525 rare works go online, including a poet’s teenage manuscript

A collection of 525 works, including rare manuscripts and texts written in their authors’ own hands, can now be studied online from around the world. Turkey’s culture and tourism minister announced the digital opening on 7 October.

The collection belongs to Istanbul’s Süleymaniye Manuscript Library following a donation by İsmail Erünsal, a scholar of Ottoman books and libraries. He gathered the works over a lifetime and donated them on 6 August. Turkey’s manuscripts authority then completed conservation, repairs, digitisation and cataloguing in about two months.

Among the highlights is a Divan, or collection of poems, handwritten by Şeyh Galib when he was just 18 or 19. It offers a glimpse of the poet’s early literary work and is one of 15 manuscripts in the collection written in their authors’ own hands. The oldest copy with an established date is a Divan-ı Emir Şahi from 1523.

The material reaches beyond poetry. A 288-page price register provides evidence for research into Ottoman economic life, while other works document diplomacy and religious history. The collection also includes poetry whose existence was previously unknown or for which no other copies have been found. Erünsal said he donated the works so they could be better protected and benefit more people.