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I have always been very interested in calligraphy.
One of the finest pieces of calligraphy of the Fatih period can be seen in the inscription panel in Jeli Thuluth script on the outer face of the Bab-i Humayun, the first gate leading into Topkapi Saray on the side facing Ayasofya, is the work of Ali Sofi, one of the most celebrated calligraphers of the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror and son and pupil of Yahya Sofi, a student of Abdullah Sayrefi.Towards the middle of the fifteenth century, Istanbul, now the capital of an Empire that had arisen after the decline of the Seljuk States and the Anatolian Emirates, became the center of a highly developed art of calligraphy. Sheikh Hamdullah (1436-1520 A.D.), a calligrapher encouraged and protected by Sultan Bayezid II, succeeded in creating a new style and character in Thuluth, Naskhi and Muhakkak from a close examination of the writings of Yakut and other members of this school, and left specimens of calligraphy that were to constitute models for the calligraphers that succeeded him.
Sheikh Hamdullah was a native of Amasya. He had taken lessons in Thuluth and Naskhi from Hayreddin of Maras, a member of the Yakut school of calligraphy. The beauty of his script attracted the attention of sehzade (Prince) Beyazid, who was at that time governor of Amasya. The sehzade asked him to give lessons in calligraphy to his sons, and this subsequently resulted in a very close friend ship between the two men. After Bayezid became Sultan he invited the calligrapher to Istanbul to write the inscriptions in the mosque he was building and which was to bear his name.
http://www.ottomansouvenir.com/Calligraphy/Calligraphy.htm
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