HARRAL

PANORAMA VON CONSTANTINOPEL, VON PERA AUS

PANORAMA VON CONSTANTINOPEL, VON STAMBOUL AUS

HARRAL

1877

100 x 37 cm.

Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman and Byzantine (330 –1204 and 1261–1453), the Latin (1204–1261), and the Ottoman (1453–1922) empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD at ancient Byzantium, as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, and dedicated on 11 May 330.In the 12th century, the city was the largest and wealthiest European city and it was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times. After the loss of its territory, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire was reduced to just its capital city and its environs, eventually falling to the Ottomans in 1453. Following the conquest, the former bastion of Christianity in the east, Constantinople, was turned into the Islamic capital of the Ottoman Empire, under which it prospered and flourished again. After the founding of the modern Republic of Turkey the successor state of the Ottoman Empire the city was renamed Istanbul in 1923. Istanbul is probably the Turkish modification of the ancient Greek. This interpretation seems conclusive, because those who spoke colloquially “the city” in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages in the Eastern Roman Empire generally meant Constantinople, which, with its five hundred thousand inhabitants and its mighty walls, could not be compared to any other city in the world. (Adina Sommer)