Latifî

Latifî (1491–1582), or Kastamonulu Latifî Çelebi, was an Ottoman poet and bibliographer. Born in Kastamonu, in northern Anatolia, he became famous for his tezkire Tezkiretü'ş-Şuara (Memoirs of the Poets), the second Ottoman collection of bibliographical data on poets and poetry in overall.

For other uses, see Latifi (disambiguation).

Latifî was born Abdüllatif Hatibzâde[1] into a notable family in Kastamonu and was educated there. He worked as accountant and katib (secretary) in various vakifs (pious foundation), including Belgrade, Constantinople, Rhodes, and Egypt.[2]
His major work was Tezkiretü'ş-Şuara (Memoirs of the Poets), which was the second tezkire in chronological order after that of Sehi Bey. It is also the one with most extent copies, 91 in total.[3] The tezkire was organized in three sections with an introduction.[1] It narrated the life and work of around 300 poets of the period from the reign of Murad II (reigned between 1421-1451) until 1543,[2] and was finished and presented it to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1546.[4][5] The Sultan was so pleased that he appointed Latifi as secretary at the "Ayyub al-Ansari" complex endowment. According to Aşık Çelebi's work Senses of Poets (Meşairü'ş-Şuara), the poet wrote it mostly during the era of Suleiman, but presented it to Murad III in 1574 after making minor changes to the introduction.[4]
Another important work of him was Evsaf-ı İstanbul (Qualities of Istanbul) written in 1525. It gives a historical overview on the city of Istanbul, intertwined with geographical data, and information on the city's neighborhoods, architecture, and social life.[2]

Latifi spent the last years of his life in Istanbul.[1] He died by drowning when the ship he was traveling to Yemen sank in the Red Sea.[2]

See also

References
  1. Mehmet Turkan, KASTAMONU’LU BİR TEZKİRECİ VE DİVAN ŞAİRİ (in Turkish)
  2. Selcuk Aksin Somel (2010), The A to Z of the Ottoman Empire, London: Scarecrow Press, pp. 161–162, ISBN 9780810875791
  3. Ralf Elger, Yavuz Köse (2010), Many ways of speaking about the self : Middle Eastern ego-documents in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish (14th-20th century), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. 17, ISBN 9783447062503
  4. Pinar Emiralioglu (2004), Geographical Knowledge and Imperial Culture in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, Transculturalisms, 1400-1700, Ashgate, pp. 77, 79, ISBN 9781472415332, OCLC 853113732
  5. Elias John Wilkinson Gibb (1904), Edward Browne (ed.), A History of Ottoman Poetry, 3, London: Luzac & Co, p. 7, OCLC 2110073
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