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VIOLANTE, Francesco
Apulian Coastal Cities in the Pîrî Re’is Kitâb-i Bahriyye
Pīrī Re’īs compiled his Book of Navigation in 1520-21, partly based on Italian works, partly based on personal observations
in the Western Mediterranean (late XV th – early XVI th centuries) A second version appeared in 1525-26, with much more
chapters and charts, which quality and size were also improved; a third version is dated at the second half of XVII th centuries.
A very important translation in a European language is considered to be the German one by Kahle in 1926-27.
After the edition in 1935, some scholars translated several chapters about western Mediterranean and Greece; in the last
fifteen years (in 1988 was published a new Turkish edition) important works were published by McIntosh and Goodrich.
In Italy, the Kitāb-ı Bahriyye has not unfortunately enjoyed the same kind of attention. Bausani produced eight
translations, between 1979 and 1986, related to the different portions of the Italian coast and islands. The works of Ventura
and Salierno about the Southern Italy have followed the guidelines of Bausani’s work, and some innovative approaches can
be found in a very recent work about the coasts of Tuscany.
This paper aims to confront text and charts from the Kitāb-ı Bahriyye about the coastal settlement in Apulia, the
Adriatic frontier of the Southern Italy under Aragonese and Spanish rule, with both western narrative and cartographical
descriptions and administrative and fiscal documents. The research will provide some interesting information about the
accuracy of the Book and the Ottoman perception of the political and military landscape in Southern Italy.
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