During the naval warfares that broke out between and , Piri gained fame. Kemal Reis was the commander of the fleet belonging to Davut Pasha, who was the chief admiral then. Piri was the commander of the battleship. The service and accomplishments of Piri Reis stood out at that time. Kemal Reis died in onboard his ship after a maritime disaster, the cause of which was unknown, Piri was not on the ship. After his death, Piri lost his greatest support.
He learned everything about sailing and seas from his uncle and consequently, he became one of the most imminent sailors of his time. This unexpected and tragic death of his uncle affected him deeply. He took some time off and turned back to Gallipoli. During the Egyptian campaign of Selim I between , the Ottoman fleet was under the command of Cafer Bey and Piri Reis served as a commander of the naval force. After leaving the naval force which conquered Alexandaria, he went to Cairo by a fleet up the Nile and he drew the maps of these places and gave detailed geographical information about the places mentioned.
When Egypt was annexed to the Ottoman Empire, in Selim I went to Alexandria by a fleet and Piri got the opportunity to meet him in person. Piri presented his world map to the sultan. After becoming a considerable power on the sea through his own personal efforts, in Kemal Reis accepted official recognition and position from the Ottoman Government, along with his worthy and experienced crew.
Several sources confirm the indication — that Piri was with Kemal Reis before this date. For instance, during a period when his uncle was at Egriboz, he says in a passage in the Bahriye, about the monasteries of Athos: The aforesaid place is a long cape, 8o miles in length; to the Thracian side lies a dried up channel.
In his book, the Bahriye, he makes the following remarks about the ports on the coast of Athos on the Khalkidhiki peninsula: In front of the monastery of Alaviri stand native rocks, among which there lies a natural port. It can take only one boat at a time, but since the mouth of the port lies open to the north, the North and the East winds do much harm to the boat lying there.
As we were lying in the harbor the strong east-wind blew across to the north and damaged our boat, whereupon the monks from the monastery came to our rescue. They tied the boat down on all the four sides after which she could not move at all. Thus we were saved from the storm and proceeded on our way.
The remarks refer to the coast of Athos. For the third peninsula, he gives this information: There is a cape at Karaburun. People call it the cape of Kesendere. From this cape to Kumburnu it is all covered with pinewoods. Kumburnu is a low and sandy cape; at the point, it grows quite shallow. On it, miles to the north-west lies the city of Salonica. In another version of the book, he says something different about the same cape: the coast of Kesendere as far as Kum Burnu is very shallow. Along the coast run tall Pine trees.
But nobody knows where one can obtain drinking water. To the humble author of these lines, Kara Hasan Reis showed the spot. It was just then that Kemal Reis was leading a life of piracy and used his ships to transport these Moslems over to Africa.
From to Piri participated in various activities on these seas under the supervision of his uncle. He gives remarkable information about the western coast of the Mediterranean and the islands there, and says the following about the island of Minorca of the Balearic Isles: They call that port Portulano. It has a good harbor. As soon as you leave the harbor and turn along the eastern coast to the north you come upon a natural spring. It emerges from under a fig-tree.
Around that spring you are sure to meet Arab and Turkish boats most of the time, for they obtain their water there. Further over it stands a fortress. During six years of piracy around various islands and coasts on the Mediterranean, they fought against other pirates of the time, conquered ships and in bad weather spent the winter in favorable harbors. Kemal Reis stayed a long time along the African coast, in Algiers, Tunis, and Bona, and formed friendly relations with the people there having an exceptionally good reception there.
Bahriye, Introduction. Thus while spending the winter months of in the harbor at Bona, they took part in the battle led by Kemal Reis against Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. One of these battles is recorded by Piri in this way: There are some shallow spots along the aforesaid bay of Resereno; Terranova is a fortress on a low ground. Now, the fore part of the town is a beach, a good shelter in the summer.
The vessels lie three to four miles away from the land across the fortress. In the aforesaid harbor, we overcame three vessels this time.
Bahriye, p. Thus each event is recorded with the correct dates. For the island of Corsica Piri wrote a new chapter pp. At this date, I counted 25 peaks of this mountain in the eastern part of it. They looked just like the teeth of a saw. Every one of those peaks is covered with snow all through the year p. About the inhabitants he says: The aforesaid island of Corsica was a demesne of the Genoese, but later when the French conquered Genoa, among the others, this island, too, passed over to the French.
Although the exact date of the birth of Piri Reis is unknown, it is predicted to be between and He was born in Gallipoli and his real name was Muhyiddin Piri. Piri Reis began sailing and navigating at early age with his uncle Kemal Reis.
Kemal Reis was sent under Ottoman banner to the Spain by the Ottoman Empire for carrying and saving the Muslims from Granada when the Ottoman Empire had not got an imperial navy. The book was originally written between and , but it was revised with additional information and better-crafted charts between and in order to be presented as a gift to the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.
Piri Reis drew these charts during his travels around the Mediterranean Sea with his uncle Kemal Reis. The revised edition of has a total of pages and contains maps. Kitab-i Bahriye has two main sections. The first section is dedicated to information about the types of storms, techniques of using a compass, portolan charts with detailed information on ports and coastlines, methods of finding direction using the stars, characteristics of the major oceans and the lands around them.
