Matrakçı Nasuh

He was brought to Constantinople after being recruited by Ottoman scouts in Rumelia. He was then educated, served several Ottoman sultans, and became a teacher at Enderun School.

Life

Matrakçı Nasuh, born in the Bosnian town of Visoko, was a Janissary who went through both the infantry and the devşirme system. He was a swordsman and sharpshooter who spoke five languages and was recruited into the Ottoman Navy.

Although born to Bosnian Muslim parentage, Nasuh was drafted into the devşirme system, usually reserved for the Christian populace of the empire. Exceptionally, however, in Bosnia, the devşirme was also extended to local Muslim families.

After a long period of studying mathematics and geometry, he wrote his works Cemâlü'l-Küttâb and Kemalü'l- Hisâb and submitted them to the Ottoman sultan Selim I. He wrote also the two books named Mecmaü't-Tevârih and Süleymannâme, on history from 1520 to 1543. He also wrote a historical piece on the Persian campaign of Suleiman I titled Fetihname-i Karabuğdan. A recent study of his book Umdet-ul Hisab found that Matrakçı had invented some multiplication methods and that the lattice method had been widely used in the Enderun School nearly 50 years before John Napier reintroduced it to Europe.

Besides his works on mathematics and history, he painted miniatures which focus on panoramic views of landscapes and cities painted with the greatest detail (his Constantinople landscape picture, shows almost every street and building of the city). In Ottoman miniature art, this was later known as the "Matrakçı style". One of his four volumes of miniatures deals with Suleiman I's Safavid war, upon which he had written his historical work Fetihname-i Karabuğdan. Besides illustrating the march of the Ottoman Army from Constantinople to Baghdad and then Tabriz and its return via Aleppo and Eskişehir, Nasuh also includes all the cities met by the army along the way. The Library of Istanbul University hosts the only copy of this work.

Nasuh was also a soldier and a master bladesmith. He worked as a weapons teacher at Enderun School. He and his students demonstrated their skills in a show which was part of the circumcision celebrations of Suleiman I's sons including future sultan Selim II. Because of his success in this demonstration, Nasuh received the honorary title of Ustad ("master") and Reis ("chief") from the sultan. He also wrote a book about usage of various weapons and techniques of cavalry and infantry fight, called Tuhfet-ül Guzât.