Piri Reis
Piri Reis (Turkish: Pîrî Reis; born Muhiddin Piri; c. 1470–1553) was an Ottoman Turkish cartographer, admiral, navigator, and corsair. He is best known for his 1513 world map and his nautical atlas, the Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of the Sea). His maps combined classical sources, his own seafaring knowledge, and information from new European discoveries. His cartography was more engaged with the Age of Discovery than other Ottoman works from the period.
Piri Reis began his maritime career sailing with his uncle, the corsair Kemal Reis, with whom he entered Ottoman naval service. He later commanded his own ship in the Ottoman–Venetian wars and, following his uncle’s death, began the cartographic work for which he became best known. In 1516, he took part in the conquest of Egypt, and presented his world maps and atlases as gifts to the Ottoman Sultans. Later, as grand admiral of the Ottoman fleet in the Indian Ocean, Piri Reis led successful campaigns in the Red Sea, but was executed following his retreat from the siege of Hormuz Island at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
During his lifetime, Piri Reis' cartography received little appreciation, but many copies of the Kitab-ı Bahriye were produced after his death. The 1929 rediscovery of his first world map, during renovations to the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, increased interest in his work in part because it cites many contemporary Portuguese explorers and a now-lost map by Christopher Columbus. The rediscovery made his career a point of national pride for Turkey. Although the map has been the subject of fringe theories based on the disproven hypothesis that the map depicted an ice-free Antarctica, studies have shown no significant similarities between the map and Antarctica's subglacial coast. Nevertheless, this speculation has increased interest in Piri Reis' cartography.
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