This article introduces the Renaissance “Iron Gate” erected in 1503–4 in the Khan’s Palace in Bahçesaray, Crimea. It proposes a new interpretation of this famous portal in the residence of the Crimean khans, taking into consideration the broader cultural context of early modernity. The research focuses on the visual appearance of the Iron Gate and the content of its unique inscription. Comparison with other portals and a tomb from the Balkans, on one hand, and with titulature in inscriptions, coins, and diplomatic documents from the Turco-Mongol-Islamic environment, on the other, furnishes enough data to situate the portal within the historical-cultural context of the khanate in the northern Black Sea region. Through an analysis of ways in which envoys were received in the Crimean capital, and an assessment of the architectural environment of the palace, new dimensions are opened into understanding Khan Mengli Geray I’s self-representation as ruler during this historically significant period.
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Halil İnalcık, “Power Relationships between Russia, the Crimea and the Ottoman Empire as Reflected in Titulature,” in Turco-Tatar Past, Soviet Present: Studies Presented to Alexandre Bennigsen, ed. Ch. Lemercier-Quelquejay, G. Veinstein, S. E. Wimbush (Paris, 1986), 369–411, at 369.
Nikolay L. Ernst, “Bakhchisaraiskii khanskii dvorets i arkhitektor vel. kn. Ivana III Fryazin Aleviz Novyi,” Izvestiia Tavricheskogo Obshchestva Istorii, Arkheologii i Etnografii 2 (1927): 39–54. The documents on the correspondence between Mengli Geray I and Ivan III are published in Pamiatniki diplomaticheskikh snoshenij Moskovskago gosudarstva s Krymskoiu i Nogaiskoiu ordami i s Turtsiei, 1: c 1474 po 1505 god, ed. G. Karpov, Sbornik Imperatorskago Russkago Istoricheskago Obshchestva 41 (1884). Tatiana Sizonenko, a Russian colleague who specializes in European (and especially Venetian) architecture, is investigating the portal in relation to Western architectural traditions. She is concentrating on the artist who designed the gate and that artist’s other works in Venice and later, in Moscow, as part of the Harvard-cum-Getty Foundation project in which we both participate, entitled “From Riverbed to Seashore: Art on the Move in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean in the Early Modern Period (1400–1700).” This project focuses on artistic migration, travel, and the portability of artworks linking Italy, the Balkans, and the Middle East across the Black Sea and the Mediterranean basin; it is directed by Professor Alina Payne.
Veinstein, “From the Italians to the Ottomans,” 221–37. Michel Balard and Gilles Veinstein, “Continuité ou changement d’un paysage urbain? Caffa génoise et ottomane,” in Le paysage urbain au Moyen Âge: Actes du XIe Congrès de la Societé des Historiens médiévistes de l’enseignement supérieur public (Lyon, 1981; reprinted in Michel Balard, La mer Noire et la Romanie génoise (XIIIe-XVe siècles) [London, 1989]), 79–131, at 81–82. For Theodoro-Mangup, see A. G. Gertsen, “Main Stages of the History Doros-Theodoro (Mangup) in the Light of Archaeological Research Expedition, Taurida Vernadsky National University,” Uchenye zapiski Tavricheskogo natsional'nogo universiteta im. V. I. Vernadskogo, Seriia: Istoricheskiye nauki, 26 (65), no. 1 (2013): 193–206; Alexander Alexandrovich Vasiliev, The Goths in the Crimea (Cambridge, MA, 1936).
Aslanapa, Kırım ve Kuzey Azerbaycan’da Türk Eserleri, 25–32.
Necipoğlu, Topkapı Palace, 90; İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı (Osmanlı Devletinin Saray Teşkilâtı [Ankara, 1945], 204–5) refers to the Crimean princes sitting on the left of the throne during festivities and therefore coming from the left, and not (as was usual), coming from the right to kiss the sultan’s robe.
Ernst, “Bakhchisaraiskii khanskii dvorets i arkhitektor vel. kn. Ivana III Fryazin Aleviz Novyi,” 39–54.
Julian Raby, “A Sultan of Paradox: Mehmed the Conqueror as a Patron of the Arts,” Oxford Art Journal 5 (1982): 3–8, at 7; Ettore Lo Gatto, Gli Artisti Italiani in Russia (Milan, 1990).
In 1472, Sophia Palailogina, niece of the last Byzantine emperor, was married to the Grand Prince Ivan III of Muscovy. With this marriage, Ivan III entered the European aristocratic circle and at the same time, the influence of Italy increased in every dimension of cultural life in Muscovy. Immediately, Italian artists and architects frequented the Moscovite court and undertook important constructions in the capital (Shvidkovskiy, Russian Architecture and the West, 75–110; George Heard Hamilton, The Art and Architecture of Russia, 2nd ed. [Baltimore, 1975], 120–27).
