Skip to main content

Secondary sourceBook1598

Portraits of Ottoman sultans including Mehmed II, Cream of Histories genealogy

Abū Ṭālib Iṣfahānī · 1598

A 1598 manuscript page from the Cream of Histories showing Mehmed II among later Ottoman sultans in a genealogy. It was made long after his lifetime.

Shows Mehmed II in a sequence of Ottoman sultans, made long after his lifetime, so it reflects later memory of him.

Ask Mehmed II about this sourceView the original(opens in new tab)
A manuscript page with three circular portraits of Ottoman sultans stacked vertically, each seated on a red chair against a gold floral background. Surrounding each portrait are radiating lines of Arabic-script text and red-lettered sultan names in roundels. The bottom right corner shows the inventory label T.23.27.
Abū Ṭālib Iṣfahānī, portraits of Ottoman sultans from Cream of Histories (Zübdet-üt Tevarih), Baghdad, 1598. Chester Beatty.

About this source

What it is

This is a manuscript folio from a genealogy (silsilanāma) in the Cream of Histories (Zübdet-üt Tevarih), a book produced in Baghdad in 1598. The recto shows portraits of Murad II, Mehmed II and Bayezid II. The verso shows Selim I and Suleyman I. Each portrait is a circular medallion showing a seated sultan on a red chair against a gold floral background, surrounded by Arabic-script text and red sultan names. The folio is held by Chester Beatty.

Why it matters

The book presents history as a genealogical tree and places the Ottoman sultanate as its culmination. This page shows Mehmed II as one link in a long line of rulers. Because the book was made long after the sultan died, it shows how later artists and writers remembered him, not how he appeared to his contemporaries.

Look closer

  • How are the sultans shown, and what details do the chairs, backgrounds and text add?
  • Why might the book have been made so long after the sultans lived?
  • Whose version of the sultans' history does this page present, and whose might be missing?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Mehmed II on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

More Mehmed II sources

Meet the AI Mehmed II →
Painted portrait of a bearded man in profile facing left, wearing a large white turban with a red cap beneath, a brown fur-trimmed robe over red garments. He is set within a gilded arched frame with crowns at the top corners, above a richly patterned gold and red cloth-covered ledge.Painting

Primary source

The Sultan Mehmet II

Gentile Bellini · 1480

A painted portrait in profile of a bearded man in a large white turban with a red cap on top, wearing a blue and olive-green robe with red trim and white fur-lined collar. He holds a red rose to his nose with one hand.Painting

Primary source

Portrait of Mehmed II Smelling a Rose

Attributed to Nakkaş Sinan Beg · c. 1480-81

Rumeli Hisarı fortress on a hillside above the Bosphorus strait. Stone walls with crenellations, round towers with conical-topped turrets, green trees on the slope, a Turkish flag on a tower, and a calm blue waterway in the foreground.Artifact

Primary source

Rumeli Hisarı

1451-1452

Evening view across the water of a long walled palace complex on a hillside, with domed pavilions, a tall pointed tower, many chimneys, and dense trees. A white two-deck ferry with a red Turkish flag sails in the foreground on the blue water.Artifact

Primary source

Topkapı Palace

from 1459

Scan of an Ottoman imperial decree on a tall cream-colored parchment with an arched top. Red Arabic-script tughra-style calligraphy sits at the top, a black tughra monogram with flourishes is in the upper middle, and several lines of black cursive script fill the lower part.Document

Primary source

Ahdname of Fojnica

Mehmed II · 1463

Ready when you are

Start chatting with Mehmed II now.

20 messages free · No credit card · Available in 50+ languages.

Trial Humy for freeGet a quote for institutions