Piri Reis

Muhiddin Piri learned the sea under his uncle, the corsair Kemal Reis, sailing into Ottoman naval service and eventually commanding his own ship in wars against Venice. After his uncle's death, he turned to mapmaking, blending classical sources with his own voyages and fresh European intelligence in ways rare for Ottoman scholarship of the time. He fought in the 1517 conquest of Egypt, then presented his world map and later his Kitab-ı Bahriye—a nautical atlas—to the Sultans as gifts. Promoted to grand admiral of the Indian Ocean fleet, he won campaigns in the Red Sea but was executed followin…