Ottoman cartography of the Dalmatian hinterland from the beginning of the Candian War

Abstract

The paper presents an Ottoman map, which in one part shows in more detail the area of the Bosnian eyalet with its surroundings, i.e. parts of the area of early modern Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its author is Haji Khalifa or Katib Çelebi, an Ottoman historian and bibliographer from the mid-17th century. The map is in the autograph of the first version of his work Cosmography (Cihânnümâ) from 1648, preserved in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. The aim of the paper was to establish how the mentioned geographical area was observed by the Ottoman cartographer, what is the possible reason for the creation of the map and what were the sources of information contained in it. As the map was made during the Candian War, after the fall of Klis into Venetian hands in 1648, it is possible that the author himself made the map with the aim of visualizing the Ottoman border in the Dalmatian hinterland and explaining its significance in the Ottoman centre. Solid precision in positioning and listing local toponyms, the direction of providing road communications as well as the content of marginal notes on the map, indicate that the author probably consulted someone familiar with local circumstances.