Early Ottoman Printing: The Müteferrika Press

Graphic history
Between 1729 and 1742 the Müteferrika press printed sixteen books. The press made several important contributions to graphic history. The printing presses came from France, the typefaces were imported from Holland, while personnel was brought in from Austria.

Its first title, al-Jawhari's Vankulu Lugati (Vankulu's dictionary - Istanbul, 1729), was the first book in Arabic type printed by Muslims. Katib Celebi's Cihannuma (Universal geography - Istanbul, 1732) was the first printed publication with maps and drawings from the Islamic world. The Grammaire Turque (Istanbul, 1730) by J-B Holderman, was the first Ottoman printed work that contained the Latin script.

New World
The Tarih-i Hind-i garbi (History of the discovery of America - Istanbul, 1732) offers a report on the discovery of the New World. It is the first book by a Muslim author about the Americas and includes 13 woodcut illustrations.

Second series
In 1756 Ibrahim Müteferrika's son printed a second edition of al-Jawhari's Vankulu Lugati. Only in 1783 was the press reopened and was a second series published. This series consists of another six titles. Especially the titles from this second series are extremely rare.

Maurits van den Boogert
Leiden University, the Netherlands