Iskendernamename

Miniature from a copy of Ahmadi's İskender-nāme, middle of the 15th century, written and painted in Edirne, now in Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venezia "This Iskandarnama manuscript contains 277 folios with 66 illustrations and a large number of miniature paintings depicting various episodes of Alexander's life as well as different subjects interspersed throughout: the Ascension of the Prophet Muhammad and his journey to Heaven (fols. 12r, 193r), the poet-author Ahmadi in conversation with a friend (fol. 131v), the Zodiac and the planets (fols. 58r, 132v, 133r), a few episodes derived from the Iranian epic Shahnama ("Book of Kings"), and several illustrations of the history of Islam, the most recent of which is a reception scene at the court of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I (r. 1389-1403; fols. 240v-241r). Apart from its many artistically accomplished paintings, the manuscript represents one of a handful of Ottoman codices that can be attributed to the period of the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and probably to the royal atelier in Edirne, the de facto Ottoman capital on the European continent in the first half of the 15th century. Grube has convincingly argued that the Iskan