page_title: Franco-Ottoman alliance
section_title: Cultural and scientific exchanges
hierarchical_section_title: Franco-Ottoman alliance / Alliance of Francis I and Suleiman / Consequences / Cultural and scientific exchanges
caption_attribution_description: English: Arabic_astronomical_manuscript_of_Nasir_al-Din_al-Tusi_annotated_by_Guillaume_Postel. فارسی: نسخهٔ دست‌نویسی از خواجه نصیرالدین طوسی به زبان عربی، حاشیه‌نویسی‌شده توسط گیوم پاستل
context_page_description: The Franco-Ottoman alliance, also Franco-Turkish alliance, was an alliance established in 1536 between the king of France Francis I and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Suleiman the Magnificent. The strategic and sometimes tactical alliance was one of the most important foreign alliances of France, and was particularly influential during the Italian Wars. The Franco-Ottoman military alliance is said to have reached its peak around 1553 during the reign Henry II of France.
  The alliance was exceptional, as the first non-ideological alliance between a Christian and Muslim state, and caused a scandal in the Christian world. Carl Jacob Burckhardt called it "the sacrilegious union of the lily and the crescent". It lasted intermittently for more than two and a half centuries, until the Napoleonic campaign in Ottoman Egypt, in 1798–1801.
context_section_description: Cultural and scientific exchanges between France and the Ottoman Empire flourished. French scholars such as Guillaume Postel or Pierre Belon were able to travel to Asia Minor and the Middle East to collect information.
  Scientific exchange is thought to have occurred, as numerous works in Arabic, especially pertaining to astronomy were brought back, annotated and studied by scholars such as Guillaume Postel. Transmission of scientific knowledge, such as the Tusi-couple, may have occurred on such occasions, at the time when Copernicus was establishing his own astronomical theories.
  Books, such as the Muslim holy text, the Quran, were brought back to be integrated in Royal libraries, such as the Bibliothèque Royale de Fontainebleau, to create a foundation for the Collège des lecteurs royaux, future Collège de France. French novels and tragedies were written with the Ottoman Empire as a theme or background. In 1561, Gabriel Bounin published La Soltane, a tragedy highlighting the role of Roxelane in the 1553 execution of Mustapha, the elder son of Suleiman. This tragedy marks the first time the Ottomans were introduced on stage in France.
caption: Arabic astronomical manuscript of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, annotated by Guillaume Postel.
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