The mid-sixteenth century map is commonly attributed to Hacı Ahmet (also spelled “Hadji Ahmed”). It is one of the most curious and rich artifacts in the history of early modern cartography. It features a striking heart-shaped form, known as a cordiform projection. The map’s Ottoman-Turkish text and Venetian print origin add to its uniqueness. The map has an eclectic mixture of European, Ottoman, and global influences. This variety makes it a key document for both cartographic history.
It is also significant for Ottoman intellectual history. I will handle (1) the biography and attribution of Hacı Ahmet. I will also cover (2) the production and printing of the map. Furthermore, (3) the map’s role in Ottoman cartography and worldview will be discussed. Finally, I will consider (4) the significance of the cordiform projection used in the map.
1. Who was Hacı Ahmet, and why the attribution?
The map in question has a widely recognized title in Turkish. It is Kemâlîyle Nakş Olunmuş Cümle-i Cihân Nümûnesi (“Perfectly and completely engraved exemplar of the whole world”). On the map’s margins, Hacı Ahmet includes an autobiographical sketch. He claims to be “this poor, wretched and downtrodden Hacı Ahmet of Tunis.” That studied in Fez (in the Maghrib) and was captured by non-Muslims. Was then sold to a European nobleman. He says that he translated the map from the European language to the Muslim language. He did this in exchange for his freedom.
Nonetheless, modern scholarship casts serious doubt on the claim that Hacı Ahmet was the original creator. V. L. Ménage, in a seminal article from 1958, noted systematic grammatical and orthographic errors in the Turkish text. This suggests the author was not a native Turkish speaker. The author was not trained in a madrasa. More recent research argues that the map was prepared in Venice. For example, Benjamin Arbel suggests it was created by Michele Membré, a Venetian dragoman, and others. The name “Hacı Ahmet” is a pseudonym. It is also a marketing device intended to appeal to an Ottoman-Muslim audience.
The map’s geographies and projection match a European heart-shaped map tradition. This is based on Oronce Finé, 1534. It does not follow a purely Islamic cartographic lineage. For example, its improved portrayal of the Americas indicates a Venetian production. Its Venetian wood-block origin further supports this. The map’s reliance on European toponymy points to a translation done within an Ottoman-Turkish context.
So why keep the attribution to Hacı Ahmet? There are several reasons. The map itself carries his name. The marketing of a Turkish-language map made for Ottoman elites insisted on such a Muslim author. The Ottoman audience would have responded better to a “Muslim Tunisian scholar” than a European publisher. In short: Hacı Ahmet well have been responsible for translation and commentary. The map’s design, engraving, and publication most originated in Venice. This was under European-Ottoman collaboration.
2. Production and printing of the Hacı Ahmet map
The earliest known version of the map is dated Hijri 967 (corresponding roughly to 1559/1560 CE). The print was executed as a large wood-block map (six blocks) in an unknown Venetian workshop. The blocks themselves were rediscovered in 1795 in the archives of the Venetian Council of Ten (“Consiglio dei Dieci”).
From archival records of the Venetian Senate and Council of Ten, we know that a publisher, Marc Antonio Giustinian (Giustinian), obtained a privilege in 1568 to publish the map in Arabic-script form for the Ottoman world:
“nobody but [Giustinian], or somebody empowered by him, would be authorized to print, cause to be printed by others or sell in this city and in any other town or place of our dominion the world map in Arabic … assembled by Cagi Acmat and translated by Membre and Cambi…”
Thus production appears to have been orchestrated from Venice around 1559, with the intention of reaching the Ottoman market. But how far the map reached Ottoman lands at that time is unclear: no securely dated 16th-century impression survives today. Scattered impressions made later do survive. In 1795, Christoforo Antonio Loredan, the superintendent of the Venetian Council of Ten, discovered the blocks. He produced 24 late impressions.
Some details of the map: it measures approximately 108 × 114 cm (according to the Budapest Museum of Ethnography). It includes three celestial spheres at the bottom. These are an armillary sphere plus winter/summer skies. This is besides the heart-shaped world map proper. The map is inscribed in Ottoman Turkish (Arabic script) and presents both map and long textual commentary in Turkish. The text is divided into five sections. It includes a prologue, an introduction, and a description of the continents. There are also descriptions of the twelve major provinces of the world and of the seven great lords. Finally, it holds an epilogue.
Given the history, one can conclude that the map is a hybrid. It involves European plate/wood-block production. The map was intended for the Ottoman sphere. It was translated into Turkish. Additionally, it was elaborated with commentary resonant with Ottoman geo-political thinking.
3. The Hacı Ahmet map’s role in Ottoman cartography and worldview
At first glance, the map appears an oddity in Ottoman intellectual history. It is a Turkish-text world map printed in Venice using a European heart-shaped projection. Yet its significance for the Ottoman cartographic and intellectual world is notable.
Bridging European map production and Ottoman demand
By the mid-16th century, the Ottoman court and elite displayed growing interest in geographic knowledge, including printed maps. The earlier famous world map by Piri Reis (1513) is a nautical chart with Islamic heritage. Hacı Ahmed’s map shows among the earliest Turkish-language printed world maps made for sale into the Ottoman market. It is the earliest known Turkish-language work. It was designed for publication and sale in the Ottoman market.
Venice acts here as a key nexus. It is a European map-production center capable of printing large wood-cut maps. It also serves as an intermediary for Ottoman elites seeking such cartographic products. The Council of Ten seized and controlled the plates. They granted privileges to show the political sensitivity. This control demonstrates their commercial value.
