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Prousa/Bursa, a city within the city: chorography, conversion and choreography1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Suna Çağaptay*
Affiliation:
Bahçeşebir University, Istanbul

Abstract

Narratives on the birth of the Ottoman city of Bursa, the first capital of the Ottomans, known to the Byzantines as Prousa, highlight its early Ottoman identity. Although Bursa represents one of the richest legacies of early Ottoman architecture, the city’s urban fabric has suffered from several fires and earthquakes that resulted in heavy restorations and remodellings. The first aim of this paper is to discuss the textual and visual evidence for the built environment in the early fourteenth century and, second, to offer commentary on the Ottoman attitude toward Byzantine architecture in an effort to unearth the Byzantine substrata of Ottoman Bursa. In the service of the latter goal, this article debunks the Ottoman-centric views. With the aid of drawings of Bursa’s upper city that predate the 1855 earthquake we may begin to visualize a city far less uniform in character, in which the Byzantine legacy both endured and informed the construction and urban design practices of the ascendant Ottomans.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2011

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Footnotes

1

This paper is derived from a chapter of the author’s PhD dissertation, Visualizing the Cultural Transition in Bithynia: Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign 2007). Previous incarnations of the paper were presented at several conferences, including its first draft, at Encounters with Islam: The Medieval Experience (April 4–5, 2003). I thank Robert Ousterhout and Dede F. Ruggles as well as Scott Redford, for their comments on the earlier versions. Research for this paper was made possible by grants from the Dan David Foundation at Tel Aviv University, the American Research Institute in Turkey, the Barakat Foundation at the University of Oxford, the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations at Koç University, Dumbarton Oaks, the Turkish Cultural Foundation and finally a travel grant from the Swedish consulate in Istanbul. I am grateful to Mr. Ingmar Karlsson, the Swedish consul general in Istanbul, and Karin Adahl, director of the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul. Thanks to Lars Karlsson and Jesper Blid who made my stay and research in Uppsala comfortable and joyous. Last but not least, I am sincerely grateful for the perceptive critiques of the two anonymous BMGS reviewers.

References

2 Translation is by Orbay, İffet, Bursa (Cambridge, MA 1983) 35 Google Scholar.

3 Tanpinar, A. H., Beş Şehir (Ankara 1946) 93 Google Scholar. For an analysis of Tanpinar’s (1901-63) attitude on how understanding Turkey’s present and future lay in appreciating its Ottoman past, Göknar, E., ‘Ottoman past and Turkish future: ambivalence in Tanpmar, A. H.’s Those Outside the Scene’, South Atlantic Quarterly 102 (2003) 647-61CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 647.

4 A. H. Tanpinar, op. cit. 93. Gökalp, Z., Türkçülüğün Esasları (Istanbul 1977)Google Scholar, wherein the author formulates his thoughts on Turkish nationhood. Gökalp set the precedent for viewing Turkish national historiography and Turkishness, in the early Republican era, as a sealed cultural and ethnic entity whereby the motherland was Turkish even before the arrival of the Ottoman Turks. The expulsion of the Byzantine ‘invaders’ signalled a reversion to a Turkish norm rather than a new formation of ‘Turkishness’. Köprülü, M. F., Bizans Miiessese-lerinin Osmanli Müesseselerine Te’siri Hakktnda Mülahazalar Leiser, G., ed. and trans. (Ankara 1993)Google Scholar. This view is challenged by several Turkish scholars such as Berktay, H., Cumhuriyet İdeolojisi ve Fuad Köprülü (Istanbul 1983)Google Scholar. For a review of the state of Byzantine studies in Turkey, Necipoğlu, N., ‘State and future of Byzantine Studies in Turkey’, in Kafescioğlu, Ç. and L.Thys-Şenocak, , Essays in Honor of Aptullah Kuran (Istanbul 1999) 23-6Google Scholar.

5 Spelling of the city’s name varies from Prousa, Prussia, Prusa, Bursa, Brussia, to Wursa. For consistency throughout this work, I will use Prousa when I refer to the city in the Byzantine period and Bursa to refer to it in the Ottoman and Republican periods.

