From Piri Reis to Kâtip Çelebi: The Ottoman View of the World!

The "From Piri Reis to Kâtip Çelebi: The Ottoman View of the World Map Exhibition" and the Kâtip Çelebi Panel, organized in cooperation with the Bahçeşehir University Center for Civilization Studies (MEDAM), the Turkish Promotion Fund Board and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, opened on 30 November 2010 at the Palazzo della Cancelleria in the Vatican.

53 MAPS ON DISPLAY

At the opening of the exhibition, hosted by the Turkish Embassy to the Vatican, and of the panel focusing on Kâtip Çelebi's intellectual and scientific aspects, speeches were given by Ambassador to the Vatican Prof. Dr. Kenan Gürsoy, Bahçeşehir University Chair of the Board of Trustees Enver Yücel, Prof. Dr. Bekir Karlığa, Chair of the Alliance of Civilizations Türkiye Coordination Committee and Director of the Bahçeşehir University Center for Civilization Studies, and Dr. Rinoldo Marmara. The exhibition, open to visitors until 8 December, displays 53 maps measuring 70 x 100 produced in the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries.

In his speech at the opening of the exhibition, Bahçeşehir University Chair of the Board of Trustees Enver Yücel stated that "civilizations are the common heritage of humanity and can never remain closed in on themselves, otherwise they are doomed to be forgotten, and that, as representatives of a rich culture and civilization, they consider such work a duty."

MORE THAN 50 EVENTS IN THE YEAR OF KÂTİP ÇELEBİ

On the 400th anniversary of the birth of Kâtip Çelebi, declared by UNESCO as the Kâtip Çelebi Year to be commemorated worldwide, the Bahçeşehir University Center for Civilization Studies (MEDAM) organized more than fifty exhibitions, seminars and symposia, twelve of them in the world's major capitals. First opened in June 2009 at the Istanbul Dolmabahçe Palace Art Gallery, the exhibition was later repeated at the Ankara Museum of Painting and Sculpture and met its audiences in more than forty of our provinces. The international leg of the exhibition began in California and continued with exhibitions and panels in many major cities of the world such as Paris, Washington, Riga, Damascus, Aleppo and Rio de Janeiro. Most recently opened in Istanbul on 27 November by Prime Minister R. Tayyip Erdoğan, the exhibition's next stop was the Vatican on 30 November.