Piri Reis

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Muhiddin Piri (Template:Circa 1470 – 1553), better known as Piri Reis (Template:Langx), was an Ottoman cartographer, admiral, navigator, corsair, and geographer. He is primarily known today for his cartographic works, including his 1513 world map and the Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of the Sea), a book with detailed information on early navigational techniques as well as relatively accurate charts for their time, describing the ports and cities of the Mediterranean Sea.

He was likely born around 1470 in Gelibolu—a major Ottoman naval base—and sailed from an early age with his uncle, Kemal Reis. They fought as corsairs in the Western Mediterranean until they were brought into the Ottoman Navy. Piri Reis fought alongside Kemal Reis in the Ottoman–Venetian wars. After his uncle died, Piri Reis returned to Gelibolu in 1511 to begin his cartographic works. He created the 1513 world map during this period and likely began drafting the charts and notes that would form the basis of the Kitab-ı Bahriye. By 1516, he returned to the navy and took part in the Ottoman conquest of Egypt. After their victory, he presented the 1513 world map to Sultan Selim I. When Suleiman the Magnificent became sultan, Piri Reis completed the first version of the Kitab-ı Bahriye, which he dedicated and gifted to the sultan by 1521. Several years later, he created a more elaborate version at the urging of Grand Vizier Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha. His final surviving work is a 1528 world map, of which only the northwest corner remains (showing Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland, Florida, Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Central America).

In 1546, Piri Reis became Hind Kapudan-ı Derya, or grand admiral of the Ottoman Fleet in the Indian Ocean, as well as admiral of the fleet in Egypt. He expanded the Indian Ocean fleet, retook several ports, and pushed the Portuguese out of the Red Sea. In the 1550s, he began a campaign to capture the Portuguese-controlled Hormuz Island at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. He abandoned the siege of Hormuz after several weeks, sacked the city, and looted the nearby Qeshm Island, where wealthy residents of Hormuz had evacuated. For failing to capture Hormuz, he was executed in 1553 in Cairo.Template:Efn

His cartographic work received little appreciation during his lifetime. There is no evidence that the Kitab-ı Bahriye circulated outside the royal palace before 1550. After his death, hundreds of copies of the book were likely made. Over 40 copies survive today, spanning several centuries. When his 1513 world map was unearthed at the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul in 1929, it drew international attention. The map relies on many sources, including a lost map of the Caribbean from Christopher Columbus. This sparked greater interest in the Kitab-ı Bahriye, and facsimiles of both were published. Piri Reis and his cartography have since become a point of national pride for Turkey.

BiographyEdit

Early life and piracyEdit

Little is known about Piri Reis' early life.<ref name="Soucek-1992-p266">Template:Harvnb.</ref> He was likely born between 1465 and 1470 in Gelibolu, also known as Gallipoli.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Located on the Dardanelles, Gelibolu was a major naval base for the Ottoman Empire at the time.<ref name="Soucek-1992-p266"/> He was born Muhiddin Piri; Reis was a military rank equivalent to captain.<ref>Template:Multiref</ref> Little is known about his parents.<ref name="Pedani-2015-p320">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Piri Reis gave his father's name as Hacı Mehmed.<ref name="McIntosh-2000a-p5" /> His uncle was the corsair Kemal Reis;<ref name="McIntosh-2000a-p5">Template:Harvnb.</ref> corsairs are a type of pirate acting with the approval of a sovereign state.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It is not clear from historical records whether Piri was the son of Kemal Reis' brother or sister.<ref name="Pedani-2015-p320" /> Kemal Reis had a brother-in-law from Nafpaktos who was arrested and tortured in Venice for alleged spying during the Ottoman–Venetian wars. He was possibly Piri Reis' father.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