6 Byzantine authors rarely mention Prousa before the twelfth century. The city became famous because of its hot springs, which were frequented by the Byzantine emperors. C. Foss, ‘Prusa’, ODB, III, 1750; Kandés, V., ‘H Προυσα (Athens 1883) 5960 Google Scholar. On the Byzantine monastic establishments, see Janin, R., Les églises et les monastères des grands centres byzantins (Paris 1975) 174—5Google Scholar; Çelebi, Evliya, Seyahatname, F. İz, ed. (Istanbul 1989) 20 Google Scholar; Koyunluoğlu, M. T., İznik ve Bursa Tarihi (Bursa 1935)Google Scholar; Kuran, A., ‘A spatial study of three Ottoman capitals: Bursa, Edirne, and Istanbul’, Muqarnas 13 (1996): 114–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crane, H., ‘The Ottoman sultan’s mosques: icons of imperial legitimacy’, in Bierman, I., Abou-El-Haj, R. A., and Preziosi, D. (eds.), The Ottoman City and its Parts (New Rochelle, NY 1991) 173243 Google Scholar.

7 See note 6 above. Ottoman highlights of the city were discussed in chronicles of the mid-fifteenth century, such as Aşıkpaşazade, Tevârih-i Al’î Osman , Atsız, N., ed. (Istanbul 1949) 112 Google Scholar; Neşri in his Kitab-ı Cihan-Nüma , Unat, F. R. and Köymen, M. A., eds. (Istanbul 1945) vol. 1, 145 Google Scholar; and Gabriel, A., Une capitale turque, Brousse-Bursa, 2 vols. (Paris 1958) I, 56 Google Scholar.

8 Distinctions between chorography and other types of mapmaking were made by Ptolemy in his disquisitions on chorography versus geography. See Claudii Ptolemaei geographia, ed. Müller, C. and Fischer, C. T., I (Paris 1883-1901) 1.1Google Scholar.

9 Denny, W. B., ‘Quotations in and out of context: Ottoman Turkish art and European Orientalist painting’, Muqarnas 10 (1993) 219-30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 225.

10 Lowry, H. W., Ottoman Bursa in Travel Accounts: 1326-1923 (Bloomington 2003) 123-55Google Scholar.

11 Gabriel, Une capitale turque, 44 and note 2, states that Osman was interred in a building of circular plan while Orhan was buried in a church of basilican plan. Another example is Eyice, S., ‘Bursa’ da Osman ve Orhan Gazi Türbeleri’, Vakiflar Dergisi 5 (1963) 131-47Google Scholar. Eyice accepts Gabriel’s identification for the former, while for the latter he identifies the building as a basilica with an annexed chapel, op. cit. 145–7. Eyice, S., ‘Monuments byzantins anatoliens inédits ou peu connus’, paper presented at Corsi di cultura sull’Arte Ravennate e Bizantina, 1971 (Ravenna 1971) 313 Google Scholar, proposes a tenth-century date for the mausoleum of Orhan.

12 The reconstruction was made in 1863. Sultan Abdül-Aziz visited the city in ruins and authorized Ahmed Vefik Paşa to invite the French architect Leon Parvillée, a student of Viollet-le-Duc, to restore the tombs and mosques, among other buildings. Laurent, B. St., ‘Ottomanization and modernization: the architectural and urban development of Bursa and the genesis of tradition’, unpublished PhD dissertation (Harvard University 1989)Google Scholar, and more recently, Ersoy, A., ‘Architecture and the search for Ottoman origins in the Tanzimat Period’, Muqarnas 24 (2007) 79102 Google Scholar.

13 With an aim to assess history, myth, and the reliability of the written record in the context of the fourteenth-century city, the author conducted a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey for which she received a permit from the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and financial support from the institutions credited above. The survey was carried out in the summer of 2009 with the collaboration of Prof. Larry Conyers and April Kamp-Whittaker, MA, both from the University of Denver, and it yielded crucial evidence about the pre-earthquake state of the city.

14 Harris, D. and Hays, D. L., ‘On the use and misuse of historical landscape views’, in Treib, M. (ed.), Representing Landscape Architecture: Images, Models, Words (London 2007) 2241 Google Scholar, especially 23 and note 2, with further bibliography.

