Presenter: Patricia Blessing, Assistant Professor of Art History, Pomona College

In the fifteenth-century Ottoman Empire, a wide range of stylistic references was employed in buildings connected to the increasingly cosmopolitan Ottoman court. Byzantine, Italian, Mamluk, Saljuq, Karamanid, Timurid, and Aqqoyunlu architectures were sources for builders while a fluid visual identity was shaped. Successful projects required the involvement of architects, tile-makers, stone carvers, and calligraphers. In addition to collaborations that took place at building sites, paper played an important role as a medium of transfer, allowing templates to be moved without their makers. Loose and shifting associations of makers –in person and by way of paper – integrated the practice of architecture into networks of ulema, Sufis, and poets connecting the Ottoman realm to Iran, Central Asia, Egypt, and Syria.