A Venetian City View of Constantinople:

Mapping the City

Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Chair of the Arts Department

The last three decades have witnessed a marked increase in cultural studies in
which city views are treated not as mere mirrors of reality, but rather as exquisite works of
art and multivalent texts for the historian. In the Early Modern period most city panoramas
not only fulfilled aesthetic and artistic functions, but also served utilitarian and political
ends. Creating a panorama was an occasion for the display of artistry, and the work was
a form of decorative art to be exhibited either as a wall hanging or as a collectors item.
Seventeenth-century panoramas were framed with fluted columns and sensuous Baroque
and Rococo images: cherubs, fruit pendants, mythical females, muscular and heroic males,
and wild horses. During the seventeenth century, city views were used as projecting screens
for the formation of social states and processes, conveyors of symbolic messages and complex allegories.1 This paper focuses on a particular case study, a vast seventeenth-century
panorama of Constantinople (258 612 cm) designed by the Venetian Franciscan friar
Niccol Guidalotto da Mondavio (Figure 1).2
Guidalottos panorama was first found in the Chigi archive in Rome and is currently displayed in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.3 Guidalotto also prepared a long manuscript, now held in the Vatican Library, which details the panoramas meaning and the
motivation behind its creation (Figure 2).4 The panorama, which depicts Constantinople
*

This research was supported by The Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 157/10) and was presented at the 2012
RSA Annual Meeting in Washington and at the conference Early Modern Migrations: Exiles, Expulsion, and Religious
Refugees in the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Toronto in 2012. I would like to thank Dr. Doron Lurie,
chief conservator and senior curator of the Old Masters Section in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art for his generous help
1
For the scholarship on city views see Todd Butler, The Rhetoric of Early Modern Cartography: Politics, Theology and
Inspiration, Explorations in Renaissance Culture 26:1 (2000), 45-71; Envisioning the City: Six Studies in Urban Cartography,
ed. by David Buisseret (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1998); The New Nature of Maps: Essays in
the History of Cartography, ed. by John Brian Harley (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2001); The History of
Cartography, Vol.1: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, ed. by John Brian Harley
and David Woodward (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987); Ptolemys Geography in the Renaissance, ed. by Zur Shalev
and Charles Burnett (London: The Warburg Institute, 2011); Zur Shalev, Sacred Words and Worlds: Geography, Religion, and
Scholarship, 1550-1700 (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Art and Cartography: Six Historical Essays, ed. by David Woodward (Chicago
and London: Chicago University Press, 1987); David Woodward, Maps as Prints in the Italian Renaissance: Makers,
Distributors and Consumers (London: The British Library, 1996).
2
The panorama is displayed in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in the Old Masters section: Niccol Guidalotto da
Mondavio, A Panorama of Constantinople, dedicated to Pope Alexander VII and Leopold Ignatio I (Holy Roman Emperor and
Emperor of Austria), pen and ink drawing on paper, 258 612 cm, Italy, 1662.
3
First discovered in the Chigi archive in Rome in the 1960s, it was sold in the early 1990s to a private owner. It was
subsequently lent to the Vatican, where it was exhibited in the corridor leading from the Sistine Chapel to the library.
Afterward, from 2001, it was placed on a long-term loan in the Tel Aviv Museum.
4
Niccol Guidalotto da Mondavio, Parafrasi di Opera a Penna Rappresentante in Dissegno un Prospetto dellImperiale
Citt di Constantinopoli, Pesaro 1622 (MSS in the Vatican Library Chig. D. II , 22).

Portraits of the City: Representing Urban Space in Later Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by Katrien LICHTERT,
Jan DUMOLYN & Maximiliaan P. J. Martens, Turnhout, 2014 (Studies in European Urban History, 31), p. 159-171.

FHG

DOI: 10.1484/M.SEUH-EB.5.101618

Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby

Figure 1: Niccol Guidalotto, Panorama General View (Private Collection, Canada). (see colour plate 12)

