A Life In Pursuit of Manuscripts: Nuri Arlasez

Published on the 25th anniversary of the passing of Nuri Arlasez, a "Servant of Cultural Heritage" who donated his collections consisting of hundreds of priceless manuscripts, artworks, and photographs to the Süleymaniye Library, Topkapı Palace Museum, and IRCICA, this album-book presents selected examples from these collections along with introductory texts about them.

This book covers 60 of the 329 various works in the manuscript collection; Sultan Abdulhamid II's collection of 30 handwritten translated detective novels; 14 works from Arlasez's collection of 350 calligraphy plates; and 45 photographs from the IRCICA archive, including his correspondence with the historian and philosopher Arnold Toynbee and 11,065 photographs he took of Istanbul; all of which were opened to visitors at an exhibition held at the Rami Library in September 2025. While meeting with rare works of cultural heritage and traditional arts, the reader will also be introduced to a 20th-century Istanbul gentleman who devoted his life to compiling these works and entrusting them to cultural institutions where they could be preserved forever.