By age 12, Piri Reis began sailing with his uncle.<ref name="McIntosh-2000a-p5" /><ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> When the Christian Reconquista reached the Emirate of Granada, its Muslim rulers asked the Ottoman Empire for assistance.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Kemal Reis sailed to the Western Mediterranean with his nephew.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> It's not clear whether Kemal Reis was leading an expedition or one of many corsairs sent west.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> As a teenager, Piri Reis helped his uncle bombard the Catholic forces that were laying siege to Málaga in 1487.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> After Málaga fell, Piri Reis transported refugees to North Africa.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Despite individual corsair successes, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain took control of the Iberian Peninsula by 1492.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> After the Granada War, the Spanish Monarchy expelled Spain's Jewish population. The Ottoman Sultan instructed Kemal Reis to transport refugees to Muslim lands.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Piri Reis transported both Muslims and Jews from Catholic Spain to North Africa.<ref name="McIntosh-2000a-p6" />

Led by Kemal Reis, Barbary pirates threatened European maritime traffic.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Piri Reis wrote of his early years, "We sailed on the Mediterranean and fought the enemies of our religion mercilessly."<ref name="McIntosh-2000a-p6">Template:Harvnb.</ref> During the winters, he and his uncle took shelter in favorable harbors on the Barbary Coast.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> By 1490, Kemal and Piri were operating out of Béjaïa, Algeria.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> During six summers from 1488 to 1493, they conducted raids along the coasts of Spain, Southern France, Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

Naval career and cartographyEdit

File:Venice by Piri Reis.jpg

Venice as depicted in the Kitab-ı Bahriye

Piri Reis sailed under his uncle and later Hayreddin Barbarossa in the Ottoman Navy.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> To bolster the navy, Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II recruited Barbary and Aegean corsairs, including Piri and Kemal.<ref name="Hess-1970-p1905">Template:Harvnb.</ref> From the fourteenth to the early sixteenth century, there was a tradition of Turkish pirates or corsairs fighting as naval ghazis, Muslim warriors who fought for both monetary and religious reasons.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Before Barbarossa reorganized the navy, sultans commonly employed former pirates.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The addition of experienced corsairs raised the Ottoman Navy's competence in open-sea combat and knowledge of the Mediterranean.<ref name="Hess-1970-p1905" />

In 1495, Kemal Reis was imprisoned for piracy and brought to the empire's capital Constantinople. Rather than being sentenced, he was given an official position in the navy. Piri Reis was with his uncle at this time and later documented it in the Kitab-ı Bahriye.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Kemal and Piri advocated taking the Venetian coastal fortresses of the Peloponnese and the small but strategically valuable island of Rhodes.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> In his Kitab-ı Bahriye, Piri Reis reports that his uncle had told Sultan Bayezid II, "Venice has two eyes: Her left eye is the [harbor] fortress of Modon. Her right eye is that of Corfu."<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Piri Reis fought in the Ottoman–Venetian wars as a captain under the command of Kemal Reis.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> During the 1499 Battle of Zonchio (the First Battle of Lepanto), Piri Reis sailed in a fleet of about 270 ships that fought through the Venetian fleet and entered the Gulf of Corinth, forcing the governor to surrender.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Kemal Reis led the Ottomans to victory in the 1500 Battle of Modon (the Second Battle of Lepanto), and one year later in the battles to retake the fortress at Modon and capture Navarino.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> After the Ottoman Navy defeated the Venetian fleet at the Peloponnese, they began to take control of the Eastern Mediterranean.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Piri and Kemal returned to the Western Mediterranean and fought battles along the coasts of Spain and the Western Mediterranean Islands.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Kemal Reis led the 1501 raid on the Balearic Islands.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> In a naval battle near Valencia, Spain, Piri Reis and his uncle captured a Spaniard who said he had participated in Columbus's voyages,<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> and likely possessed an early map of the Americas that Piri Reis would later use as a source for his maps.<ref name="Nebenzahl-1990-p62">Template:Harvnb.</ref> In 1502, the fleet returned to Constantinople before resuming conflict with Venice.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

After his uncle died in a shipwreck, Piri Reis returned to Gelibolu in 1511 to work on his navigational studies.<ref name="Urguplu-2015">Template:Harvnb.</ref>Template:Efn There, he completed the world map for which he is well-known today. The manuscript is dated to the month of Muharram in the Islamic year 919 AH, equivalent to March 1513 AD.<ref name="Massetti-pp41-42">Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref name="McIntosh-2000a-p15">Template:Harvnb.</ref> This work included the recently explored shores of the Americas and Africa.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Although he had never sailed the Atlantic, he compiled over twenty maps of Arab, Spanish, Portuguese, Indian, and older Greek origins into a comprehensive representation of the known world of his era.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> At least by 1513, Piri Reis was sailing again for the Ottomans under Hayreddin Barbarossa along the coast of North Africa.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

