Since the Ottomans conquered west Anatolia in the 14th-15th centuries, many new horizons opened up to early Ottoman art and architecture. During that period, the vestiges of ancient cities and the presence of Venetian and Genoese merchants influenced the art and architecture of the Ottoman emirate, based mostly on Great Seljuq and Anatolian Seljuq models. In the great artistic centres such as Istanbul and Bursa a fascinating culture emerged, deriving its inspiration from Byzantine and classical models but taking pride in developing a cosmopolitan style all its own. In Çanakkale, Gelibolu and Eceabat, on the Dardanelles, the fortresses built by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II – the conqueror of Byzantium – in the 15th century, still overlook the sea, testifying to the great political and cultural rise of the Ottomans and evoking warfare and trade along this strategic and commercial route.

The most important centres of the rising Ottoman art include the cities of Bursa, Manisa and Selçuk (close to the ancient Ephesus) in west Anatolia, as well as the city which recalls the most sumptuous masterpieces of Ottoman art, Istanbul. Each of these cities displays examples of the artistic experimentalism that is characteristic of Ottoman art and traces of Ottoman artists’ ability in inheriting the techniques and the architecture of the Turkish Emirates and, above all, their ability to draw from the great heritage of the country. The models of Byzantine art, religious, urban architecture and court patronage converged into mosque, palace, madrasa, market, bedesten (commercial building), khan (inn) and zawiya (religious school), whose beauty and elegance remained untouched over the centuries.