Byzantivm sive Costantineopolis, woodcut

Byzantivm sive Costantineopolis, woodcut

This bird’s eye view of Constantinople captures the triangular walled city surrounded by sea and its “suburbs” after its conquest by the Ottomans in 1453. The waters teaming with commercial galleys communicate not the limitations of a walled city but Constantinople’s centrality to the Mediterranean trade. The architecture is imaginary, however to those who knew how to read them, structures such as the old palace in the center of the map, or the terraced complex labeled as El Seraglio nouo doue habita Elgran Turcho at the tip of the triangle, or the mosque with its multiple domes and double conical minarets surmounted with crescents in the north, or the citadel near the Golden Gate on the north east corner, express the power and magnificence of the new occupants of the city, the Ottoman sultans. While the antique ruins, scattered columns, churches, especially St. Sophia near the hippodrome epitomize the typical features of the bygone Byzantium.

Giovanni Andreas di Vavassore