Among the sixteenth-century miniature paintings that depict garden pavilions is one from the Hwnerndme which shows Sultan Siileyman reading a Jette: sent by the Safavid shah in front of a pavilion with a pyramidal roof at the Usktidar palace. The boat on which the chief gatekeeper had come to deliver the letter is shown in the foreground; the ruler is seated outdoors in a gilded chair placed on top of a stone platform raised from the ground by a few steps. The miniature reflects the impor tance the sultan placed on urgent matters of state even when at play; the pencase on the platform emphasizes the literate image of Siileyman who was an accomplished poet (fig. 14).

The priority of politics over leisure is also illustrated in two miniatures from the Shahanshdhnama showing Murad I] receive extraoidinaiy envoys with urgent news in the Kandil, or Oil Lamp garden. This royal villa on the Anatolian shore of the Bosphouus (situated next to Anadolu Hisar: and across from Rumeli Hisar) was extensively remodeled by Sinan for the same sultan (see fig. 2). Its name derived from nocturnal illumination festivities during which the neighboring two castles were lit

In one of the images Murad III, seated in front of a shore pavilion in the company of male pages, dwarfs, and gardeners, watches the envoy of the Crimean khan cross the Bosphorus on a horse (fig. 15). In the other miniature he learns the news of the conquest of Erivan, Behind the small free-standing wooden shore kiosk with a pointed oof is an enclosed garden whose outer wall features a monumental seaside gate and a tower-sshaped belvedere with red-latticed windows that provided a view of the Bosphorus (fig 16).

The few sixteenth-century descriptions we have of gardens owned by the urban middle classes indicate that they, too, functioned as private, informal spaces for pleasurable relaxation (fig. 17). These functions were in keeping with the conception of the garden in Ottoman court poetry as a metaphor for an inner sanctuary where one was free to cultivate leisurely behavior and display emotions suppressed in public life Those who did not own a garden could frequent the citys public parks (mestve) or various non-royal gardens that functioned as clubs, much like the popular coffeehouses that spread like wildfire during the late sixteenth century. A contempotary miniature, which depicts the interior of a coffeehouse whose walls are painted with floral designs, shows elegant urban folk with freshly cut flowers tucked in the folds of their turbans, playmg backgammon and manqala, reading and writing poetry, conversing, or watching a dance performance accompanied by music while sippin