A reflection of Ottoman self-image and global awareness
The map’s commentary frames the world in a hierarchic geospatial and astrological order. It describes the four continents: Asia, Africa, Europe, and the New World. The twelve major kingdoms are paired with signs of the zodiac. The seven great rulers, including the Ottoman Sultan, are each paired with planets. The Ottoman sultan is placed at the center of the world order via this schema.
In the map’s Turkish-text commentary, the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent or his immediate circle, is elevated. The sultan is likened to Alexander the Great. He is emphasized as a universal ruler. The geopolitical map of the world is drawn so that the Ottoman state is central in the terrestrial-celestial scheme.
In this way the map performs several functions in the Ottoman sphere:
- It presents the wider world, including the New World, in Turkish language. This signals Ottoman interest in global geography beyond the traditional Islamic world.
- It frames the Ottoman Empire’s place in a cosmography not only of geography but of power and astrology.
- It mediates European cartographic advances (e.g., improved representations of the Americas, new coastlines) into Ottoman discourse.
Thus it is seen as a cartographic object of “Ottoman interests shaped via European print culture.” One observer noted the unusually composed and arranged Hacı Ahmet map. It stands as an apt representation of 16th-century politics, geography, economics, and power relations.
Limitations, circulation and afterlife
It is worth noting that the actual circulation of the map within Ottoman lands appears limited or uncertain. Scholars point out that there is no known 16th-century Ottoman copy with a secure provenance. The surviving copies derive from the late 18th-century prints.
Moreover, the map shows an advanced depiction of the Americas (for the time). It also displays updated western coastlines. Nonetheless, it still carries many conventions and inherited features from European sources. Thus in Ottoman cartographic terms it have been less a fully indigenous map and more a mediated, hybrid product.
Still, in the context of Ottoman cartographic history, the map remains significant. It serves as a marker of Ottoman engagement with printed world maps, translation, and cosmographic ambition.
4. The Cordiform (Heart-Shaped) Projection
The Hacı Ahmet map is striking. Its projection is one of its most notable features. The world is displayed in a cordiform or heart-shaped projection.
Origins of the form
The cordiform projection has its mathematical roots in the work of Johannes Werner (1468-1528) of Nuremberg. In 1514, he published Nova translatio primi libri Geographiae. In it, he described several map projections, including three heart-shaped (cordiform) ones. Before Werner, the Viennese mathematician Johannes Stabius (1450-1522) had developed the core idea around 1500. One of the earliest printed cordiform world maps is by Oronce Finé: Recens et integra orbis descriptio… (Paris, 1534/1536).
The cordiform map is a variation of a pseudo-conic equal-area projection. This is sometimes called Werner/Stabius or “homeotheric” in 19th-century classification. The appeal of the heart-shape form was partly aesthetic. It was also partly technical. This design allowed the cartographer to show the world fittingly, with equatorial and polar areas elegantly balanced.
Application in the Hacı Ahmet map
In the Hacı Ahmet map, the cordiform shape is preserved. The map depicts the entire world in one heart-shaped outline. Beneath it are the three spheres (celestial spheres). These spheres underscore the cosmographic ambition.
The map is derived from earlier European cordiform examples. Scholarship identifies it clearly as “derived from Oronce Finé’s cordiform world map of 1534.” It includes more place names and an updated coastline for the Americas. That is, the map takes the European template and adapts it (in translation and content) for an Ottoman audience.
The projection here is not just a stylistic flourish. By adopting the heart shape, the map visually communicates a concept of the world. It is whole, unified, and elegantly bounded. In a time of expanding geographical knowledge (post-Magellan, post-Columbus), such an aesthetic carried symbolic weight. The world is a “whole” even as its new parts are being discovered.
Why the heart? Symbolism and cartographic meaning
The use of the heart-shape, particularly in the 16th century, has been studied by cartographic historians. According to Ruth E. Watson (2008) and others, the heart-shape (cordiform) carries multiple readings. It has a technical aspect via Werner/Stabius projection. It is aesthetically striking and symbolically represents the “heart” of the world, the human heart, and the union of opposites.
In the Ottoman context, the adoption of this projection might have served to signal modernity (i.e., alignment with European advances), while the Turkish language commentary remaps the form for Ottoman political-cosmic order. The heart shape frames the map as an “exemplar of the whole world” (the map’s long title). This form reinforces the ambition of totalising the world in one frame.
The cordiform projection in cartographic history
After the 16th century, the cordiform projection gradually fell out of fashion. It was replaced by other forms like the Bonne projection. This became an 18th-century favorite. Nonetheless, during the mid-16th century, the cordiform map became popular among European map-makers like Fine, Apian, and Mercator. This map participates in that tradition. It also overlays it with an Ottoman-Turkish dimension.
Conclusion
The map attributed to Hacı Ahmet stands at a fascinating intersection. It is part European and part Ottoman. The map is also part print-culture artifact and part cosmographic manifesto. It tells us not just about geographical knowledge in the 1550s. But also reveals the movement of ideas, print, and maps across cultural borders between Venice and the Ottoman Empire. It shows us translation, audience, and authority in cartography. Furthermore, it highlights how map-makers used form (the heart-shape projection) to embed meaning beyond mere geography.
For the historian or cartographer, the map invites questions: Who really made it? How widely was it used in the Ottoman world? What does the heart-shape tell us about the ambitions of map-makers and map-users in the 16th century? While not all answers are known, the map’s survival provides a rich window. It offers insights into a pivotal era of global map-making. Its surviving wood-blocks also contribute to this understanding. Additionally, its documenting commentary enhances our insight.