as seen from across the Golden Horn in Galata, cast new light on the city.5 Pen and ink on
linen-backed paper, it shows the city hanging midway between expanses of sky and water,
which are populated, respectively, with an array of angels and tritons spouting apocalyptic texts (Figure 3). In his manuscript, Guidalotto related that his intention in creating
the panorama was to remind people of the wonders of Constantinople and to cultivate
nostalgia with his image of the city. The iconography, complex and varied, is explained in
Guidalottos manuscript, which presumably acted as a plan for the drawing.
City views in the Early Modern period were on the border between art and cartography, combining artistic and scientific topics. The genre was interdisciplinary, mixing
decorations and scientific accuracy, and employed a unique visual language worthy of the
attention of art historians. In Renaissance culture, important branches of art and cartography were rooted in common ground. Whereas in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
maps were used as floor mosaics, frescoes, and wall hangings, in the seventeenth century,
they were often turned into collectors items and were hung on walls as a type of landscape
painting.6
Panoramic drawings reflected issues of power and politics. For Denis Cosgrove, all
mapping involves a set of choices, omissions, uncertainties and intentions.7 In the words
of John Brian Harley: Through the cartographic process power is enforced, reproduced,
reinforced and stereotyped.8 The mapmaker has always played a rhetorical role in the configurations of power in society and has as well recorded their manifestations in the visible
Publications on the panorama include the short entry in Christine Thomson, The New Babylon, Cornucopia:
Turkey for Connoisseurs 12:2 (1997), 30-33, published in Hebrew by Doron Lurie in Arech and Teva 77 (2002), 34-38. For
preliminary general background on the panorama see N. Ben-Aryeh Debby, A Venetian City View, Historia 28 (2011),
pp. 25-53 (in Hebrew); N. Ben-Aryeh Debby, Crusade Propaganda in Word and Image in Early Modern Italy: Niccol
Guidlottos Panorama of Constantinople, Renaissance Quarterly (forthcoming).
6
See John Brian Harley, The Map and the Development of the History of Cartography, in The History of Cartography,
Vol.1: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean (Chicago: Chicago University
Press, 1987), pp. 1-42; Naomi Miller, Mapping the City: The Language and Culture of Cartography in the Renaissance
(London: Continuum, 2003); Jrgen Schulz, Maps as Metaphors: Mural Map Cycles of the Italian Renaissance, in Art and
Cartography: Six Historical Essays, ed. by David Woodward (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1987), pp.
97-122
7
Cosgrove, Denis, ed. Mappings (London: Reaktion, 1999), p. 7.
8
See John Brian Harley, Maps, Knowledge, and Power, in The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic
Representation, Design, and Use of Past Environment, ed. by Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels (Cambridge, MA:
Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 217.
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Figure 2: Niccol Guidalotto, Manuscript, Opening

Page (Vatican Biblioteca Apostolica).

landscapes. Perhaps more than any other pictorial form, panoramas alter, omit, and exaggerate to portray cityscapes that represent a particular political agenda.
Constantinople had long been a subject for panoramas by artists, mapmakers, and
topographers.9 Among the most important examples of this type of work was the panorama
of that city created by Melchior Lorichs (1559), which he painted as viewed from across
the Golden Horn from Galata, the same vantage point chosen by Guidalotto. This would
also become the view of the city favoured by later artists, as in the anonymous celebrated
eighteenth-century Constantinople cityscapes exhibited in Paris and Vienna.10
The Early Modern panoramas of Constantinople reflect accuracy in cartographic
depictions together with symbolic messages. The omission of certain details of Christian
or Muslim monuments shows the panorama as a cultural construction and highlights the
way in which the city was appropriated by either Christians or Ottomans. In the Ottoman
examples from the later sixteenth century, Constantinople is represented on a more neutral
and realistic basis: memories of Byzantium had faded and the Muslim monuments became
the focal point. In a sense, the Venetian panoramas represented a Christian response to
this Islamic focus, highlighting instead the Byzantine heritage of the city. Through a comparative examination of city views of Constantinople created by such Venetian authors
as Giovanni Andreas di Vavassore, Christopher Buondelmonti, and especially Niccol
Guidalotto da Mondavio versus the Ottoman cartographers such as Piri Reis and Matrakci
Nasuh, this paper examines the way in which the city view became a contested space
between East and West in the Early Modern world.
On the city view in general and on city views of Constantinople in particular see Cigdem Kafescioglu, Constantinopolis/
Constantinople: Cultural Encounter, Imperial Vision, and the Construction of the Ottoman Capital (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 2009), pp. 143-77.
10 See Kafescioglu, Constantinopolis / Constantinople, p. 5.
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Figure 3: Niccol Guidalotto, Panorama Cityscape (Private Collection Canada).

The panoramas cartographic and artistic features are a central focus of this paper,
which considers the panorama as an interdisciplinary creation that incorporates a unique
visual language worthy of the attention of scholars. It is my intention to examine the visual
elements in terms of their cultural significance, social practices, and the power relations in
which they are embedded. Guidalottos panorama is discussed within the tradition of the
city view and in comparison with other panoramas of Constantinople created by Christian
and Ottoman cartographers, and hopefully this study will contribute to the current scholarly discourse on city views in the Early Modern world.
The Franciscan Friar Minor Niccol Guidalotto da Mondavio painted the panorama of Constantinople and presented it to Pope Alexander VII in 1662. A major piece
of propaganda, it was intended for publication and was probably produced at the request
of the Republic of Venice. Using allegory, complex iconography, biblical quotations, and
panels of text, the friar accused the Turks of turning the city of Constantine from the New
Rome into the New Babylon. Guidalotto employed the rhetoric current in Franciscan circles in the aftermath of the fall of Constantinople, when the image of the Turk as an infidel
was forged, and he presented the Turk as an adversary.11
Little is known about Guidalotto, a Conventual Franciscan friar. He was ordained
in 1636 and received an honorary degree in Rome in 1653. His mother lived in Pesaro, in
the Marche, not far from the friary of Mondavio to which he was attached. His skills as a
Niccol Guidalotto da Mondavio, Parafrasi di Opera a Penna Rappresentante in Dissegno un Prospetto dellImperiale
Citt di Constantinopoli, Pesaro 1622 (MSS in the Vatican Library Chig. D. II , 22), 2r-3v.

