PIRI, Reis, pirate, sailor, admiral and cartographer (Gallipoli, about 1470 - 1554). He grew up in Gallipoli, the most important Turkish naval base of that time. His uncle Kemal Reis was a famous pirate and admiral. Piri started sailing and he studied for 14 years under his patronage. He spent the time from 1487 to 1493 sailing along the coast of North Africa, Spain and Italy, but also near the islands of the western Mediterranean. Later he wrote that through the course of that time they "...sailed through the Mediterranean and fought mercilessly against enemies of their own belief." As the time passed, he wrote notes and drew sketches of the coast and the islands. He used to gather drawings and maps. In 1487 he took part in an assault on Malaga, although he was only 16 or 17 years old. He also participated in sea battles at Valentia, Sicily and Corsica. In 1495, sultan Bayezid offered his uncle a position of a navy admiral and the title Reis (which probably meant the status of an admiral or a captain). In the war between Turkey and Venice from 1499 to 1502 Piri commanded his own ship in Kemal's fleet. In 1506, Kemal and Piri gained control over a navigable route Sicily-Tunis. In 1511, Kemal died in a shipwreck at Rhodes, but Piri wasn't with him on that campaign. According to Katib Çelebi's report, Piri also worked together with Turkish pirate Barbarossa in robbing the French freighters. In 1513 in Gallipoli he finished the first of his two world maps. Only a segment of the Atlantic with parts of the western African coast and the eastern coast of the New World has been saved. The whole Europe, Asia, Africa and the discovered parts of America were probably on the map. There is a note on the margins that says that he was using Columbus's map. In 1517, Piri commanded a flotilla which was following the grand vizier Ibrahim Paºa on his way to Alexandria. With a part of the flotilla, he sailed upstream along the Nile to Cairo, where he presented his world map to the sultan Selim I. He united his notes and maps in the first handwritten version of Kitab-i Bahriye (The book about sailing, notes for sailors) in 1521. With the help of Ibrahim Paºa's intervention, the 1526's revised and expanded handwriting was given to sultan Suleyman the Great. That practical sailing, but also artistic handwriting was called "...the greatest geographic otomanic collection of its time". Numerous copies of the handwriting are kept in several libraries in Istanbul and throughout the world. It gives very detailed information about sailing and navigation of that time besides a lot of information about the Mediterranean, its towns and countries. In the beginning of the book there is a long poetic introduction, which was probably written by court historian and writer Muradi according to Piri's information. In the introduction of the second version, which was written in verses, information about almost all conditions and aspects of sailing, wind directions, compass, determination of geographical latitude, process of making and using maps, sea and ocean geography but also information about new geographic discoveries of the Spanish and the Portuguese are given. The middle part of Kitab-i Bahriye is written in prose and contains more than 200 charts with very detailed descriptions of Mediterranean islands, coasts and harbours. Each chapter is dedicated to a certain Mediterranean region and is accompanied with a map. The presentations of the Adriatic Sea and western Italian coast have gone through the largest changes in regard to the first edition. Kitab-i Bahriye is a part of portolan tradition of the late medieval and early renaissance. It is a guidebook for sailors, like isolarii and portolans were. The book represents a real sea guidebook for navigating the Adriatic Sea. In 1528/29 Piri made a second world map, which he also gave to the sultan as a gift. Discoveries that were made since the time the first world map was made are recorded on it. Like the 1513's map before it, the only saved part is a quarter of the map, with a description of the Atlantic Ocean with a part of the New World. The descriptions of the islands and the coast bear a resemblance with the isolarii, especially the ones from Bartolommeo dalli Sonetti's isolario from 1486. Each map has its own windrose, with a mark of North. One of Piri's versions of Kitab-i Bahriye from 1526 can be seen in the Süleymaniye Library, Ayasofya, Istanbul. That version is the official facsimile edition published in four volumes. The edition was prepared in 1988 with the help of The Historical Research Foundation, Istanbul Research Centre and Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Turkish Republic in Ancara. In the other volume with subtitle Dalmacya kiyilari 23 maps related to the Croatian coast and the islands of the eastern Adriatic were published. His portolans are among oldest cartographic documents of the Turkish provenance which represent Croatian countries at a larger scale. When he was 80 years old, he was accused of the intrigues on the court and of conspiracy and was temporarily arrested. As he was also defeated in the sea battle with the Portuguese, he was also accused of leaving the fleet and of cowardice, for protecting his own interests and wealth, which he acquired through years of piracy and sailing. Sultan Suleyman the Great accused him of treason and condemned him to death. He was executed in Egypt in 1554, and his riches were given to the national treasury and were later forwarded to the Topkapi Sarayi palace in Istanbul.

Piri Reis's map of Dubrovnik and Cavtat