The Topkapı scroll
Subtitle: geometry and ornament in Islamic architecture : Topkapı Palace Museum Library MS H. 1956
By: Gülru Necipoğlu ; with an essay on the geometry of the muqarnas by Mohammad al-Asad.
Contributors: Al-Asad, Mohammad.; Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities.
Series: Sketchbooks & albums
Publisher: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Santa Monica, CA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 395
Subjects: Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi. Kütüphane. -- Catalogs; Architectural drawing, Timurid -- Catalogs; Architectural drawing -- Asia, Central -- 16th century -- Catalogs; Geometry in architecture; Arabesques -- Catalogs; Architectural drawing -- Turkey -- Istanbul -- Catalogs
Genres: Catalogs.
Description: Precious few architectural drawings and no theoretical treatises on architecture remain from the premodern Islamic world. One exceedingly rich and valuable source of information, however, is the Timurid pattern scroll in the collection of the Topkapi Palace Museum, examined here by Gulru Necipoglu.

In The Topkapi Scroll - Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture, Necipoglu undertakes an in-depth analysis of this unusual pattern scroll and sheds new light on architectural design in the Islamic world between the tenth and sixteenth centuries. She also makes an insightful comparison between the Islamic understanding of geometry and that found in medieval Western art.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [363]-380) and index.