By 1516, Piri Reis was a captain in the Ottoman fleet that took part in the 1516–17 Ottoman conquest of Egypt.<ref name="Tekeli-1985-pp675-676">Template:Harvnb.</ref> He was the commander of the Turkish fleet that blockaded Alexandria.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> After the Ottoman victory,<ref name="Tekeli-1985-pp675-676" /> Piri Reis presented the 1513 world map to Sultan Selim I (Template:Reign).<ref name="Kahle-1933-p621">Template:Harvnb.</ref> It is unknown how Selim used the map, if at all, as it vanished from history until its rediscovery centuries later.<ref name="Soucek-1992-p270">Template:Harvnb.</ref> According to Venetian documents, Piri Reis was no longer with the Ottoman Navy in 1518 and was engaging in piracy in the Aegean Sea.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

File:Piri Reis - Map of the Islands of the Aegean Sea Including Chios, Cos, Rhodes and Crete - Walters W658101A - Full Page.jpg

Rhodes (outlined in red) just off the southern coast of Anatolia

Piri Reis advocated for and took part in Suleiman the Magnificent's 1522 Siege of Rhodes.<ref name="Soucek-2004-p222">Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The first version of his Kitab-ı Bahriye—a nautical atlas gifted and dedicated to Suleiman—included advice on conquering Rhodes.<ref name="Soucek-2004-p222"/><ref name="Soucek-2013-p137">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The island of Rhodes had a secure harbor and was Template:Cvt off the coast of Anatolia. Controlled by an adversary, it could threaten maritime communication between the empire's capital and Mediterranean ports.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The Knights of St. John controlled the island, took Muslim captives, and provided shelter to Christian pirates.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> During the siege, the Knights' fleet of ten ships remained in the harbor rather than confront the larger Ottoman force.<ref name="Soucek-2004-p223">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The Ottoman Navy conducted an amphibious operation, transporting many troops to the small island,<ref name="Soucek-2004-p223" /> and the island surrendered in December 1522. The Knights of St. John later relocated to Malta.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The second version of the Kitab-ı Bahriye, completed after the conquest of Rhodes, only discusses the events in terms of the practical concerns of acquiring drinking water from Karabağ in Bodrum prior to the siege.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

The longer second version of the Kitab-ı Bahriye resulted from a conversation with the Ottoman grand vizier.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Suleiman's reign was the beginning of a shift towards power concentrating in a group of viziers, advisers, governors, and royal family members, including Suleiman's childhood friend Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha, who rose to become the grand vizier.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> When putting down Hain Ahmed Pasha's 1524 rebellion in Egypt, Ibrahim rode aboard the navy's flagship, commanded by Piri Reis.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref name="Hess-1970-p1905" /> Piri Reis said they discussed cartography after Ibrahim asked him about the maps and charts being consulted aboard the ship.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Ibrahim commissioned Piri Reis to create an expanded version of the Kitab-ı Bahriye.<ref name="Casale-2010-p37">Template:Harvnb.</ref> He finished it and gifted it to the sultan by 1526. In later centuries, many copies were made of both versions of the book.<ref name="Hepworth-2005-p73">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Piri Reis completed a second world map in 1528 or 1529.<ref name="Soucek-2013-p141">Template:Harvnb.</ref> According to Sevim Tekeli, the changes from the first world map demonstrate that Piri Reis was actively following European voyages of discovery.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

In the 1513 world map and the Kitab-ı Bahriye preface, Piri Reis rhetorically undermines the significance of European discoveries by reframing them as the rediscovery of ancient knowledge.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> He invokes Alexander the Great when explaining Columbus' discoveries.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> According to the Quran and Turkish literary tradition, Dhu al-Qarnayn—believed to be a Quranic reference to Alexander the Great—traveled to every corner of the world, thereby defining its limits.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Marginal inscriptions on the world map mention "charts drawn in the days of Alexander" and a book that "fell into the hands" of Columbus describing lands "at the end of the Western Sea".<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> In the 1526 version of the Kitab-ı Bahriye, he explicitly credits European discoveries to lost works created during the legendary voyages of Alexander:<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