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cartographer suggest that earlier in his life he might have been apprenticed to the famous
Oliva family of mapmakers. In 1646, shortly before his departure for Constantinople,
Guidalotto dedicated a fine, ornate, very professional manuscript atlas of the Mediterranean (now in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice) to the Venetian ambassador in
Constantinople, Giovanni Soranzo, with an invective against the Ottomans, their invasion
of Crete, and their ill treatment of the Venetian bailo (ambassador). Once in Constantinople, Guidalottos resentment toward the Ottomans was actively expressed in his efforts to
restore the Church of St. Francis in Galata. As the church was in danger of being turned
into a mosque, he urged that the coming peace treaty between Venice and the Ottoman
Empire include a clause for its restoration. Copies remain of two plans that he sent to the
Propaganda Fide in 1653 for the rebuilding. Guidalotto was a great campaigner, and the
church was restored in 1656 only to be burned down some years later.
The manuscript accompanying the panorama is dated 1662, location: Pesaro, the
year both it and the panorama were apparently presented to Pope Alexander, although the
only record of the panoramas existence is a brief entry in the popes art diary for 10 October of that year. Among the list of presentations, acquisitions, and commissions for his new
Rome, it records: Il Constantinopoli in quadro grande a penna di quell frate. This would
almost certainly have been the panorama and quell frate must have been Guidalotto. In his
manuscript, Guidalotto notes that his reasons for making the panorama were the Turkish
attack on Crete, the Turks ill treatment of diplomats, including the Venetians, and his own
harsh experience of imprisonment.12
Guidalotto was in Constantinople as a Venetian official and acted as a chaplain in
the embassy between 1647 and 1655, a period marked by heightened tensions between the
citys Venetian residents and the Ottoman rulers because of the Turkish invasion of Crete
(1645). In March 1649, the Venetian bailo in Constantinople and his delegation, including
Guidalotto, were summoned to the Topkapi Palace, and in the context of Venices refusal to
cede Crete, were interrogated. Dispatches record that the entire Venetian delegation, including the robed Franciscan Friar Guidalotto, was subjected to the indignity of stocks and chains
and led in a procession through the city. Illustrations of their humiliation survive in a manuscript in the Museo Correr in Venice (the Cicogna Codex Memorie Turchese).13 Guidalotto
and another member of the bailos staff were allowed to return to the city shortly thereafter to
watch over the official Venetian residence. Guidalotto returned to Italy in 1655 but, according to his manuscript, diplomats continued to be arrested, humiliated, and expelled.
Back home, Guidalotto retired to the Friary of Mondavio in 1659, where he maintained a keen interest in political developments. He also started working on the manuscript and
the panorama based on drawings he had made in Constantinople in the early 1650s. Indeed,
the great detail of the depiction can be attributed to Guidalottos long sojourn in Constantinople, which afforded him ample opportunity to observe the old city closely. It seems likely that
he made sketches on the spot in Constantinople, but actually painted the panorama after he
For the mention in the popes diary see Diary Chig. OIV, 58 in the Vatican Library; Niccol Guidalotto, 12r
On Venetians in Constantinople see Eric Dursteler, The Bailo in Constantinople: Crisis and Career in Venices Early
Modern Diplomatic Corps, Mediterranean Historical Review 16:2 (2001), 1-30; Eric Dursteler, Venetians in Constantinople:
Nation, Identity and Coexistence in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2006);
Natalie E. Rothman, Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Constantinople (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2011).

