Abstract:

Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi was an engineer, architect, architecture historian, restoration expert, and collector of Ottoman art. His former home in Fatih, Istanbul, still houses his collection, among which contains an ilmiye icazetnamesi (a calligrapher’s diploma) that bares the signature of a “Mehmed Ali” and is illuminated (tezhip) with Baroque and Art Nouveau motifs. This study proposes for the first time that the diploma’s creator is, in fact, Mimarzâde Mehmed Ali (i.e. Mehmed Ali the Architect). Mimarzâde Mehmed Ali -himself a calligrapher, painter, architect, and illustrator- made extensive use of baroque and art nouveau-inspired motifs in much of his artwork (whatever their form). Also the publisher of a periodical, Beyânü’l-hak, exploited the same motifs and calligraphic styles on its cover pages. Those motifs likewise appear on the aforementioned icazetnâme. Two of his oil paintings hang in two mosques in Istanbul-Fatih Mosque and the Blue Mosque. The former is dated 1903; as for the latter, 1905. Both also carry his signature, embedded in the same inscription “Meşihatıulyâ mektubi kalemi hulefâsından Mimarzâde Mehmed Ali...” Both paintings depict the cities of Mecca and Medina, Yıldız Palace, and (part of) the Hejaz Railway. The main and most striking difference between the two is that one of the paintings also contains a second inscription scrawled in the Celi Kufic style (of Arabic letters). He also is responsible for having adorned the Grand (Yıldırım Bayezid) Mosque in the Turkish province of Bolu -namely calligraphic murals (both Celi Sülüs and Müsenna (mirrored)) as well as all of the so-called inscribed Ciharyar-i Güzin panels that hang from the mosque’s dome. This study focuses on Mehmed Ali’s icazetnâme and suggests that he ought to down in the history books as a true Ottoman Renaissance man.