15 Halpern, L. Cabe, ‘The uses of paintings in garden history’, in Hunt, J. Dixon (ed.), Garden History: Issues, Approaches, Methods (Washington D.C. 1992) 183202 Google Scholar, esp. 190 and 191.

16 Holly, M. A., Past Looking: Historical Imagination and the Rhetoric of the Image (Ithaca, NY 1996) xiii Google Scholar. On Objectivity’ in travellers’ accounts, see Galatariotou, C., ‘Travel and perception in Byzantium’, DOP 47 (1993) 221241 Google Scholar, esp. 222.

17 Most depictions of Bursa by foreign travellers and artists reveal the deep influences of an oversimplified Orientalism: Said, E., Orientalism (New York 1978) xxii Google Scholar. For a reinterpretation of Said’s position on the concepts of East and West in the medieval art, see Ousterhout, R. and Ruggles, D. Fairchild, ‘Encounters with Islam: the medieval Mediterranean experience; art, material culture, and cultural interchange’, Gesta 43.2 (2004) 83-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 83.

18 Furthermore, as Amanda Wunder claims, travelling European antiquarians, other travellers, and members of the elite accused Ottomans of being uninterested in and even hostile toward the remains of antiquity. See Wunder, A., ‘Western travelers, eastern antiquities, and the image of the Turk in Early Modern Europe’, Journal of Early Modern History 7/1-2 (2003) 89119 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 89-96. Also, see Kafadar, C., ‘The Ottomans and Europe’, in Brady, T. A. Jr., Oberman, H. A., and Tracy, J. D. (eds.), Handbook of European History, 1400-1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation (Leiden 1995) 589636 Google Scholar, esp. 589-90.

19 Nuti, L., ‘Mapping places: chorography and vision in the Renaissance’, in Cosgrove, D. (ed.), Mappings (London 1999) 90109, esp. 96-7Google Scholar.

20 Theolin, S., ‘C. G. Löwenhielm: officer, diplomat and artist in Turkey’, in Yenal, E. (ed.), Bir Zamanlar Türkiye - Turkey as It Was. Carl Gustaf Löwenhielm Bir Isveç Elçisinin 1820’lerdeki Türkiye Albümü - A Swedish Diplomat’s Turkish Portfolio in the 1820’s (Istanbul 2003) 9 Google Scholar. Löwenhielm also kept diaries of his travels. Like the albums, his diaries written in Swedish and French are stored in the Uppsala University Rare Book Library. His drawings of Bursa and Bithynia are in albums 2 and 4. Some of his drawings are displayed in the Stockholm Museum of Art. Hornvall, G., Carl Gustaf Löwenhielms Minnen (Scandia 1947)Google Scholar.

21 See Cosgrove, D., ‘all mapping involves sets of choices, omissions, uncertainties and intentions,’ in Mappings (London 1999) 7 Google Scholar.

22 See note 11 above and Ayverdi, E. H., Istanbul Mi’marî Çağınm Menşe’i Osmanli Mi’mârîsininin İlk Devri (1230-1402) (Istanbul 1966) 107 Google Scholar and 109. For a more recent use of the same approach, see Pralong, A. and Grélois, J. P., ‘Les monuments byzantins de la ville haute de Brousse’, in Geyer, B. and Lefort, J. (eds.), La Bithynie au Moyen Âge. Géographie et habitat (Paris 2003) 134-49Google Scholar. This text offers a detailed recapitulation of the evidence suggested by textual sources to identify the tombs, but excludes Löwenhielm’s drawings. The authors attempt to find comparable buildings, some of which are quite different from those suggested in this article. Furthermore, they do not provide any interpretations of the reuse process associated with the building and what this process may have meant to the Ottomans. Also excluding the drawings by Löwenhielm is П. Ανδροϋδης, Ίστορικές και αρχαιολογικές μαρτυρίες για το συγκρότημα του βυζανπνού ναού του Αγίου Ιωάννη στην Προύσα’, Εικοστό όγδοο Συμπόσιο Βυζαντινής και Μεταβυζαντινής Αρχαιολογίας και Τέχνης (Athens 2008) 11-12. For a recent analysis of travellers’ depictions, including that of Löwenhielm’s, see Tekinalp, V. Macit, ‘Remodelling the Monastery of Hagios loannes Prodromos in Prusa ad Olympům (Modern Bursa, Turkey)’, in Architecture of Byzantium and Kievan Rus from the 9th to the 12th centuries (St Petersburg 2010) 164–79Google Scholar. The author attempts to find measurements for the mausolea in Bursa by comparing them to well-studied Byzantine monuments.

