The City as Anthology

"This book offers an exploration of Isfahan through the lens of seventeenth-century anthologies, referred to in Persian as majmu'a and muraqqa', literally a "gathering together" or "patch-work." Thousands of these visual and literary anthologies assembled everyday texts and objects, ranging from portraits, letters from friends, and poems depicting public spaces to marriage contracts and talismans. An urban medium of communication, the anthology was a new kind of book--and one, Babayan argues, that can be read as a collection of city life and an artifact of urbanization. The seventeenth century was a key period in Isfahan, as the city was becoming a cosmopolitan center of imperial rule and global trade. This transformative moment provides a unique context from which to investigate the crafting of urban, religious, and sexual selves and communities, and the anthologies a unique source to bring people's lives into view for a city with no extant state or city archives"--