Consulting the position of planets; casting horoscopes or interpreting dreams; the art of divination has been a universal practice for centuries.
In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in Iran and Turkey, one of the most splendid tools to gain insight into the unknown was a series of illustrated manuscripts known as the Falnama (Book of Omens). Popular at court and on the streets of Isfahan and Istanbul, only four 'monumental' copies of these exceptional works remain. They are notable for their impressive scale and brilliantly painted images of prophets, heroes, villains and signs of the zodiac.
With their encouraging or dire omens, they represent some of the most original manuscripts associated with Safavid Iran and Ottoman Turkey.
This, the first publication ever devoted to the Falnama as a genre, features intact volumes as well as folios and illustrations now dispersed. These images and their prognostications shed new light on the Safavid and Ottoman artistic, cultural, political and religious landscape. The first ever translations of three of the four copies provide insight into a vivid and enduring aspect of human concern - the unknown.
Essays by scholars of Safavid, Ottoman and Byzantine history, culture and language, complemented by full-colour illustrations, offer detailed analysis of the form, content and meaning of these rarely seen works of art.
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