1The two-volume publication on the illuminated and illustrated Turkish manuscripts completes the series on artistically important Islamic manuscripts in the Austrian National Library that had started with the manuscripts in Persian language (1983) and continued in 1992 with the Arabic manuscripts. It presents 129 items including all the illustrated, and a selection of the ornamentally decorated Turkish manuscripts. Without exception, the illustrated manuscripts originate from Ottoman lands between the late 15th and the 19th centuries.

2Among them, apart from portraits of Ottoman sultans (H.O. 25, A.F. 59), genealogies (the famous A.F. 50, A.F. 17) and chronicles (H.O. 41, Mixt. 188), all representing well-known genres in Ottoman miniature painting, illustrated manuscripts of another kind attract attention. There are geographies (Mixt. 389, H.O. 191 and 192,), a work on fortification (Mixt. 1316), a text on the occult properties of stones (Mixt. 824), and a calendar recycling small miniatures cut from other manuscripts (N.F. 401). The Jawharnāma illustrations (Mixt. 842) are intriguing because of their connections to early Mamluk miniatures (specified in the catalogue, p. 139f.) “translated” together with the text. While one group of images added to N.F. 401 and depicting the labours of the months follows a visual tradition adapted originally from Christian models, the second group – zodiac figures – may have been cut from a Shiraz manuscript, most probably of the later 16th century.

3An Iranian origin, ca. 1520, is only considered for an illuminated copy of Navā’ī’s Dīvān (Mixt. 1108). It seems, that the anonymous dedication “To its owner felicity and wellbeing, and may he live as long as the dove coos” known from south Iranian metalwork and manuscripts produced for the market supports this attribution.

4As in the preceeding volumes, the detailed description of a manuscript’s decorative features is followed by a thorough discussion of their artistic relationship. Taking into account textual as well as historical context, the author provides sound but careful attributions for the often undated manuscripts. Through these commentaries, followed by an exhaustive bibliography, and complemented by a generous amount of illustrations, the catalogue offers a well prepared base to further research.

5Finally, the Turkish catalogue contains several indices and some additions and corrections pertaining to the catalogues of the Persian and Arabic manuscripts (p. 293-306). Completing the painstaking and informed description of the decorated manuscripts from the Islamic world in the major Vienna collection Duda has set an example for making such material accessible to art historians.