The ''Hasht Behesht Palace'' ("Palace of the Eight Paradises") was a palace in the northern part of the city of

Tabriz Tabriz (; ) is a city in the Central District (Tabriz County), Central District of Tabriz County, in the East Azerbaijan province, East Azerbaijan province of northwestern Iran. It serves as capital of the province, the county, and the distric ...

started by the

Aq Qoyunlu The Aq Qoyunlu or the White Sheep Turkomans (, ; ) was a culturally Persianate society, Persianate,Kaushik Roy, ''Military Transition in Early Modern Asia, 1400–1750'', (Bloomsbury, 2014), 38; "Post-Mongol Persia and Iraq were ruled by two trib ...

ruler

Uzun Hasan Uzun Hasan or Uzun Hassan (; February or March 1425 – January 6, 1478) was a ruler of the Turkoman (ethnonym), Turkoman Aq Qoyunlu state and is generally considered to be its strongest ruler. Hasan ruled between 1452 and 1478 and presided ove ...

(r.1452-1478) and completed by his son

Yaqub Beg Muhammad Yakub Beg (30 May 1877), later known as Yakub Padishah, was the Kokandi ruler of Yettishar (Kashgaria), a state he established in Xinjiang from 1865 to 1877. He was recognized as Emir of Yettishar by the Ottoman Empire and held the ...

(r.1478–1490). Its completion is generally dated to 1483–1486. Probably built upon an earlier structure by

Jahan Shah Muzaffar al-Din Jahan Shah ibn Yusuf (; ; 1397 in Khoy or 1405 in Mardin – 30 October or 11 November 1467 near Bingöl) or Abu al-Muzaffar Jahan Shah was the leader of the Qara Qoyunlu Oghuz Turkic tribal confederacy in Azerbaijan (Iran), Azer ...

, the Sahebabad Garden of Tabriz with the Hasht Behesht Palace at its center became the dynastic center of the Aq Qoyunlu capital of

. The Palace was visited around 1510 by Domenico Romano, a Venetian merchant, who left an elogious and lengthy description. He described the building as an octagon some 63 to 72 meters in circumference (equivalent to 20–23 meters in diameter) two stories tall and topped by a dome, that included a hall surrounded by thirty-two chambers, with several terraces. The Venetian marvelled "This building, on the ground floor, has four entrances, with many more apartments, all enameled and gilt in various ways, and so beautiful that I can hardly find words to express it." The palace was also decorated with many descriptive scenes of past events, all in realistic style, including the visit of an Ottoman embassy to Uzun Hasan, or his hunting expeditions. The general color palette used gold, silver, and ultramarine blue. The Palace appears in various documents of the period, such as the 1538 map of Tabriz by the Ottoman geographer

Matrakçı Nasuh Nasuh bin Karagöz bin Abdullah el-Visokavi el-Bosnavî, commonly known as Matrakçı Nasuh (; ) for his competence in the combat sport of '' Matrak'' which was invented by himself, (also known as ''Nasuh el-Silâhî'', ''Nasuh the Swordsman'', ...

The Hasht Behesht Palace is also known to appear in the miniatures of some manuscripts of the period, particularly the famous scene of ''"Khusraw at Shirin's Palace"'' in the ''

Khamsa of Nizami The ''Khamsa'' (, 'Quintet' or 'Quinary', from Arabic) or ''Panj Ganj'' (, 'Five Treasures') is the main and best known work of Nizami Ganjavi. Description The ''Khamsa'' is in five long narrative poems: * '' Makhzan-ol-Asrâr'' (, 'The Treas ...

'' completed in 1481 in Tabriz and commissioned by Yaqub Beg. The new Safavid ruler

Shah Ismail I Ismail I (; 17 July 1487 – 23 May 1524) was the founder and first shah of Safavid Iran, ruling from 1501 until his death in 1524. His reign is one of the most vital in the history of Iran, and the Safavid period is often considered the beginn ...

resided in the Palace following his occupation of Tabriz in the early 16th century. The Palace appears in schematic form in some early Safavid paintings such as ''Nighttime in a City'', dated circa 1540 from Tabriz. The Palace was destroyed by the Ottoman Jafar Pasha in 1585, and replaced by the Castle of Jafar Pasha, a massive defensive structure. Nevertheless, the Hasht Behesht Palace was massively influential in the creation of other buildings in Iran, such as the Hasht Behesht in

Isfahan Isfahan or Esfahan ( ) is a city in the Central District (Isfahan County), Central District of Isfahan County, Isfahan province, Iran. It is the capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is located south of Tehran. The city ...

, and contributed to the "

Hasht Bihisht () is a collection of speeches authored by Amir Khusraw around 1302. The poem is based on the by Nizami Ganjavi, Nizami, written around 1197, which in turn takes its outline from the earlier epic Shahnameh written by Firdausi around 1010. Like ...

" model of architecture.

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures in Tabriz Architecture in Iran Aq Qoyunlu Buildings and structures completed in the 1480s Buildings and structures demolished in the 16th century