My friend, the Franks both read and write everything there is to know about the science of the sea. But do not suppose that they invented such knowledge on their own; and if you wish, I will explain why. During his time, the famous ruler Alexander traveled over all the seas, and whatever he saw and whatever he heard he had recorded, item by item, by a competent person.{{#if:Piri ReisKitab-ı Bahriye (1526)<ref>Template:Multiref</ref>|{{#if:|}}
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Venice saw Piri Reis as an adversary and obstacle to their aims in the Middle East during the 1530s.<ref name="Pedani-2015-p323">Template:Harvnb.</ref> In 1532, he fought against Dalmatian pirates in the Adriatic.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> He attacked the Venetian-held castle at Coron in 1533, captured a Venetian galley in 1536, and chased Venetian ships out of the Eastern Mediterranean.<ref name="Pedani-2015-p323" />

Grand Admiral of the Indian Ocean FleetEdit

File:Piri Reis - Map of the Egyptian Coast From Alexandria as Far as the City of Rashid - Walters W658303B - Full Page.jpg

Alexandria in Egypt as depicted in the Kitab-ı Bahriye

After Sinan Reis died in 1546,<ref name="Pedani-2015-p323" /> Piri Reis took his position as Template:Transliteration, or grand admiral of the Ottoman Fleet in the Indian Ocean, as well as admiral of the fleet in Egypt.<ref name="Shaw-1976-p107">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Portuguese ships had raided the Red Sea as far as Suez and taken the port city of Aden in Yemen.<ref name="Shaw-1976-p107" /> The Portuguese navy employed sailing ships capable of navigating in open seas, while the Ottoman Navy relied mainly on galleys, which were more effective along coasts. This limited Ottoman naval warfare to the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and narrow straits around Arabia. The empire focused on using its navy to continue land-based expansion into new areas for tax revenue and agriculture.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Using his fleet based out of Suez, Egypt, Piri Reis led campaigns in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.<ref name="McIntosh-2000a-p6" /> On 26 February 1548, he recaptured Aden from the Portuguese.<ref name="Shaw-1976-p107"/> Piri Reis subdued the local Bedouin rulers of Basra in 1547 and began building a Persian Gulf fleet.<ref name="Shaw-1976-pp106-107">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The fleet conducted annual expansions in the Indian Ocean, and some local rulers began to ally with the Portuguese.<ref name="Shaw-1976-pp106-107" />

File:Piris Reis expedition map-en.svg

Piri Reis' expedition against Hormuz

The sultan instructed Piri Reis to take the Portuguese-controlled Hormuz Island at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.<ref name="Önalp-2010-pp1-2">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Taking Bahrain Island was a secondary objective.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> In April 1552,<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Piri Reis left Suez with 25 galleys, 5 ships, and 850 soldiers.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> In August, the Turkish fleet took Muscat after a one-month siege.<ref name="Shaw-1976-p107" /><ref name="Floor-2006-p176">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The expedition took control of coastal lands in Yemen, Oman, and Arabia.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The Portuguese prepared for the attack on Hormuz by evacuating most of the island. Wealthy residents took refuge on the nearby island of Qeshm, and the soldiers and royal family retreated to the fortress.<ref name="Floor-2006-p176" />

