The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture

Gulru Necipoglu is a scholar of Islamic art and architecture, and this Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities book is her scholarly study of the Topkapi Scroll, an Ottoman-era pattern scroll recording the geometric systems underlying Islamic architectural ornament. Its strength is that Necipoglu combines close analysis of the scroll itself with the wider theoretical and mathematical culture of Islamic geometric design, addressing how these patterns were actually generated rather than only describing their finished appearance. Its limit is that it is a specialist study centered on this one scroll and its geometric tradition, so a claim about Islamic architectural ornament outside that specific tradition needs a broader source.