Special emphasis is given to the discoveries in the New World by Christopher Columbus and those of Vasco da Gama and the other Portuguese seamen on their way to India and the rest of Asia. Figure 5: An Ottoman kalyon, a war ship and naval army personnel. Source : click on Resimler in the left hand menu.
The second section is entirely composed of portolan charts and cruise guides. Each topic contains the map of an island or coastline. In the first book , this section has a total of portolan charts, while the second book has a total of portolan charts. This section also includes descriptions and drawings of the famous monuments and buildings in every city, as well as biographic information about Piri Reis who also explains the reasons why he preferred to collect these charts in a book instead of drawing a single map, which would not be able to display so much information and detail.
Copies of the Kitab-i Bahriye are found in many libraries and museums around the world. Paul Kahle pioneered the study of the Kitab-i Bahriye to which he devoted a book in two volumes. The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism has recently published the book in four volumes. As mentioned above, there are two versions of the Kitab.
The first dates from and the second from five years later. There are many differences between the two. The first was primarily aimed at sailors, the second, on the other hand, was rather more a piece of luxury, which Piri Reis offered as a gift to the Sultan.
It was embellished with craft designs, its maps drawn by master calligraphers and painters, and was seen even by wealthy Ottomans of the 16th century as an outstanding example of bookmaking. For a century or more, manuscript copies were produced, tending to become ever more luxurious, prized items for collectors and gifts for important people. There are around thirty manuscripts of the Kitab al-Bahriye scattered all over libraries in Europe. Most manuscripts are of the first version.
Soucek gives an excellent inventory of the location and details of both versions, amongst which are the following:. Figure 6: Digital version and key to the Piri Reis map, with English translation of portions of text. Kitab-i Bahriye , translated by Hess as Book of Sea Lore , [30] is what is commonly known as a portolan, namely a manual of nautical instructions for sailors, to give them a good knowledge of the Mediterranean coast, islands, passes, straits and bays, where to shelter in the face of perils at sea and how to approach ports, anchor, and also to provide sailors with directions, and precise distances between places.
According to Goodrich, it is the only full portolan of the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas ever produced. The document is the culmination both in text and in charts of over two hundred years of development by Mediterranean mariners and scholars. In his introduction, Piri Reis mentions that he had earlier designed a map of the world which deals with the very recent discoveries of the time, in the Indian and Chinese seas, discoveries known to nobody in the territory of the Rum generally meaning Europe in the 16th century.
Therefore only three points can fit into a space of ten miles, and there are places of less than ten miles. On this reckoning only nine points will fit into a space of thirty miles.
It is therefore impossible to include on the map a number of symbols, such as those showing cultivated and derelict places, harbours and waters, reefs and shoals in the sea, on what side of the aforementioned harbours they occur, for which winds the harbours are suitable and for which they are contrary, how many vessels they will contain and so on.
For this reason, cartographers draw on a parchment a map, which they can use for broad stretches of coast and large islands. But in confined spaces they will use a pilot. Figure 8: Exquisite drawing of a Goke, an Ottoman war ship. And whilst Piri Reis notes that his Kitab-i Bahriye will supply enough good detail to obviate the need for a pilot, this passage also shows his familiarity with small scale portolans of the Mediterranean, his book being designed to overcome their shortcomings.
The contents of Kitab-i Bahriye are organised in chapters, of them in the first version, and in the second. Each is accompanied by a map of the coast or the island in question. The book includes beautiful maps and charts of the island of Khios, the Port of Novograd, the city of Venice, the Island of Djerba, etc.
On the whole, though, Piri Reis brings many improvements. It appears in no other manuscript. The wealth of information in KitabI-Bahriye is demonstrated in the series of articles on the Mediterranean coasts. Four maps are dedicated to the French coast. They cover some important locations such as the city of Nice, or Monaco, which, Piri Reis observes, offers good possibilities for anchorage.
Marseilles, its port and coastline, receive greater focus; and from there, it is said, French naval expeditions are organized and launched. The Languedoc region, from Cape of Creus to Aigues Mortes, is inventoried in every single detail: its coastline, water ways, ports, distances, and much more. Kitab-i Bahriye thus offers, not only accurate information to sailors, but also pictures of places from times long gone to readers and researchers.
The southern shores of the Mediterranean, however, receive even greater attention in Kitab-i Bahriye. The description of the Tunisian coast, in particular, deserves thorough consideration. It was the subject of several studies by Mantran and Soucek. At the time, though, both places were under rule of the Hafsid dynasty.
The Muslims of North Africa, as a rule, welcomed the Ottomans not as aliens but as allies. At the time, the inhabitants of North Africa were, indeed, under constant threat of attacks by European pirates. Turkish seamen used those southern shores to rest between their expeditions to the north and to the West, and often wintered in one of the harbours or islands, and this is how Piri Reis became familiar with these shores.
Describing Bejaia, Piri Reis states that it was a handsome fortress situated on a pine tree covered mountain slope with one side on the shore.
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