23 Ayverdi, Istanbul Mi’marî, vii-x.

24 Cahen, C., Pre-Ottoman Turkey: A General Survey of the Material and Spiritual Culture and History c. 1071-1330 (London 1968) 155 Google Scholar.

25 See notes 6 and 7 above.

26 Hasluck, F. W., Christianity and Islam under the Sultans (Cambridge 1929) 68 Google Scholar.

27 Vryonis, S., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of lslamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley 1971) 197-8Google Scholar and note 361. Vryonis mentions that Nikomedia and Amastris had converted mosques from churches following the Seljuq conquest. In Trigleia, the church of St. Stephanos (present-day Fatih Camii) is the only building that was converted into a mosque in 1560-1. Humphreys, S., Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry (Princeton 1991) 273-9Google Scholar, discusses patterns of conversion in Islamic contexts.

28 Though no archaeological evidence survives, several travellers including Evliya Çelebi, Seyabatname, II, 9, and İbn Battuta, Seyabatname , ed. Şerif, M., I (Istanbul 1914), 341 Google Scholar, state that Orhan built a mosque (Çelebi) or converted a Byzantine church (Battuta) in the upper city in the vicinity of the tombs. Menthon, B., Une terre de légendes de Bithynie (Paris 1935) 45 Google Scholar and 48, gives a similar account. Also see Ayverdi, Istanbul Mi’mari, 58, and Gabriel, , Une capitale turque, I, 43-4Google Scholar; Eyice, ‘Bursa’da Osman ve Orhan Tiirbeleri’, 131-47.

29 Aşıkpaşazade, Tevârih 112, and Neşri, Kitab I 115, refer to Osman’s wish to be buried in this legendary silver-domed building.

30 Texier, C. F. and Pullan, P., Byzantine Architecture (London 1864) 157 Google Scholar.

31 Cassas, L. F., Voyage pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Phoenicie, de la Palestine et de la Basse Égypte (London 1805)Google Scholar; Pralong and Grélois, ‘Tombeau d’Orcan à Brousse’, 138-9, figure 74.

32 Ådahl, , ed., C. G. Löwenhielm: Artist and Diplomat in Istanbul, 1824-1827 (Uppsala 1993) 27 Google Scholar; Yenal, Bir Zamanlar Türkiye, figure 173.

33 Pralong and Grélois, ‘Les monuments byzantins’, 134-49, figure 2.

34 Ådahl, ed., C. G. Löwenhielm, 29; E. Yenal, Bir Zamanlar Türkiye, figure 175.

35 Johnson, M. J., ‘Baptistery’, ODB, I, 252 Google Scholar.

36 Swift, H., Roman Sources of Christian Art (New York 1951)Google Scholar plate XIX; Krautheimer, R., Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308 (Princeton 2000) 150 Google Scholar.

37 Dörner, F. K., ‘Prusa ad-Olympium’, Pauly Wissowa 1957, vol. 23: 1071-86Google Scholar. Pliny the Younger’s letters also offer information on conditions in Prousa: Hardy, E. G., C. Plinii Caeculii secundi Epistulae ad Traianum imperatorem (London 1889), letter XVII A (p. 109)Google Scholar, XXIII (p. 116), LXX (p. 178); Kandés, Προϋσα, 13-16 and 30.

38 Archaeological expeditions conducted in the late 1990s and early 2000s under the authority of the Bursa Archaeological Museum, immediately to the west of the tombs and the palace, appear to reveal a series of residential units that could be dated to the late antique, Byzantine and the Ottoman periods. See Unal, Funda and Ozkan, Emel, Hisarkeoloji (Bursa 2010)Google Scholar. I thank the authors for sharing a copy of their work with me.