12
13

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returned to Italy.14 Vatican records regarding the Guidalotto panorama suggest that the painter
might have employed a scribe to write the description of the panorama or an artist to draw it. Yet
in his manuscript Guidalotto declared that he was the author of the work, noting that Limperita
mia Penna (my unskilled pen) and col rozzo scalpello (my rough chisel) have done the project.15
A further technical examination indicates that the same ink was used for the cityscape and the
surrounding drawings. Guidalotto was clearly the author as far as conception and planning was
concerned and by his own statement he might well have been responsible for its execution.16
Guidalottos political message was clearly stated in his manuscript: Pope Alexander
should deploy the religious and military might at his disposal, coupled with the temporal
might of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I of Austria, in the fight against the Turks.
These sentiments were especially applicable to Crete, which was being attacked by the
Ottomans. The year 1645 inscribed on the left-hand side of the panorama must relate to
the beginning of the Turkish offensive against the island, which was governed by Venice.
The panorama is set within an elaborate, allegorical border decorated with the popes Chigi
emblems and is dominated by the symbol of the Church Militant, the archangel Michael.
The sea and sky are filled with allegorical vignettes and emblems, and at the centre of it all
are God the Father and the archangel Michael. Beneath are vignettes of the Seven Eastern
Churches. The description of Alexander and Leopold as ecclesiae telamones or pillars of the
Church, would appear to come from the Book of Revelations quoted by Guidalotto Him
that overcometh will I make a pillar [] probably alluding to the pillars of the Temple of
Solomon, which were used in many incarnations by Renaissance rulers as personal emblems
denoting strength. This may have been a graceful allusion likening Alexander and Leopold
to the great Emperor Charles V, whose emblem comprised the twin pillars of the Temple
and who was the scourge of the Turks.
Guidalotto also integrated the popes Chigi emblems, the mountain and the star,
and formed a border that was originally gilded with the Chigi oak leaf as a compliment to
the pope. There are references to the Chigi family origins in Siena, a city to which the pope
was strongly attached. He also used the Austrian eagles and included complimentary iconography demonstrating the virtues of the Holy Roman emperor and the pope. The panorama
is invested with apocalyptical images. In the middle of the sea is a double-headed imperial
eagle gripping a seven-headed hydra (the Ottoman Empire) torn open by the eagles talons
to reveal a lion, a leopard, and a bear. The surrounding apocalyptic imagery illustrates Guidalottos vision of a New Babylon ripe for destruction. The same quotations appear in the
panorama and in the manuscript and come from the books of Daniel, Ezra, and Isaiah and
especially from the Book of Revelations of St. John (The Apocalypse). Although Guidalotto
used the panorama through its apocalyptic texts and imagery portraying the Turk as the
predator and showing that the Church Militant represented by the archangel Michael could
win a righteous victory to persuade the pope to act, in his manuscript he stressed the logistics of the matter, declaring that it would take a hundred vessels to overcome the Turks.17
On Guidalotto see Antonio Morariu, La mission dei Frati Minori Conventuali in Moldavia e Valacchi 1623-1650,
Miscellanea Francescana 62 (1962), 68; Gualberto Matteucci, Un glorioso convento francescano sulle rive del Bosforo: il San
Francesco di Galata in Costantinopolic. 1230-1697 (Florence: Biblioteca studi Francescani, 1967).
15 Niccol Guidalotto, 2r-3v.
16 Records compiled in the Vatican library by the late Father Boyle indicate that the Vatican library claim for authorship
of the panorama for Guidalotto extends only to conception and planning.
17 Niccol Guidalotto, 25r.
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Guidalotto obviously had a firm grounding in Medieval and Renaissance cartographic traditions, and he envisaged this panorama as something magnificent enough to
offer the pope. Earlier maps in this tradition, most of which no longer exist, were also
vehicles for non-geographical ideas religious verities, moral and political conceits, and
other matters were thus illustrated. The map was the medium, not the message. Such maps
were displayed to enhance temporal or religious power. The city view was imaged in the
newly emerging genre that was developing in Europe in the Early Modern period, and
the artist depicted it in a realistic and precise manner. There was an interest in the city as
a spatial entity as well as a perception of the urban image with its political and religious
content. The city view, which was figured with a greater emphasis on a realistic representation and rendered from various landscapes, was drawn from a birds-eye perspective. Prints
and woodcuts of cities were invariably described as being true and lifelike (ad vivum), and
the perspective plan had emerged as the dominant form of topographic representation.18
Examples of this genre are the city view of Venice by Jacopo de Barbari, that of Rome by
Alessandro Strozzi, and that of Florence by Francesco Rosselli, which were done in the
fifteenth century. Gradually, a style developed that had these views drawn from an elevated
vantage point located across the city, known as the profile city view.19 This format was also
sometimes called the city panorama.20
Guidalotto was probably strongly influenced by the rich cartographic Venetian
tradition, as that city was a leading centre of geographical knowledge from the middle of
the sixteenth century. Venice was a centre for scholars interested in geography, particularly
of the East, including Giovanni Battista Ramusio, who compiled an important collection
of travel accounts; Giacomo Gastaldi, who painted maps for the Doges palace between
1550 and 1553; and Michele Membr, who produced a map of Asia in the 1550s. Painted
wall maps and manuscript charts served a symbolic and practical function for the Venetian
state and were often displayed as decorations for the Palazzo Ducale. Various types of maps
were developed in Venice, including the portolans for merchants and sailors, mappa mundi,
atlases, and cityscapes. The portolans usually focused on the Mediterranean but sometimes
included trade routes along the Black Sea or the Atlantic coasts of Europe. Another genre
was the isolari, which generally depicted islands.
Principal among the important cartographers were Pietro Vesconte, Battista
Agnese, Alvise Ca da Mosto, Bartolomeo da li Sonetti, and Benedetto Bordone. There was
a fruitful exchange between the Ottoman court and Venice in the early 1550s, when Venice
was asked to provide world maps for Ottoman princes.21 There were several city views of
Ian Manners, Constructing the Image of a City: The Representation of Constantinople in Christopher Buondelmontis
Liber Insularum Archipelagi, Annals of the Association of American Geography 87:1 (1997), 72-102.
19 Lucia Nuti, Mapping Places: Chorography and Vision in the Renaissance, in Mappings, pp. 90-109; Lucia Nuti, The
Perspective Plan in the Sixteenth Century: The Invention of a New Representational Language, Art Bulletin 76 (1994),
105-28; Jessica Maier, A True Likeness: The Renaissance City Portrait, Renaissance Quarterly, 65: 3 (2012), 711-752.
On city views of Florence see Thomas Frangenberg, Chorographies of Florence: The Use of City Views and City Plans in
the Sixteenth Century, Imago Mundi 46 (1994), 41-64; David Friedman, Fiorenza: Geography and Representation in a
15th-Century City View, Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 64 (2001), 56-77.
20 The term city panorama is often applied to the nineteenth-century vast panoramic city views, but the city panorama has
a longer history that goes back to the Early Modern period. On the development of the genre of the panorama see Comment,
Bernard. The Panorama (London: Reaktion, 1999); Oettermann, Stephan, The Panorama: History of a Mass Medium, trans.
Deborah Lucas Schneider (New York: Zone Books, 1997).
21 For Venice as a center of cartography and city views see Brownen Wilson, The World in Venice: Print, the City, and Early
Modern Identity (Toronto: Toronto University Press,2005), pp. 23-69.
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Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby

