Matrakçı Nasuh: Who He Was And Why He Drew Like A Map

Matrakçı Nasuh was a 16th-century Ottoman polymath associated with the court culture of his time. He is linked to mathematics, historical writing, and military training traditions, and his nickname comes from matrak, a martial game and practice discipline. What makes him memorable today is his series of city and route depictions created around Ottoman campaigns. His best-known work, Beyan-ı Menazil-i Sefer-i Irakeyn, reads like an illustrated campaign route record, city by city.

Matrak Is An Ottoman Combat Sport Based On Sword and Shield Fighting

A Military Function, Not Just “Art”

These images are not decorative landscapes. They function as a practical visual record shaped by the logic of a campaign. Think of them as a kind of military-use mapping: showing where the army moved, where it stopped, and what mattered on the ground. The drawings highlight navigational anchors like walls, fortresses, harbors, bridges, riverbeds, and the main route spine of a city. That is why they can feel like an early version of a navigation view rather than a painting.

Wintering Of The Ottoman Fleet In Toulon (1543–44)  

Readability Over Perspective

Nasuh’s drawings are not obsessed with a single fixed viewpoint. In one scene, he can show a building from the side, a road network from above, and a coastline at an angled view all at once. This is not “he didn’t know perspective.” It is he didn’t aim for perspective. The goal is not to create depth illusion, but to make a city’s key markers instantly readable. That is why the image behaves less like a “tableau” and more like a surface you can read.

Siege of Nice (1543)

 

Depiction Of Istanbul And Galata 1537