39 Ayverdi, Osmanli Mimarisinin, 105-6.

40 Pralong and Grélois, ‘Tombeau d’Orcan à Brousse’, 138-9.

41 See note 20 above.

42 A. Pralong and J. P. Grélois, ‘Les monuments byzantins’, 134–49.

43 Krautheimer, R., Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 4th edn, with Ćurčić, S. (New Haven and London 1984) 382-3Google Scholar, and Ousterhout, R., Master Builders of Byzantium (Princeton 1999) 26-7Google Scholar; for the former, Krautheimer, op. cit. 430-4, and Ousterhout, op. cit. 243-A, for the latter.

44 For Covel’s manuscript, see Grélois, J. P., Dr John Covel Voyages en Turquie 1675-1677, Réalités Byzantinés, 6 (Paris 1998)Google Scholar; Hasluck, F. W., ‘Bithynica’, Annual of the British School at Athens 13 (1906-7) 287308 Google Scholar.

45 Buchwald, H., ‘Lascarid architecture’, JOB 28 (1979) 278-9Google Scholar.

46 Buchwald, ‘Lascarid architecture’, 292-3.

47 For the former, see Pralong and Grélois, ‘Les monuments byzantins’, 139; for the latter, see Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 358-9, and Ousterhout, Master Builders, 108-9.

48 S. Eyice, ‘Bursa’da Osman ve Orhan’, 374–9, and idem, ‘Two mosaic pavements’, 373; Demiriz, Y., Örgülü Bizans Döşeme Mozaikleri (Istanbul 2002) 15 Google Scholar.

49 Ephraim of Ainos, Chronographia, ed. Lampsides, O. (ed.), 2 vols. (Athens 1984, 1985) Il, 7926 Google Scholar; Grélois, Dr John Covel, 142; Hammer, J. von, Umblick auf einer Reise von Constantinopel nach Brussa und von da zurück über Nicäa und Nicomedien (Pest 1818) 48 Google Scholar; Bernard, C. A., Les bains de Brousse en Bithynie (Constantinople 1842) 70 Google Scholar; de Laborde, L., Voyage de l’Asie Mineure (Paris 1838) 23-4Google Scholar.

50 The floor has been dated to the eleventh century: Eyice, ‘Two mosaic pavements’, 373-83, and Demiriz, Örgülü Bizans Döşeme, 84–94. Pinatsi, C.New observations on the pavement of the church of Haghia Sophia in Nicaea’, BZ 99/1 (2006) 122 Google Scholar and 126, suggests a date in the first half of the thirteenth century by indicating the peculiarities evident in the execution of the pavement.

51 Wulff, O., Die Koimesiskirche in Nicäa (Strasbourg 1903) 156 Google Scholar, suggests a date from the mid-eighth to the mid-ninth century. Schmit, Th., Die Koimesis-Kirche von Nikaia, das Bauwerk und die Mosaiken (Berlin 1927) 20 Google Scholar, offers a date in the seventh or the beginning of the eighth century. Demiriz, Örgülü Bizans Döşeme, 98, associates the execution of the floor with a part of the restoration program that took place in the mid-eleventh century.

52 Pralong and Grélois, ‘Les monuments byzantins’, 148; Mansel, A. M., yalova ve Civari /Yalova und Umgebung (Istanbul 1936) 57 Google Scholar and plate 10; Kramer, J., Kämpferkapitelle mit Monogrammen Kaiser Juslinus und seiner Gemahlin, der Kaiserin Sophia in Yalova Kaphcalari (Munich 1988) 178-84Google Scholar and figures 1, 3, 9, and 11. More recently, Pralong, A., ‘Matériel archéologique errant’, in Geyer, B. and Lefort, J. (eds.), La Bithynie au Moyen Âge. Géographie et habitat (Paris 2003) 225-86Google Scholar.

53 For Fatih Camii, see Mango, C. and Ševčenko, I., ‘Some churches and monasteries on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara’, DOP 18 (1973) 235-77Google Scholar; Pekalc, M. S., ‘Zeytinbağı (Trigleia) Bizans Dönemi Kiliseleri’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, Hacettepe University 1991)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Zeytinbağı/Trilye Bizans Dönemi Kiliseleri’, in XIII. Kazı ve Araştırma Toplanttsı Sonuçları (Ankara 1995) 48-53; and for the Mosque of Aladdin, see Kuran, A., The Mosque in Early Ottoman Architecture (Chicago 1968) 32-3Google Scholar.