The Turkish soldiers took the City of Hormuz in September 1552, but could not take the fortress.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref name="Floor-2006-p176" /> They besieged and bombarded the fortress for several weeks, but Piri Reis grew concerned about the Portuguese fleet attacking them during the siege.<ref name="Özbaran 2009 110">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The Ottoman forces ran low on gunpowder, and Kubad Pasha the governor of Basra did not send supplies to the siege.<ref name="Soucek 2011 61">Template:Harvnb.</ref> On 9 October 1552, the Ottomans retreated.<ref name="Özbaran 2009 110"/><ref name="Floor-2006-p176" /> They sacked the city, looted Qeshm, and retreated into the gulf with over a million pieces of gold.<ref name="Floor-2006-p176" /> The fleet arrived at Basra by 1553.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> A letter from the Portuguese governor inside the fortress, dated 31 October 1552, said that the walls had been near collapsing, but that the Ottomans had run low on "munitions, gunpowder, and other war materials" much of which they had lost when a galleon sank on the way to Hormuz.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The Portuguese governor of India, Template:Ill organized a fleet of 40 ships led by his nephew Antão de Noronha that reached Hormuz in November 1552.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Piri Reis was executed following his retreat at Hormuz.<ref name="McIntosh-2000a-p6" /> After the expedition's failure, Kubad Pasha denied Piri Reis rowers for his galleys.<ref name="Önalp-2010-pp1-2" /><ref name="Floor-2006-p176" /> Historian Svat Soucek suggested that "hostility [between the two men] may have been at the root" of Piri Reis' decision to return to Egypt quickly and the "accusatory report the Pasha probably sent to Constantinople."<ref name="Soucek 2011 61"/> Leaving most of the fleet behind, Piri Reis returned in 1553 with only two ships.<ref name="Pedani-2015-p324">Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref name="Floor-2006-p176" /> The gold he brought back to Egypt played a role in his death sentence. Ottoman histories criticize Piri Reis for looting Qeshm. Some even allege that he accepted bribery.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Those allegations were unlikely, as a delegation from Hormuz traveled to Constantinople to demand compensation, but they may have been believed at the time of his execution.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Venetian diplomats in Constantinople sent a letter dated 15 November 1553 stating that Piri Reis had been replaced by Rüstem Pasha's captain, "charged with having raised the siege of the fortress of Hormuz because of bribery", and executed.<ref name="Pedani-2015-p324" /> For sacking the city instead of maintaining the siege, the sultan had him beheaded in Cairo.<ref name="Pedani-2015-p324" /> The exact date of his execution is unknown.<ref name="Pedani-2015-p324" />

Rüstem Pasha's captain Seydi Ali Reis attempted to return the fleet that Piri Reis had brought to Basra back to Suez, but the Portuguese intercepted them. The Ottoman ships were all captured, destroyed, or swept out to sea.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Piri Reis was possibly survived by a son, Mehmed Reis, who is known only from a single portolan map of the Aegean.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

WorksEdit

Three of his cartographic works survive in some form to the present day.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Fragments of his 1513 world map and his 1528 world map are kept in museums in Istanbul.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Copies of the Kitab-ı Bahriye, a navigational atlas, are kept in many libraries and museums around the world, although the two created by Piri Reis himself are lost.<ref name="Soucek-1992-p272">Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Piri Reis map of 1513Edit

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File:Piri reis world map 01.jpg

Surviving fragment of the first world map of Piri Reis (1513)

The Piri Reis map of 1513 is a world map compiled from a range of contemporary and classical sources.<ref name="Soucek-2013-p140"/> Approximately one third of the map survives,<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> housed in the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The finished manuscript was dated to the Islamic year 919 AH, equivalent to 1513 AD.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> After the empire's conquest of Egypt, Piri Reis presented the 1513 world map to Selim I, and the map vanished from history until its rediscovery centuries later.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref name="Soucek-1992-p270" />

When rediscovered in 1929,<ref name="Şengör-2004-cites">Template:Multiref</ref> the remaining fragment garnered international attention for including a partial copy of an otherwise lost map by Christopher Columbus.<ref name="Gerber-2010-p199">Template:Harvnb.</ref>Template:Efn The map's longest inscription tells the story of Columbus' discovery of the Americas and states that Piri Reis and his uncle captured a Spaniard who had sailed with Columbus. The inscription credits some portion of the Americas to a map their prisoner had received from Columbus.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Scholarly analysis of the placenames, knowledge of the Americas, and cartographic misconceptions indicates that Piri Reis likely did use a map composed during one of Columbus' early voyages to the Americas.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