Figure 4: Giovanni Andreas di Vavassore, Byzantivm sive Costantineopolis, 1535. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Venice, including Bernardo Salvioni and Donato Rascicottis 1597 engraving, which shows
a meticulous birds-eye view of the cityscape. Guidalotto would almost certainly have known
of Barbaris large and accurate woodcut map of Venice (1.35 2.82 m), dated to 1500, done
in a birds-eye view, which is a supreme example of accuracy and perspective, resulting in
remarkable fidelity to the city. This panorama depicts the outline of the metropolis and
the most prominent buildings, including churches, public buildings, and private palaces. It
includes mythological figures such as Mercury, hovering over the city as the patron of commerce, and Neptune, who appears as the lord of the sea and as a visual metaphor for the Venetian state. It is more than likely that Guidalotto was inspired by the complexity and technical
mastery of this celebrated piece and so integrated mythological motifs into his work.22
Guidalotto noted in his manuscript that his was not the first comprehensive depiction of Constantinople. One image of that city done in the fifteenth century, which appears
in Hartmann Schedels Liber Chronicarum (1493), includes a double-page birds-eye perspective viewed from across the Bosphorus. Another view by the Venetian cartographer
Giovanni Andreas di Vavassore done in the 1530s, which portrayed a birds-eye view, was
probably based on a source from 1480 (Figure 4). Vavassores woodcut provided the model
for all the maps of the city printed in the sixteenth century, including the revised 1550
edition of Sebastian Mnsters Cosmographia and Georg Braun and Frans Hogenbergs
great city atlas Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1572), which contains 546 birds-eye views and
maps of cities of the known world. The images of Braun and Hogenberg were reproduced
On Barbaris map see Deborah Howard, Venice as a Dolphin: Further Investigations into Jacopo de Barbaris View,
Artibus et Historiae 18:35 (1997), 101-11; Juergen Schulz, Jacopo de Barbaris Views of Venice: Map Making, City Views
and Moralized Geography before the Year 1500, Art Bulletin 60 (1978), 425-74.

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A Venetian City View of Constantinople

Figure 5: Melchior Lorichs, Byzantium sive Constantineopolis (Lorichs, 1559) (Universiteitsbibliotheek, Leiden, BPL, 1758).