54 A. Cutler and M. Johnson, ‘Synthronon’, ODB, III, 1996; Smith, Th., ‘An account of the city of Prousa in Bithynia’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 14 (1684) 431-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J. P. Grélois, Dr lohn Covel, 146-7; Spon, J. and Wheler, G., Voyage d’Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grèce et du Levant fait aux années 1675 et 1676 (The Hague 1724) 432 Google Scholar.

55 Grélois, Dr John Covel, 148.

56 Ousterhout, Master Builders, 86-92 and figures 55, 56, as evidenced in the churches at Amorium, Kydna, and Selçikler. The excavations of the church in Choma in Lycia unearthed similar architectural results; see Çağaptay, S., ‘The church at Choma: a revisiting of the development of a regional style’, Byzantine Studies Conference Abstracts 28 (2002) 62-3Google Scholar, which summarized the results of the author’s MA thesis, The Church at Choma (Hactmusalar, Limait, Antalya) and Its Materials (Social Sciences Institute Bilkent University 2001).

57 Smith, An Account of the City, 431-3.

58 Gregoras, Nikephoros, Byzantina Historia, ed. Schopen, L., I (Bonn 1829) 44 Google Scholar: ‘The empress built the church in the metropolis of the inhabitants of Prousa, near Mount Olympus, in the name of the worthy prophet, Prodromos the Baptist’; Ephraim, ed. Lampsides, II, 7916, 7925–9: ‘Her work, in beauty, skill and variety of marble it is impossible to describe, the most beautiful abode (domos) of Prodromos in Prousa which she founded as a semneion for godly solitary men and worshippers of the Lord’. Pachymeres, George, Relations historiques, ed. Failer, A., III (Paris 1999) 47 Google Scholar, 79, and 101.

59 See E. H. Ayverdi, Istanbul Mi’marî, 1-16.

60 Here I follow Michael Camille’s writings on the appropriation of the past: The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making, in Medieval Art (Cambridge 1989) 70-1.

61 M. Camille, op. cit. 71.

62 My reading draws heavily upon Holub, R. C., Crossing Borders: Reception Theory, Poststructuralism, Deconstruction (Madison 1992)Google Scholar, and Iser, W., The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (Baltimore 1978)Google Scholar.

63 The Ottoman registers support the claim that Bithynia became predominantly Muslim only in the sixteenth century. See H. Lowry, Ottoman Bursa in Travel Accounts, which uses travellers’ accounts and Ottoman cadastral registers, known as the tahrir defters (the earliest was compiled in 1487), studied by Barkan, Ö. L. and Meriçli, E., Hüdavendigâr Livasi Tahrir Defterleri (Ankara 1988) 19 Google Scholar, register no. 23, 1487: 1-32, to comment on the presence of non-Muslim local and foreign communities in the city. İnalcık, H., ‘The question of the emergence of the Ottoman State’, International Journal of Turkish Studies 2/2 (1981-2) 191 Google Scholar and esp. 71–80.

64 Kafadar, Between Two Worlds, 19-28.

65 The building is named ‘Gümüşlü Kümbet’ (literally, ‘silver-domed tomb’). It should be noted that lead, not silver, was used in Byzantine monuments and lead did not become the standard covering for Ottoman domes until much later. For the legendary interpretation of the tombs, see note 28 above.

66 Grabar, O., The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven 1987) 4371 Google Scholar. The nature of appropriation has previously been questioned by Pancaroğlu, O. who suggested that the process of appropriation has two categories: symbolic and practical: ‘Architecture, landscape, and patronage in Bursa: the making of an Ottoman capital city’, Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 20/1 (1995) 4055 Google Scholar, esp. 70.

67 Nelson, R. and Shiff, R., Critical Terms for Art History (Chicago 1996) 117-29Google Scholar, especially 120. Also see Carr, A. M. Weyl, ‘Correlative spaces: art, identity, and appropriation in Lusignan Cyprus’, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 14/15 (1998/1999) 68 Google Scholar.

