Latifî

For other uses, see Latifi (disambiguation).

Latifî (1491–1582), or Kastamonulu Latifî Çelebi, was an Ottoman poet and bibliographer. Born in Kastamonu, in northern Anatolia, he became famous for his tezkire Tezkiretü'ş-Şuara (Memoirs of the Poets), the second Ottoman collection of bibliographical data on poets and poetry in overall.

Latifî was born Abdüllatif Hatibzâde^[1] into a notable family in Kastamonu and was educated there. He worked as accountant and katib (secretary) in various vakifs (pious foundation), including Belgrade, Constantinople, Rhodes, and Egypt.^[2]
His major work was Tezkiretü'ş-Şuara (Memoirs of the Poets), which was the second tezkire in chronological order after that of Sehi Bey. It is also the one with most extent copies, 91 in total.^[3] The tezkire was organized in three sections with an introduction.^[1] It narrated the life and work of around 300 poets of the period from the reign of Murad II (reigned between 1421 and 1451) until 1543,^[2] and was finished and presented it to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1546.^[4][5] The Sultan was so pleased that he appointed Latifi as secretary at the "Ayyub al-Ansari" complex endowment. According to Aşık Çelebi's work Senses of Poets (Meşairü'ş-Şuara), the poet wrote it mostly during the era of Suleiman, but presented it to Murad III in 1574 after making minor changes to the introduction.^[4]
Another important work of him was Evsaf-ı İstanbul (Qualities of Istanbul) written in 1525. It gives a historical overview on the city of Istanbul, intertwined with geographical data, and information on the city's neighborhoods, architecture, and social life.^[2]

Latifi spent the last years of his life in Istanbul.^[1] He died by drowning when the ship he was traveling to Yemen sank in the Red Sea.^[2]

See also

• Ahdi of Baghdad
• Diwan poetry

References

1. Mehmet Turkan, KASTAMONU'LU BİR TEZKİRECİ VE DİVAN ŞAİRİ (in Turkish)
2. Selcuk Aksin Somel (2010), The A to Z of the Ottoman Empire, London: Scarecrow Press, pp. 161–162, ISBN 9780810875791
3. Ralf Elger, Yavuz Köse (2010), Many ways of speaking about the self : Middle Eastern ego-documents in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish (14th-20th century), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. 17, ISBN 9783447062503
4. Pinar Emiralioglu (2004), Geographical Knowledge and Imperial Culture in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, Transculturalisms, 1400-1700, Ashgate, pp. 77, 79, ISBN 9781472415332, OCLC 853113732
5. Elias John Wilkinson Gibb (1904), Edward Browne (ed.), A History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. 3, London: Luzac & Co, p. 7, OCLC 2110073