The required task was to describe the most important illuminated codices in the Turkish language, furnished with
gilded ornamental decorations and/or representional, symbolic and figurative/narrative book illumination, within the
Manuscript Collection of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. With a view to successive cataloguing of
illuminated Islamic manuscripts, one of the oldest European stock of Turkish, mainly Ottoman manuscripts could
therefore be dealt with.
The selection in question is from the "Alter Fonds", with two lavishly illustrated genealogies of the Ottoman
dynasty, one of them the estate of Prince Eugene, as well as the "Neuer Fonds" of the 2nd Hammer-Purgstall
Collection, which was sold to the imperial library in 1842. Part of the "Historia Osmanica" material, the 1st
Collection of Hammer-Purgstall, which he sold to the imperial library in 1832, consisted of a historical manuscript
of 1575 from Szolnok, with an enthralling presentation of the Battle of Mohacs in 1526. The still continuing series
"Codices mixti" contains miniatures, calligrapics, representations of Islamic places of pilgrimage and drawings of
maps pertaining to geographical works.
Detailed descriptions, historical references within the manuscripts, comparable material from Viennese and other
libraries, as well as spezialized literature on art history and codicology were herlpful in placing a given manuskript
historically, so as to make it more accessible for future research. The documentation is further enhanced by a
generously illustrated volume of plates.