68 Church construction postdating the conquest of Bursa and Bithynia: S. Çağaptay, ‘The Church of the Panagia Pantobasilissa in Trigleia (ca. 1336) revisited: content, context, and community’, The Annual Bulletin of the Istanbul Research Institute 1 (forthcoming 2010).

69 I thank Robert Nelson for sharing with me his thoughts on the concepts of appropriation and accommodation.

70 Piaget, J., Biology and Knowledge (Chicago 1971)Google Scholar; idem, Studies in Reflecting Abstraction (Hove 2001); idem, Psychology and Epistemology: Towards a Theory of Knowledge (Harmondsworth 1972).

71 See Lowry, H., The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (New York 2003) 56-7Google Scholar.

72 Efendi, Hasan T., Hátira Yâhud Mir’ât-t Bursa (Bursa 1905) 22 Google Scholar: Çetin, O., Sicillere Göre Bursa’da İhtida Hareketleri ve Sosyal Sonuçlarti 2nd edn (Ankara 1999) 25 Google Scholar.

73 Efendi, İlyas, ‘Türk Hakimiyetinde Mûseviler’, Dergâh Mecmuasi 2 (1919) 21 Google Scholar; Çetin, Sicillere Göre Bursa, 29.

74 See note 61 above. An account by Johannes Schiltberger, who visited the city in 1394, speaks for the presence of members of the city’s three monotheistic religions: Buchan, J. (ed.) Bondage and Travels (Telfer 1879) 40 Google Scholar.

75 The same ‘minimal’ approach is valid for the conversions of churches into mosques. Ousterhout, R., ‘The East, the West, and the appropriation of the past in early Ottoman architecture’, Gesta 43/2 (2004) 165-81CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 170. An oft-cited case of a Byzantine building subjected to Ottoman conversion is St. Sophia, for which much of the original interior decoration was left intact. This is so even though visibly Christian connotations were regarded as non-Islamic by later generations; see Necipoğlu, G., ‘The life of an imperial monument: Hagia Sophia after Byzantium’, in Mark, R. and Çakmak, A. (eds.), Hagia Sophia from the Age of Justinian to the Present (Cambridge 1992) 195225 Google Scholar, esp. 206-7.

76 The Ottomans had acquired these items as provincial governors of the dilapidated Seljuq state. Neşri, Kitab, 111 and 175; Grélois, Dr John Covel, 146–7; and more recently Redford, S., ‘Byzantium and the Islamic World, 1261-1557’, in Evans, H. (ed.), Byzantium: Faith and Power, 1261-1557 (New York 2004) 392 Google Scholar. A discussion of the Seljuq associations is beyond the purview of this paper.

77 Redford, S., ‘Alaeddin mosque in Konya reconsidered’, Artibus Asiae 51 (1991) 5774 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Öney, G., ‘Anadolu Selçuklu Mimarisinde Antik Devir Malzemesi’, Anadolu 12 (1968) 1738 Google Scholar; Aktuğ-Kolay, İ., ‘The influence of Byzantine and local western Anatolian architecture on the 14th century architecture of the Turkish principalities’, Sanat Tarihi Defterleri Special Volume - Okzident und Orient 6 (2002) 199213 Google Scholar.

78 The quotation is from Kopytoff, Igor, ‘The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process’, in Appadurai, A. (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge 1986) 67 Google Scholar.

79 Ousterhout, ‘The East and the West’, 170.

80 Kuran, Mosque, 32-3; E. H. Ayverdi, Istanbul Mi’mari, 58-9, and Gabriel, Une capitale turque, 45-6.

81 As noted in this article. See note 51 above.

82 Kuran, Mosque, 162-4. The identification of the Şehadet Camii as belonging to Murad I has been a matter of debate, as well as its original ground plan. Gabriel, Une capitale turque 45, dates it to the reign of Orhan, and Ayverdi, Istanbul Mi’mari, 267, locates it within the reign of Murad I. The drawings by Cassas (Figure 4) and Löwenhielm (Figure 10-11) mentioned in this paper indicate a two-domed unit corroborating the findings of Eldem, S. H., ‘Bursa’da Şehadet Camii Konusunda bir Araştirma’, Türk Sanati Tarihi Arastirma ve İncelemeleri 1 (1963) 313-26Google Scholar.

83 A copy of this cadastral map is stored in the Bursa Public Library. The figure 1 in this article is redrawn from this map.