File:CipangoComparisonOfPiriReis1513MapToBehaimGlobe.svg

Comparison of Piri Reis' Caribbean (left) to Martin Behaim's Asia (right)

The map is a portolan chart with compass roses from which lines of bearing radiate.<ref name="Dutch-2010"/> Designed for navigation via dead reckoning,<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> portolan charts use a windrose network rather than a longitude and latitude grid.<ref name="Dutch-2010">Template:Harvnb.</ref> It contains extensive notes primarily in Ottoman Turkish.<ref name="McIntosh-2000b">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The colophon in Arabic is written in a different handwriting,<ref name="Soucek-2013-p139">Template:Harvnb.</ref> likely that of Piri Reis himself.<ref name="McIntosh-2000a-p15"/> The depiction of South America is detailed and accurate for its time.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The northwestern coast combines features of Central America and Cuba into a single body of land. Scholars attribute the peculiar arrangement of the Caribbean to a now-lost map from Columbus that merged Cuba into the Asian mainland and Hispaniola with Marco Polo's description of Japan.<ref name="Gaspar-2015-pp1-3">Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> This reflects Columbus's erroneous claim that he had found a new route to Asia.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

The southern coast of the Atlantic Ocean is most likely a version of Terra Australis.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The southernmost conclusively identified feature on the map is a stretch of Brazilian coastline including Cabo Frio (Kav Friyo on the map), possibly the earliest depiction of Rio de Janeiro, and likely the area around Cananéia, labeled Katino on the map.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Beyond this point, the coast curves sharply east. Cartographic historian Svat Soucek has suggested this is the coast of South America, bent to fit the natural curve of the skin the map was drawn on.<ref name="Soucek-1992-p271-272">Template:Harvnb.</ref> However, there is no textual or historical evidence that the map represents land south of present-day Cananéia.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> A disproven 20th-century hypothesis identified the southern landmass with an ice-free Antarctic coast.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

The map is visually distinct from European portolan charts, influenced by the Islamic miniature tradition.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> It was unusual in the Islamic cartographic tradition for incorporating many non-Muslim sources.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Historian Karen Pinto has described the positive portrayal of legendary creatures from the edge of the known world in the Americas as breaking away from the medieval Islamic idea of an impassable "Encircling Ocean" surrounding the Old World.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Piri Reis adapted the elements of iconography from the traditional maps—which illustrated well-known routes, cities, and peoples—to the portolan portrayals of newly discovered coasts.<ref name="Pinto-2012">Template:Harvnb.</ref>

There are conflicting interpretations of the map.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Scholarly debate exists over the specific sources used in the map's creation and the number of source maps.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Many areas on the map have not been conclusively identified with real or mythical places.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Kitab-ı BahriyeEdit

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File:Piri ibn haji mehmed, corsica, nel kitab-i bahriye (libro delle cose del mare), 1590 ca. (bnf) 01.jpg

A copy open to the page on Corsica

The Kitab-ı Bahriye (Template:Langx), or Book of the Sea, is a navigational atlas.Template:Efn<ref name="Casale-2010-p37" /> Piri Reis compiled navigational charts and notes into the most detailed portolan atlas of the sixteenth century.<ref name="Hepworth-2005-p73" /><ref name="Goodrich-2004-pt1">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The Kitab-ı Bahriye combines information from a range of sources and Piri Reis' personal experience. The coast of North Africa relies little on outside sources.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

There are two versions of the book,<ref name="Casale-2010-p37" /> both dedicated to Suleiman the Magnificent.<ref name="Soucek-1992-p272" /> The first version was composed between 1511 and 1521.Template:Efn The second, expanded version was commissioned by the Grand Vizier and completed in 1526.<ref name="Casale-2010-p37" />

