Caspar von Abschatz's album amicorum: Collecting (in) the Ottoman world

In the fall of 1584, the Silesian nobleman Caspar von Abschatz travelled along the Balkan diplomatic corridor from Vienna through Ottoman Buda, Belgrade, Sofia, and Plovdiv to Constantinople. He documented the journey with entries gathered in his album amicorum, an extraordinary artifact that he would dramatically expand over the rest of his life. This article uses codicological details, the texts of entries, and archival documents to examine how Abschatz compiled, used, and transformed his album with a focus on his years in Constantinople. I argue that both Abschatz's rare collection of papers and his documented social networks point to his intimate relationship with Ottoman decorative arts, the city of Constantinople, and the imperial context that brought him there. At the same time, the generic visual depictions of Ottoman figures and the small number of signatures by Ottoman Muslims reveals the distance Abschatz maintained from his environment.