84 In Byzantine architecture, it is common to have residential/palatial complexes enclosed within citadels, such as Eskihisar in Bithynia and the Blachernai in Constantinople. Kline, G. R., The Voyage d’ Outremer by Bertrandon de la Broquière (New York and Bern 1988) 136 Google Scholar, and Lubenau, R., Beschreibung der Reisen des Reinhold Lubenau herasgegeben von W. Sams (Königsberg 1930) 176 Google Scholar; von Hammer, Umblick auf einer Reise, 42; Smith, ‘An account of the city’, 432. For the additions and changes to the palace complex, see Grélois, Dr John Covel, 150; Spon and Wheler, Voyage d’Italie de Dalmatie, 215; Baykal, K.,‘Bursa’da Saray ve Köşk’, Milli Saraylar Sempozyumu (Istanbul 1984) 21-3Google Scholar.

85 The city’s fortifications, which date to Hellenistic times, were constantly being reused and repaired by the Byzantines and have never been surveyed properly. Covel, visiting the city in 1675, copied several inscriptions from the walls highlighting interventions undertaken during the Byzantine era. See Grélois, Dr John Covel, fig. 14, 18,19, 21, and 23; also see Kiourtzian, G., ‘L’époque protobyzantine á travers les monuments épigraphiques’, in Geyer, B. and Lefort, J. (eds.), La Bithynie au Moyen Age (Paris 2003) 4364 Google Scholar.

86 For Constantinople/Istanbul: Kafescioğlu, Ç., Constantinopolisllstanbul: Cultural Encounter, Imperial Vision and the Construction of the Ottoman Capital (University Park 2009)Google Scholar. For the Balkans: Ćurčić, S. and Hadjitryphonos, E., Secular Medieval Architecture in the halkans, 1300-1500, and its Preservation (Thessalonike 1997)Google Scholar; Lowry, H., The Shaping of the Ottoman Balkans, 1350-1550: The Conquest, Settlement and lnfrastructural Development of Northern Greece (Istanbul 2007)Google Scholar.

87 A more complex ideological route has been established between the imperial mausolea and mosques in Ottoman Istanbul; see Necipoğlu, G., ‘Dynastic imprint on the cityscape: the collective message of imperial funerary mosque complexes in Istanbul’, in Bacqué-Grammont, J. L. and Tibet, A. (eds.), Cimetières et traditions funéraires dans le monde islamique: Acte du Colloque International, Istanbul 28-30 September 1991 (Ankara 1996) 2336 Google Scholar and more recently see by the same author, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire (London 2007) 79-82.

88 Here, I mainly use Trachtenberg, M., Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence (Cambridge 1997)Google Scholar.

89 Crane, ‘The Ottoman sultan’s mosques’, 173-243; Kuran, ‘A spatial study’, 114-7; Pancaroğlu, ‘Architecture, landscape, and patronage’, 43-6.

90 Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 77.

91 Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 77. The külliye established by Orhan in the lower city is exceptional in this case, as the body of Orhan was interred in the upper city. The funerary character of the dynastic complexes in Bursa starts with Murad I.

92 Kandés, Προϋσα, 13-6 and 23-5; B. St. Laurent, ‘Ottomanization and modernization’, for the pre-Ottoman and Ottoman neighbourhoods of the city.

93 I owe this descriptive term to Watenpaugh, H. Z., see The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Leiden 2004) 59 Google Scholar.

94 Nora, P., et al. (ed.), Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past (New York 1996) xi Google Scholar.

95 Kuran, ‘A spatial study’, 118-22, especially 122; Ousterhout, R. and Bakirtzis, C., The Byzantine Monuments of Evros/Meriç Kiver Valley (Thessalonike 2007) 169 Google Scholar.

96 Necipoğlu, , Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power: The Topkapi Palace (Cambridge 1991), 1213 Google Scholar, and as noted by Pancaroğlu, ‘Architecture, landscape, and patronage’, 48.

97 Lowry, The Shaping of the Ottoman Balkans, 159-60; Bakirtzis, C., ‘The urban continuity and size of late Byzantine Thessaloniki’, DOP 57 (2003) 45 Google Scholar and note 79.