Portraiture in a Cantemirian-Inspired Manuscript: Faces of the Turkish Emperors, 1710

Appreciated since his lifetime as a great connoisseur of the Ottoman Empire, Dimitrie Cantemir wrote several works on the history, art and customs of the Turks, referring to the reigns of several sultans. This theme also appears in a manuscript written in Romanian with Cyrillic characters, dated 1710, which contains the briefly described histories of 27 Turkish sultans, as well as their portraits. Since 1931, when it was discovered, and until now, several researchers have discussed the authorship of the text and its possible relationship with the work of Dimitrie Cantemir. In this article, the content, style and language of the manuscript are analyzed, aspects that have been less studied until now.