Analysis of Visual Features of Tabriz Miniature of Beyan-i Menazil Book and Typology of Structural Elements of Tabriz City in the 10th Century A.H.

Tabriz city, located in the North-west of Iran, is one of the most ancient cities of Iran before and after Islam. Up to the middle of King Tahmasb’s reign, the second King of the Safavid dynasty (962AH/1555AD), this city was the capital and after that, up to the end of the rule of the Qajar dynasty (1194AH/1780AD), it has always been the second most important and unique city of Iran considering the religious, political and economic standpoints and consequently the architecture and urbanism. Unfortunately, consecutive earthquakes and wars with the neighboring country, Ottoman, have destroyed the spatial structure of this historical city. Now, after three decades, the spatial structure of Tabriz during the Safavid era remains ambiguous. The mentioned events indicate serious damages to physical structure of Tabriz during Tahmasb reign, in a way that the contemporary architects and urban planners do not have any precise picture from Tabriz in this period. Nowadays, this issue has created many problems with regard to renewal and reconstruction of important parts of this city due to lack of existence of valid and precise historic documents. This issue becomes more important when we realize that physical structure of Tabriz had inspired builders of the later capitals of the Safavids, Qazvin and Isfahan. As an example, design of Tabriz’s Hasht-Behesht Palace, was formed in relation to compulsory move of artists and architectures of north-west of Iran to the Central Asia according to Timur’s order that led to experiencing nomadic life there by the above-mentioned people; in a way that Turkmen capital moved to Tabriz, Hasht-Behesht was built and then during the Safavid era, cases of Qazvin and Isfahan were influenced. It seems that geographic location of Azerbaijan and ongoing political tensions between Ottoman government and the Safavids led to spreading architectural form of Hasht-Behesht and its reflection on Chinali Palace; also, Indian representatives, who were in Iran because of the good relationship of India and the Safavid government, took the form of Hasht-Behesht to India subcontinent. The documents related to this era are limited to itineraries and some drawings that are recorded by tourists. The miniature drawn by Nasuh in 944Ah/1537AD known as Matrakçı is the oldest and the most important recorded document from the Safavid Tabriz because of political- military reasons that is drawn during the attack of Sultan Süleyman the Ottoman to Iran and the reign of King Tahmasb I, but none of the architecture and urbanism researchers has attempted to reread this important historical document. Miniature of Matrakçi, the most original document of this research, was prepared by Nasuh as a pictorial manuscript for Süleyman the Magnificent in 944AH/1537-38AD; the topic was “Beyan-i Menazil” which aimed at narrating military expedition route of Ottoman government to Iraqs[i].  The book of “Beyan-i Menazil” has 109 framed pages that include 130 images; each page is 230 x 315 mm. The texts of the pages are written in frames of 130 x 220 mm that are in center of the page and there are uneven margins on the page. Most of the pages do not have margins and it seems that some of the paintings are cut after being executed. The manuscript has text as well as illustrated pages that describe and portray Sultan Süleyman I's two-year military campaign of 940-42AH (1533-36CE), launched from Istanbul and extending into the two Iraqs as far as Baghdad. The visual compilation of the Beyani-i Menazil provides multilayered information on Ottoman campaign and visited places which is one of the unique features of this book. Selection of the points of view in paintings of the cities in miniatures, using natural connective elements including rivers and mountains was based on rational connection of the miniatures to each other. As a result real imagination of the route taken by the army and finally, creative innovation of perspective refer to total visualization of images in the form of a category that as a consequent, sets the large panorama of the narrative’s action that introduces cities, stopping points of the army, plants and animals as well as movement of the army, and tries to represent all details with a symbolic language. Therefore, this article tries to respond to these fundamental questions that: has a specific symbolic language been used in visualization of the architectural and urban elements of miniatures in this book? How can we identify and interpret Tabriz urban and architectural elements in the Safavid period after discovery of Beyan-i Menazil miniatures’ characteristics? According to specific complexity of the subject in order to fulfill the research goals and respond to the questions, in addition to the general features of the Beyan-i Manazil manuscript, the characteristics including 1-inspiration from different artistic schools 2-complementary characteristics of illustration and text 3-point of view 4-drawing and compliance with reality 5- Perspective 6- vegetation 7-color, ornamentation  and symbolic language form features have been investigated concurrently with details related to Tabriz city.