Renaissance · Middle East · Culture

1501

Esfahan Begins Its Safavid Reawakening

1501

Under the new Safavid regime, the central Iranian city of Esfahan began to reclaim cultural prominence it had lost during decades of Mongol and Timurid instability. Persian architects and tile-workers returned to its neighborhoods. Ninety-nine years later the same city would be transformed by Shah Abbas into one of the world's most beautiful capitals.