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The Ottomans found horticultural muse in the Persia garden. The Islamic garden style is depicted in Ottoman miniature paintings and exemplified on the ground of the Karabali and Sultaniye palaces. But according to Nurhan Atasoy in A Garden for the Sultan, the Ottomans were influenced more by the Greco-Roman style rather than the Persian. While the Ottomans enjoyed reflecting pools and fountains, like both the Romans and the Persians, they preferred less formality in landscaping.
Like the Romans, the Turks were a highly organized and disciplined people. They were skilled administrators right up to the height of the Ottoman Empire, and like the Romans they preferred to unwind in more natural sanctuaries. The Ottoman approach to gardening was to enrich what nature had given of its own accord, and to complement nature’s beauty with the manmade, in the form of water features and ornamental kiosks.
Among Romans and Byzantines, gardening and farming activity were viewed as an honorable activity, and many books were written on the subject. When the Ottomans replaced the Byzantines on the Anatolian province, they inherited a body of literature as well as a cultivated land. The Ottomans made little effort to change what the Byzantines had created, caring for their predecessor’s gardens for the most part as they stood.
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As the empire grew, the Ottomans were keen to include nature in their building and engineering plans. Tracts of land that were particularly scenic were determined as gardens. Garden architecture was built in well-considered placement to take best advantage of all possible views, but also to harmonize with nature’s own design. Atasoy points out that the most inspiring Ottoman gardens exist adjacent to a river or on a hillside in full view of the sea.
In keeping with Islamic tradition, the Ottoman garden was functional as well as beautiful. In many cases, it was intended as private, for use by the residents of the palace. The intimate surroundings were enriched by fruit-bearing trees, beds of vegetables, and fragrant flowers. Here, the Sultan would take a few hours respite, whether strolling amongst the cypress and tulips or relaxing in an elevated pavilion with an open view of Marmara Sea.
In the Ottoman age, the garden was also the artist’s inspiration. Ottoman garden culture is detailed in surviving textiles, manuscripts, and miniature paintings from the era. Painted scenes include the Sultan’s palace garden, the garden kiosk, the Sultan receiving visitors while seated in his pavilion, and of course, the tulip. The Ottomans had a love of flowers. But while roses, carnations, and hyacinths were favorites, but none was more celebrated than the tulip. Typically associated with the Dutch and the land of Holland, the Tulip is actually an Ottoman export. Once discovered by the Europeans, the petal lovely set off a gardening frenzy, known in history as “tulip-mania.”
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