extensively into the eighteenth century. The engraving of Constantinople in the atlas is an
idealised birds-eye view and, given its similarity, is almost certainly based on the earlier
Vavassore work.23
An unusual sequence of manuscript maps of Constantinople that accompanies
Cristoforo Buondelmontis Liber Insularum Archipelagi provides another insight into
the ways this city was viewed and represented in Western Europe in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. These maps reflect the increasing accuracy in cartographic depictions together with symbolic messages. The omission of certain details of Muslim monuments and buildings shows the map as a cultural construction and highlights the way in
which the city was appropriated by Christianity. Constantinople was seen as a contested
city between Ottomans and Christians, with Buondelmonti highlighting monuments
pertaining to the Christian character of the city, such as the columns of Constantine
and Justinian, various churches, the ruins of the Hippodrome and other buildings.24
Guidalottos panorama also represents an attempt to achieve accuracy and attention to
detail along with an emphasis on particular monuments that highlight the Christian
heritage of the city.
An important earlier depiction of Constantinople similar to that of Guidalotto in
its accuracy and sheer sise is the Melchior Lorichss panorama, dated to the mid-sixteenthcentury reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, now held in the Leiden University Library
On Constantinople and its images and in particular on Vavassore and Buondelmonti see Kafescioglu, Constantinopolis
/ Constantinople, pp. 143-77; Gurlu Necipoglu, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power: The Topkapi Palace in the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991).
24 Manners, pp. 72-102.
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(Figure 5). Even though the work was never printed, it was, nevertheless, accessible and was
quite popular among the educated elite of Early Modern Europe. In attention to detail and
realism, the 11.45-m-long and 45-cm-high drawing transcends earlier depictions of the city.
It features Constantinople along its northern shore fronting the Golden Horn and shows
Ottoman and Byzantine monuments in detail. An artistically trained nobleman, Melchior
Lorichs of Flensberg (1526-1583) was a member of the Holy Roman Empires entourage
to the court of Suleiman. He published several treatises on the Turkish army and detailed
studies of the architecture and the people. From the perspective of the high ground of
Galata, Lorichs created a vast panorama of Constantinople, showing the city skyline with
inscriptions labelling the points of interest.25 Lorichss panorama was recently reproduced
in a limited number of copies to which were added descriptions of each monument prepared by historians. The monuments and the landscape depicted by Lorichs are impressive
in their accuracy. The way he labelled each building is further proof of his empirical study
of the city. Among the prominent buildings, one can see Suleimans imperial mosque,
Hagia Sophia, the Church of St. Irene, and the sultans new palace at Topkapi. There are
also some fantastic structures such as Egyptian pyramids and Mesopotamian ziggurats.26
Guidalottos panorama is similar to that of Lorichs in its scale and in the inclusion
of captions with the monuments. It is also similar in the mix of realistic representations
and fantastic and decorative elements. However, in the Guidalotto painting, the city view
accounts for only a relatively small part of a complex Baroque work of art. In this, it differs
from Lorichss work, where the cityscape is the centre of attention.
Guidalottos panorama was influenced by the Ottoman cartographic tradition. As
early as the fifteenth century, Ottoman geographers developed a distinct style of their own
in charting urban views, and an increasing number of cartographic depictions and narratives concerning regions in the Ottoman Empire appeared between 1453 and 1730. The
celebrated world map that Piri Reis (1465-1555) presented to Selim I in 1517 is an excellent early example of intellectual exchange between Ottoman and European geographers
along the Mediterranean. Military conflict over control of the Mediterranean area in the
early sixteenth century spurred production of the earliest Ottoman cartographic literature,
and the creation of mappae mundi, charts, and portolan atlases coincided with the long
drawn-out Ottoman conquest of Cyprus. This cartographical output illustrates a growing
intellectual curiosity about the Mediterranean among the Turks, as well as an interest in
maps as aesthetic objects among the Ottoman ruling elite. Their elaborate and colourful
ornamentation and detailed depictions of such cities as Genoa, Venice, and Constantinople
suggest that the Ottomans enjoyed the European art of mapmaking. As Ian Manners has

See Kafescioglu, Constantinopolis / Constantinople, pp. 143-77.

See Larry Silver, East is East: Images of the Turkish Nemesis in Habsburg Europe, in The Turk and Islam in the
Western Eye (1453-1750): Visual Imagery before Orientalism, ed. by James Harper (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 185-216;
for a detailed analysis of Lorichss panorama see Melchior Lorichs Panorama of Constantinople , ed. by Stefanos Yerasimos,
Cyril Mango and Ahmet Ertug (stanbul: National Press, 1999); Nigel Westbrook, Kenneth Rainsbury Dark, and Rene Van
Meeuwen, Constructing Melchior Lorichss Panorama of Constantinople, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
69:1 (2011), 62-87; Erik Fischer, Melchior Lorck: Drawings from the Evelyn Collection at Stonor Park, England, and from the
Department of Prints and Drawings, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, exh. cat. (Copenhagen: A. W. Henningsen,
1962); Erik Fischer, Melchior Lorck: Biography and Primary Sources, 4 vols with contributions by Ernst Jonas Bencard, Mikael
Bgh Rasmussen, Marco Iuliano (Copenhagen: A. W. Henningsen, 2009).
25
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A Venetian City View of Constantinople