The main part of both versions is a nautical guide to the Mediterranean Sea. Separate chapters cover different locations with corresponding portolan charts.<ref name="Soucek-1992-p272" /> Piri Reis says he composed an atlas because any single map has limited space for written details, and some "knowledge cannot be known from maps; it must be explained."<ref name="Soucek-1992-p272" /> There are 130 chapters in the first version and 210 in the second.<ref name="Soucek-1992-p272" /> The chapters start at the Dardanelles and move counter-clockwise around the Mediterranean.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The maps have compass roses indicating North for each page.<ref name="Soucek-1992-p277">Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref name="Goodrich-2004-pt1" /> Scale is indicated only in the textual descriptions, not with scale bars.<ref name="Goodrich-2004-pt1" /> Standard portolan symbols indicate hazards, like dots for shallow water and crosses for rocks.<ref name="Soucek-1992-p277" /> Written when Ottoman sailors relied on oar-driven galleys and galiots, the Kitab-ı Bahriye reflects their needs and capabilities. It gives information on coastal waters, safe harbors, hazards, and sources of fresh water.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

The second version begins with a longer introduction written in verse.<ref name="Casale-2010-p37" /> This introduction offers information on storms, winds, navigating with a compass, navigating by the stars, reading portolan charts, and the oceans.<ref name="Soucek-1992-p272" /> It includes information on recent Portuguese and Spanish voyages including the voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas and Vasco da Gama's discovery of a sea route to India.<ref name="Casale-2010-p37" /> It offers the first detailed Ottoman description of the Indian Ocean,<ref name="Casale-2010-p37"/> and gives special attention to Hormuz Island at the strait leading into the Persian Gulf.<ref name="Soucek-2013-p139"/>

The book achieved fame only after Piri Reis' death.<ref name="Casale-2010-p186">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The known surviving manuscripts are all copies created beginning in the later 1500s.<ref name="Goodrich-2004"/> At least some portion of the book has been translated into English, modern Turkish, Greek, French, German, and Italian.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

1528 world mapEdit

File:Second World Map of Piri Reis.jpg

Surviving fragment of the second world map of Piri Reis (1528)

Piri Reis compiled a second world map in 1528.<ref name="McIntosh-2015-p303">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Only a fragment of the map—the northwest corner—remains.<ref name="McIntosh-2015-p303" /> The parchment fragment is approximately Template:Convert square.<ref name="McIntosh-2015-p303" /> As with the 1513 map, the 1528 map has calligraphic inscriptions in Ottoman-Turkish written in the Arabic alphabet. The colophon is in Arabic, likely handwritten by Piri Reis himself.<ref name="McIntosh-2015-p306">Template:Harvnb.</ref> According to the colophon, Piri Reis compiled the map in 1528 in Gelibolu.<ref name="McIntosh-2015-p306"/> However, he may not have completed it until 1529.<ref name="McIntosh-2015-p303"/>

The 1528 map was a portolan chart like his earlier works. It uses a windrose network radiating out from compass roses.<ref name="McIntosh-2015-p305">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The map does include one line of latitude, the Tropic of Cancer; it is slightly south of the correct position for Cuba and the Yucatan.<ref name="Tekeli 1985 681">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The map uses standard portolan colors and symbols. Dots indicate shallow waters and sand banks. Crosses indicate rocks and reefs.<ref name="McIntosh-2015-p305" /> The ships painted on the map are two caravels and a carrack.<ref name="McIntosh-2015-p306" /> The scale bars indicate Template:Cvt between the sections of the scales.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Based on the design of recently explored geographical features like Greenland, Newfoundland, and Florida, the map likely relied on Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian maps from the 1520s.<ref name="McIntosh-2015-p303" /> Notes on the map cite recent Portuguese voyages to Labrador and Newfoundland.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Hispaniola and Cuba are much more accurate compared to the 1513 world map. Cuba, labeled "Isla di Vana", is now correctly positioned as an island in the Caribbean.<ref name="Tekeli 1985 681"/><ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> In contrast to the 1513 map, Piri Reis leaves areas that have not been explored blank.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Only the explored southern coasts of the Florida peninsula are on the map. The geography of Florida is left ambiguous as potentially an island or peninsula.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The Spanish Empire's master map, the Padrón Real, included this type of ambiguous Florida until 1520, and it influenced Italian cartography like the Freducci map.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

