Shahnama Project : Shahnama

Firdausi

Shahnama Project

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>Formerly in Geneva as 2005.1.269 (Ms 12).</p><p>Until late in the 19th century the manuscript was in the collection of the Iranian government and it bears the seals of the Iranian government, the foreign minister and the director of the government library. It left the library when it was presented to Assim Bey, the Turkish Ambassador during the reign of the Ottoman Sultan 'Abd al-Hamid II (1876-1909).</p><p>The book is written in an excellent nasta'liq and its scribe, Na'im al-Din Shirazi ibn Sadr al-Din al-Mudhahhib, was an accomplished and very prolific master. Although nothing is known about his life except that he was active in his art between the years 1481-1510, there are twelve additional manuscripts which have colophons testifying to this having written them.</p><p>The paintings are of typical 15th-century Turkman style.</p><p>See Anthony Welch, Collection of Islamic Art, vol. IV (1978), pp. 23-25, with illustrations. Also the unpublished catalogue by Moya Carey, 2002, part II, pp. 446.</p></p>