noted, the Ottomans were active participants in the intellectual current of the Early Modern period as patrons, cartographers, and audiences.27
Best known for his Kitab-i-bahrye (The Book of the City), which includes maps
and commentary texts dedicated to various geographical locations, Piri Reis was influenced
by a variety of earlier cartographic examples such as portolans, portolan charts, and world
maps. Intending his work for the Ottoman court, he produced two versions of the volume,
one in 1521 and the second in 1526, incorporating some differences. The book concentrated on the Mediterranean coasts. In the second version there is an addition of city views
of Cairo and Venice. A later copy of Kitab-i-bahrye, dated to 1670, adds the Yeni Cami
Mosque, which was completed in 1665, to the depiction of Constantinople. Here the city
is shown surrounded by walls, and the two walls that encompass the Topkapi Palace and
the Yedikule Fortress are the most visible features of the plan. Two Byzantine monuments
are included in this copy: the column of Arcadius and the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus, a
late thirteenth-century Byzantine palace called in Turkish Tekfur Sarai, near the walls. The
citys shorelines and the islands in the Bosphorus along with a group of sailing ships are
imaged as well. It is noteworthy that this work, created about the same time as Guidalottos
panorama, was probably painted from the same point of reference, the Tower of Galata,
which indicates the centrality of this particular spot for charting the view of the city.28
Ottoman panoramic views drawn from Galata grew in popularity, coinciding
with the development of the citys monuments and a multiplicity of domes and minarets.
Matrakci Nasuhs view of the Ottoman capital highlights its dynastic and Islamic identity,
whereas in Piri Reiss panorama, the citys Byzantine history is almost completely ignored,
with Hagia Sophia, the Hippodrome, and the city walls being the only visible remnants of
Byzantium, whereas the citys Islamic identity is portrayed in a prominent fashion. In the
course of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman cartographic image of Constantinople was
transformed to affirm a newly defined Ottoman identity. In a sense, Guidalottos panorama
represents a Christian response to this Islamic focus, stressing instead the Byzantine heritage of the city.29
Given its dimensions and age, Guidalottos panorama has survived in good condition. It remains a remarkable artistic feat, drawing the viewers gaze first to the city itself and
then to the surrounding iconography. There is an enigmatic figure on the lower left-hand
side in front of the cityscape, next to the allegorical border, which might be construed as
a self-portrait. In his manuscript, Guidalotto noted that he drew the panorama from the
vantage point of Galata on the Christian bank and that he chose this out of three possible
points of view because it was the safest. Had he made his drawings at sea (possibly the best
option) he might have drowned and had he gone to the Asian bank he might have risked
being taken for a spy. So he placed himself in a good position on the European shore from
where, using his rough pen, he could design the panorama in safety.30 Both the authors
On Ottoman cartographic tradition see Ian Manners, European Cartographers and the Ottoman World 1500-1750:
Maps from the Collection of O. J. Sopranus (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2007); Michael J. Rogers, Itineraries and
Town Views in Ottoman Histories, in History of Cartography, ed. by John Brian Harley and David Woodward (Chicago:
Chicago University Press, 1992), pp. 228-55.
28 On the example of Piri Reis see Venice and the Islamic World 828-1797, ed. by Stefano Carboni (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2007), p. 311.
29 Kafescioglu, Constantinopolis / Istanbul, pp. 207-26.
30 Niccol Guidalotto da Mondavio, Parafrasi di Opera a Penna Rappresentante in Dissegno un Prospetto dellImperiale
Citt di Constantinopoli, Pesaro 1622 (MSS in the Vatican Library Chig. D. II , 22), 25r-26v.
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Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby

