred with rage; and on the next page, I saw the lion, representing Islam, chase away a gray-and-pink pig, symbolizing the cunning Christian infidel. I indulged my eyes at length on a picture of a barber suspended upside down from the ceiling of a shop built onto a cart, as he shaved a customer while his assistant, dressed in red, held a mirror and a silver bowl containing fragrant soap, waiting for baksheesh; I inquired after the identity of the magnificent miniaturist responsible for the piece.
“It is indeed important that a painting, through its beauty, summon us toward life’s abundance, toward compassion, toward respect for the colors of the realm which God created, and toward reflection and faith. The identity of the miniaturist is not important.”
Was Nuri the Miniaturist, who was much more subtle in thought than I’d assumed, being reserved because he understood that my Enishte sent me here to investigate, or was he merely parroting Head Illuminator Master Osman?
“Is Elegant the one responsible for all this gilding work?” I asked. “Who’s doing the gilding
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