Milan Pelc, “Ugarske kiparske radionice i renesansa u sjevernoj Hrvatskoj,” Radovi Instituta za Povijest Umjetnosti 30 (2006): 67–80; Wardzyński, Marmur i alabaster, 184–85.
Necipoğlu, “Visual Cosmopolitanism and Creative Translation,” 45–48.
Ağat, Altınordu Paraları Kataloğu, 123. The origins of the lineage of the Golden Horde khans known as Geray, starting with Hacı Geray, are far from being firmly established. For a discussion, see Ürekli, Kırım Hanlığının Kuruluşu, 1–14; for the genealogical tree of the Crimean khans, see Hasan Ortekin, Kırım Hanlarının Şeceresi (Istanbul, 1938).
Halil İnalcık, “The Rise of Ottoman Historiography,” in From Empire to Republic: Essays on Ottoman and Turkish Social History (Istanbul, 1995), 1–16; Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley, CA, 1995).
Muzaffer Ürekli, “Kırım Hanlarının Mektublarında Kullandıkları Unvanlar,” in Tarih Boyunca Paleografya ve Diplomatik Semineri, 30 Nisan-2 Mayıs 1986: Bildiriler (Istanbul, 1988), 145–52; İnalcık, “Power Relationships,” 194–95; Reychman and Zajaczkowski, Ottoman-Turkish Diplomatics, 152–58; Fekete, Einführung in die osmanisch-türkische Diplomatik; Ferīdūn [Aḥmed] Beğ, Mecmūʿa-i Münşeʾātü’s-Selāṭīn, 2 vols. (Istanbul, 1274–75 [1857–58]), 1:5–6. The titulature used by the khans of the Golden Horde and the early Crimean khanate in their diplomatic correspondence shows two fundamentally different structures: In their correspondence addressed to their subjects, they do not use excessive formulas, but rather strong titles in the Mongol tradition, “I … my word” (ben … sözüm). This formula would later be incorporated into the Crimean khan’s ṭuġrā and, as a consequence, would be detached from the main text (Kołodziejczyk, Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania, 342–51). When addressing the Ottoman sultans, on the other hand, the titulature (intitulatio) evolved constantly and consisted of up to several lines of greeting (invocatio) for the padishah. In his letter to Mehmed II in 1475–76, Mengli Geray I would speak of himself as “your slave” (el-ḥaḳīr) (TSMA, E. 6691/6) and used the title “the Sultan of the Two Continents and the Emperor of the Two Seas” (es-Sulṭānü’l-Berreyn ve’l-Ḫāḳānu’l-Baḥreyn [al-Sulṭān al-Barrayn wa-l-Khāḳān al-Baḥrayn]) for Mehmed II in 1478. (Reading based on the facsimile of the original documents in the Topkapı Palace Archive in Özyetgin, Yarlık ve Bitikler, 291, 292. For comparison, see ibid., 126–27.) The invocation section in a decree of Sahib Geray I (r. 1532–51), es-Sulṭānu’l-Ġāzī Ṣāḥib Geray sözüm, reflects the tendency to use a mixture of Mongol and new (Ottoman) chancery practices. As the use of sözüm evokes Mongol influences, es-Sulṭānu’l-Ġāzī suggests the adoption of the Ottoman conventions (ibid., 130). On how diplomatic letters from the Crimean khans to the Porte changed at the turn of the sixteenth century, see also Victor Ostapchuk, “The Publication of Documents on the Crimean Khanate in the Topkapı Sarayı: The Documentary Legacy of Crimean-Ottoman Relations,” Turcica 19 (1987): 247–76, esp. 25. For later correspondence (1730–77) between Constantinople and Bahçesaray, see Kırım Hanlarına Nâme-i Hümâyûn (2 Numaralı Name Defteri), ed. Murat Cebecioğlu et al. (Istanbul, 2013).
See Michael Cherniavsky, “Ivan the Terrible as Renaissance Prince,” Slavic Review 27, no. 2 (1968): 195–211.
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This article introduces the Renaissance “Iron Gate” erected in 1503–4 in the Khan’s Palace in Bahçesaray, Crimea. It proposes a new interpretation of this famous portal in the residence of the Crimean khans, taking into consideration the broader cultural context of early modernity. The research focuses on the visual appearance of the Iron Gate and the content of its unique inscription. Comparison with other portals and a tomb from the Balkans, on one hand, and with titulature in inscriptions, coins, and diplomatic documents from the Turco-Mongol-Islamic environment, on the other, furnishes enough data to situate the portal within the historical-cultural context of the khanate in the northern Black Sea region. Through an analysis of ways in which envoys were received in the Crimean capital, and an assessment of the architectural environment of the palace, new dimensions are opened into understanding Khan Mengli Geray I’s self-representation as ruler during this historically significant period.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 909 | 95 | 10 |
Full Text Views | 95 | 11 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 77 | 10 | 0 |