For as long as people have held power, they have looked for ways in which to demonstrate it to both those under its sway and to those outside it. In particular, art and architecture have often been used to create a ‘visual language’ through which to proclaim power. Such visual proclamations have taken many forms over the centuries; sometimes they are quite overt and unmistakable, while at other times they are more subtle and implicit. The art and architecture of the Ottoman period includes an instructive range of examples by which the power of the sultan and of the Ottoman state was manifest in a visual form.