Constantinople: A Topographical, Archaeological & Historical Description... Vol. 1: Constantinople intra and circa Muros

Abstract

Review of Skarlatos Byzantios, Constantinople: A Topographical, Archaeological & Historical Description... Vol. 1: Constantinople intra and circa Muros. Translation and Commentary by Haris Theodorelis-Rigas with a Foreword by Stephanos Pesmazoglou. Istanbul: İstos, 2019 [1851]

Keywords

• skarlatos byzantios
• Istanbul
• historiography

References

1. Notes 1 See indicatively, Alexander G. Paspates, Hypomnēma peri tou Graikikou Nosokomeiou tōn Hepta Pyrgōn, [A Note on the Greek Hospital of the Seven Towers] (Athens: Lazaros Vilaras Publishers, 1862), 41-42; Sir Richard Francis Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Madinah and Meccah, vol. 1 (London: Longman, Brown and Green and Longmans, 1893), 12; Alexander Van Millingen, Byzantine Constantinople, the Walls of the City and Adjoining Historical Sites (London: J. Murray, 1899), 199, 254; F. W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2000), 96.
2. 2 See Stephanos Pesmazoglou, “Skarlatos Vyzantios’s Konstantinoupolis: Difference and Fusion,” in Economy and Society on Both Sides of the Aegean, ed. Lorans Tanatar Baruh and Vangelis Kechriotis (Athens: Alpha Bank Historical Archives, 2010), 25. Pesmazoglou is currently preparing a comprehensive monograph on Skarlatos Byzantios in Greek, which aspires to elucidate the details of Skarlatos’ life through extensive archival work, especially the dates of his residency in Constantinople, Paris, and Athens.
3. 3 Pesmazoglou, “Foreword,” in Constantinople, ix.
4. 4 Ibid., viii.
5. 5 Pesmazoglou, “Skarlatos Vyzantios’s Konstantinoupolis,” 26.
6. 6 Robert Darnton, The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, 1775-1800 (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1979), 520.
7. 7 Patriarch Konstantios, Konstantinias, Palaia kai Neōtera [Constantiniad: Ancient and Modern Constantinople] (Venice: 1820). The book was published in French, English, Ottoman Turkish, and Karamanlidika within a scope of fifty years. An Ottoman Turkish manuscript, dated to 1860–1861, is in the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Collection.
8. 8 In his preface to volume two, Skarlatos claimed that the belated arrival of the second volume was due to reasons beyond his control, such as the Crimean War (1853–1856). He adds however that this delay was a blessing in disguise, since it allowed for significant improvement and revision of his manuscript (p. α).

9. 9 BOA, A.}AMD 75/44 (1273 [1856/1857]) and BOA, A.}DVN 125/42 (18 Zilhicce 1273 [9 Ağustos 1857]).
10. 10 Pesmazoglou, “Foreword,” xvi.
11. 11 J. B. Bury, “Appendix,” in Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 3, ed. J. B. Bury (New York: Fred de Fau & Co, 1906), 421.
12. 12 Andreas Mordtman, Bios Alexandrou Paspate (Istanbul: Ellēnikos Philologikos Syllogos, 1893), 13-18.
13. 13 Ibid., 15.