inclusion of his own image in the painting and his detailed explanation of his choice of
vantage point lend credibility to the conclusion that his panorama was the product of the
meticulous observations of an eyewitness.31 His inclusion of a self-portrait is reminiscent
of the idealised self-portrait Melchior Lorichs placed in the centre of his painting, figuring
himself as a well-dressed youthful European in a dark costume, seen from the back, who is
preparing to draw while a Turkish assistant stands by his side.32
Guidalottos captions define the major landscape features and the central monuments. The title of the panorama reads: La Vista del Porto di Constantinopli. He marked
the European side as Riviera di Galata, subsequently Riviera di Vigna di Pera and then
Riviera di Arsenale, with an emphasis on the location of the Venetian and other foreign
embassies in the city. The Monti di Bursa, the mountains of Bursa, represent another noted
landmark. At the far end of his drawing, Guidalotto included the Eyp Sultan Mosque
(Eyp Sultan Camii), in the district of Eyp on the European side of the city, outside the
city walls near the Golden Horn. Built in 1458, it was the first mosque constructed by the
Ottomans following their conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The mosque rises next to
the place where Aby Ayyub al-Ansari (Eyp Sultan), the standard-bearer of Muhammad, is
said to have been buried after losing his life during the Arab assault on the city in 670. His
tomb is venerated by Muslims and attracts many pilgrims.33 Within the painted city view,
Guidalotto provided an accurate caption and a precise location for each major monument.
His depictions of neighbourhoods, markets, mosques, and palaces include the layout of
narrow, winding streets; a skyline dominated by domes and minarets; imperial mosques;
and small crowded houses that line the Golden Horn from the palace to the city walls.
In terms of topographical accuracy and as a record of mid-seventeenth-century
Constantinople, one of the criteria for determining the panoramas authenticity would be
whether it includes the Valide Mosque on the Golden Horn. Begun by Valide Safiye Sultan
in 1597, work on the mosque was suspended on her death in 1603 and was only completed
by Valide Turhan Sultan in 1663 after the partially built structure had been damaged by fire
in 1660. Guidalottos panorama does indeed depict a structure whose position and adjacent
market seem to correspond to the unfinished mosque. One could believe Guidalotto when
he noted that he sketched this view of Constantinople before he left the city, probably
sometime between 1650 and 1652, but certainly before his departure in 1655, when the
mosque was standing in its abandoned state but prior to the fire.34
The monuments that Guidalotto chose to single out in his captions are those
belonging to the citys Byzantine history. One can discern a major emphasis on Hagia
Sophia, marked by its Latin name (Sancta Sophia). In 1453, Sultan Mehmed II ordered
the building converted into a mosque. The bells, altar, iconostasis, and sacrificial vessels
were removed, many of the mosaics were plastered over, and Islamic features, such as the
four minarets, were added. Guidalotto depicted the building in its new state as a mosque
yet called it by its Latin name, designating it as a church. Among the other imaged Byzantine structures are the aqueduct of Valens, which appears between the Hippodrome
and Mehmed IIs complex and the column of Theodosius, indicating the ancient forum
31
32
33
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On the topography of Constantinople see Kafescioglu, Constantinopolis / Istanbul.

Silver, pp. 180-90.
On the complex of Ayyub al-Ansari see Kafescioglu, Constantinopolis / Constantinople, pp. 45-52.
On the Valide Mosque see Kafescioglu, Constantinopolis / Constantinople, p. 142.

A Venetian City View of Constantinople

of the city, which was part of Mehmed IIs Old Palace. Guidalotto included the palace,
its principal outer buildings, and gardens but did not mark it as an Ottoman structure,
rather identifying it by the ancient ruin of the column.35 He described the Topkapi Palace,
constructed on the site of the ancient acropolis of Byzantium, as Il Seraglio Byzantium (the
Byzantine Palace) with no mention of the new palace of Mehmed II.36 Omitting any reference to the Topkapi Palace is in striking contrast with Ottoman examples such as Piri Reiss
map discussed above, which placed particular emphasis on the Topkapi Palace as the seat
of government and as a symbol of Ottoman rule. Guidalottos panorama does include three
principal mosques: the Sleymaniye Camii, the second largest mosque in the city, located
on its third hill, which was built on the order of Suleiman the Magnificent between 1550
and 1558; Sultanahmet Camii (the Sultan Ahmed Mosque), popularly known as the Blue
Mosque for the blue tiles adorning the walls of its interior, built from 1609 to 1616, during
the reign of Ahmed I; and Beyazt Camii (Bayezid II Mosque), located near the ruins of
the Forum of Theodosius.37
Guidalottos panorama works on two levels: first, as an accurate topographic depiction of the city from the vantage point of Galata; and second, with the didactic focusing
of attention on the citys Christian heritage, expressed through the captions identifying the
Byzantine buildings. Guidalotto included the citys main mosques and palaces but, where
possible, called them by their Latin (Christian) names. He did not identify the palaces of
the Turkish government, thus ignoring the major seats of Ottoman power. Guidalottos
city view, then, embodies an accurate portrait of the city and its topography but uses the
captions attached to the monuments to highlight Constantinoples Byzantine heritage and
its Christian legacy.
So what is ones final impression regarding the artistic value of Niccol Guidalottos panorama? He used sophisticated and enchanting methods and obviously envisaged this work as something magnificent enough to offer to his pope. He had learned
cartographical methods and stylistic techniques including Baroque imagery and complex
visual language from the humanists and even from the Ottoman cartographers. The
more one observes this elaborate piece of artwork, the more one is drawn to its visual elements, which totally captivate the imagination. The work stands out not merely for its huge
dimensions, but for its wealth of detail and the sheer beauty of its design and execution and
surely calls for further research.

On the Hagia Sophia conversion into a mosque see Kafescioglu, Constantinopolis / Constantinople, pp. 18-22; on the
aqueduct of Valens see Kafescioglu, Constantinopolis / Constantinople, pp. 150, 153, 162, 208; and on the Old Palace see
Kafescioglu, Constantinopolis / Constantinople, pp. 22-23.
36 On the Topkapi Palace see Gurlu Necipoglu, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power: The Topkapi Palace in the Fifteenth
and Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).
37 On the mosques see Kafescioglu, op. cit., pp. 95, 136, 163, 215-19.
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