ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the descriptions and depictions of Ottoman Turks in the texts and illustrations of sixteenth-century genealogies, histories and chronicles. Debates about the origins of the Turk continued into many of the sixteenth-century chronicles and histories. The 1577 Turckische Chronica described the history and origins of the Turkish people from ancient times through to the time of publication. Cosmographies and histories of the Turk, including Sebastian Munster's Cosmographia, were a combination of texts, images and maps from a variety of sources gathered in order to portray the history of the Turk. The 1628 edition presents the longest section on the Turk, containing twenty pages of maps, cityscapes and images of sultans and their subjects. The genealogies of the Ottoman sultans produced by artists and writers connected them to Scythia and Troy, but also focused on the heathen nature of Islam.