LegacyEdit

File:PiriReis IstanbulNavalMuseum.JPG

Bust of Piri Reis in the Istanbul Naval Museum

During his own life, there was limited appreciation for Piri Reis' cartography. Historian Svat Soucek said that the works of Piri Reis "show that although the Ottoman Empire had the potential to participate in the discoveries, its ruling elite spurned the attempt to blaze a trail in this direction".<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Ottoman historian Template:Ill examined sixteenth-century Turkish authors who wrote about Piri Reis' execution. Ornhonlu found that they criticized Piri Reis' performance during the siege and did not discuss his maps or writing.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> As a Turkish seafarer, Piri Reis was overshadowed by his uncle, and both were quickly surpassed by the Barbarossa brothers, Hayreddin and Aruj.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> In the 21st century, Piri Reis is remembered as a cartographer more than a corsair or an admiral.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

The 1513 world map disappeared from the historical record until its rediscovery centuries later.<ref name="Soucek-1992-p270"/> There is no evidence that either version of his atlas circulated outside the royal palace prior to 1550.<ref name="Casale-2010-p186" /> The copies produced in the following centuries were often created for their aesthetic or artistic value.<ref name="Soucek-2013-p141" /> No Turkish school of cartography or navigation was established to build on his work.<ref name="Soucek-1994-p135">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Murat Reis the Elder's expedition to the Canary Islands and the 1586 Sack of Lanzarote were some of the few times when Piri Reis' Atlantic cartography was likely used by the Ottoman Navy.<ref name="Muhaj-2014-p265">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The empire's navy—even during the Canary Islands expedition—remained largely composed of oar-driven galleys after the point where other naval powers were moving to sailing ships that were more suited to the open oceans.<ref name="Muhaj-2014-p265" /> Ottoman scholar Kâtip Çelebi built on the Kitab-i Bahriye in his seventeenth-century work, Müntehab-ı Bahriyye.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> By the eighteenth century, major works of cartography from Western Europe were being translated into Turkish.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

File:Piri Reis-Gelibolu001.jpg

Bust of Piri Reis in Gelibolu

When Piri Reis' world map was unearthed in 1929, it received international media attention for containing the surviving piece of an otherwise lost map of Christopher Columbus.<ref name="Gerber-2010-p199"/> Turkey's first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, took an interest in the map and initiated projects to publish facsimiles and conduct research.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Discovered during Atatürk's reforms, the map was a point of national pride. Its rediscovery also sparked interest in the Kitab-ı Bahriye.<ref name="Soucek-2013-p141"/><ref name="Soucek-1994-p135" /> A facsimile of the book's second version was published by the Turkish Historical Society in 1935,<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> and a four-volume facsimile with photographic quality was published in 1988.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Several ships and submarines have been named after him, including the RV K. Piri Reis and TCG Pirireis.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The Piri Reis University for maritime studies was founded in 2008.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> In the Turkish TV series Barbaros: Sword of the Mediterranean, he is portrayed by actor Emir Benderlioğlu.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Piri Reis' 1513 world map is the subject of various pseudoscientific claims and is sometimes invoked in broader pop culture as an unsolved mystery. Civil engineer Arlington Mallery, professor Charles Hapgood, and Hapgood's students developed the hypothesis that the 1513 world map contained cartographic information, notably from an ice-free Antarctic coast, that exceeded the map-making abilities of the sixteenth century. In his 1966 book Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, Hapgood claims islands along the map's southern Atlantic shore to depict what are now ice-covered mountains in Antarctica's Queen Maud Land region.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Hapgood's book was met with skepticism due to its lack of evidence and reliance on polar shift.<ref>Template:Multiref</ref> According to geologist Paul Heinrich, the book also did not account for post-glacial rebound, and the 1949 survey initially cited by Mallery could not measure even one percent of the area drawn in the Piri Reis map. Subsequent studies have shown no significant similarities to Antarctica's coast.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Additionally, although the 1513 world map has been described as anomalous in its accuracy, it is no more precise than other sixteenth-century manuscript maps.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Hapgood's claims have been uncritically repeated by Erich von Däniken in support of ancient astronauts and by Graham Hancock in support of an advanced lost civilization.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> The map and polar shift were key plot elements in Allan W. Eckert's science fiction novel The HAB Theory.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Piri Reis is a character in the Assassin's Creed franchise.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>