Suleyman the Magnificent and His Age

Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (r.1520-1566) dominated the eastern Mediterranean and Ottoman worlds - and the imagination of his contemporaries - very much as his fellow sovereigns Charles V Francis I and Henry VIII in the west. He greatly expanded the Ottoman empire capturing Rhodes Belgrade Hungary the Red Sea coast of Arabia and even besieging Vienna. Patron and legislator as well as conqueror he stamped his name on an age. These specially-commissioned essays by leading experts examine Suleyman's reign in its wider political and diplomatic context both Ottoman and European.