Istanbul through the Eyes of Western Travelers

Istanbul has been one of the most important cities in the world since the earliest times of history. It has been the cradle of many civilizations and has a special importance with thecultural and historical heritage left behind by these civilizations. At the same time, it has alsobeen a frequent destination for Western travelers who played a role in shaping the diplomaticrelations between the Ottoman Empire and other states. Hagia Sophia is still the most famousbuilding visited by Western travelers in Istanbul. Although most of these visits were aimed at collecting information to be used in diplomatic relations, the travelers provided importantinformation about the Turks, the permanent inhabitants of this city they admired. Pero Tafur, Simeon of Poland, Ogier Ghislan Busbecq, Frederick Walpole, Arminius Vámbéry, Mme de Gasparin, and Henry Fanshawe Tozer are some of the important names for the Western world.*

De La Broquiere”s Overseas Voyage describes his observations of 15th century Istanbul. In1432, Bertrandon had traveled to the East as a pilgrim, but as he had been assigned as a secretagent, he traveled through the main Islamic states and principalities and returned overland. The main purpose of this long journey, which was extremely difficult at the time, was toexamine the political situation of the Turks on the spot, and to scout the ground for a Crusadethat Philippe le Bon was planning. Bertrandon is a spy, but he is also a person who tries to getto know the nation he lives in well and who knows how to see and appreciate its good sides, its virtues and its reasons for success. In 1432, Bertrandon sailed to the Mediterranean with a ship from Venice and landed in Jaffa.

He traveled to Jerusalem and from there to the holy places in the surrounding area, but thecontinuation of his pilgrimage, which looked like a visit to the holy places of Christianity, took on a purely diplomatic nature. From Syria, the pilgrim traveled to Anatolia, and afterpassing through the lands of the Ramazanoğulları principalities, he finally arrived in Constantinople, which was still in the hands of the Byzantine Empire. After staying here for a while, he set off on January 23, 1433. After traveling around Edirne and its environs, he returned to his homeland by visiting Plovdiv, Belgrade, Buda and Vienna.

When he approached Istanbul, he spent the night in the town of Pendik, called Pantichion bythe Byzantines, where there were only Greeks, and mentioned it in his travelogue as a verydilapidated and unimportant place. The next day, Broquıère went to the Üsküdar region withthe merchants with him and described the beauty of Üsküdar with the following words: “Thebig boats sailing in the Mediterranean were coming to Pera as well as to Constantinople. This city was made up of various neighborhoods and there were more vacant lots thaninhabited ones. I came to a town on the Bosphorus, which we call the arm of Saint-Georgeus, opposite Pera, called Escutary (Üsküdar). Georgia Church. The merchants I was with and I crossed the Bosphorus together, where the Turks supervised the crossings and the taxes thathad to be paid.”

Broquière also mentions a privilege given to the Turks over non-Muslims. At that time, if a Christian slave escaped from the Turks and took refuge in Pera and the Turks wanted himback, he would be given back to the Turks. Broquière criticized this as ‘the freedom of theTurks‘.

“Constantinople is a very large and attractive city; it is like a shield with three corners; oneof the corners is on the Bosphorus, which we call the arm of Saint-Georgies. Another is on theharbor on the north bank of a very wide gulf that extends from the south bank of theBosphorus to Gallipoli. Three great cities are known, each built on seven hills.”

Petrus Gyllius, also known as Pierre Gilles, was a French traveler who visited the city duringthe reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. Gilles tried to summarize his admiration for Istanbul, which he visited in 1544, with the words “All other cities are mortal, but Istanbul, I think, willlive as long as people exist.”

His work titled “Historical monuments of Istanbul” is among the few works that provideimportant information about Istanbul, Turks and Hagia Sophia. In his work, Gilles providesimportant information about the foundation of Istanbul, the architectural structure of the city, the characteristics of the seven hills on which the city was built (the seven towers of Byzantion), the mosques, statues, churches in the city, and especially Hagia Sophia, whichmany travelers spoke of with great admiration. According to the information given in thework, according to Greek sources, the Hagia Sophia Church was built for the first time byConstantius, the son of Constantine, and at that time the roof cover was not brick but wood. Inaddition, the church was burned down during the reign of Theodois the Great and wascovered with barrel vaults (a half-cylindrical ceiling covering built with bricks and mortar, hollow from below).

When Petrus Gyllius arrived in Istanbul, the ‘queen of cities‘, some 450 years ago, he hoped tofind the old traces easily. During his stay in the city, he saw to what extent the people, unfamiliar with Vitruvius‘ art, could destroy a city and how the streets could be randomlyfilled in without paying attention to direction; the city was darker during the day than at night; the daytime destruction was so numerous that no one recognized in old age what he had seenas a child. The church was rebuilt and became what it is today.

Ogier Ghislan de Busbecq was an Austrian diplomat and writer of Flemish origin. Thetraveler, who visited Istanbul in the late 16th century, gave important information about manyevents he witnessed about the Ottoman Empire, but among these, the information he gaveabout the janissaries was quite remarkable:

“The Sultan has a force of 12,000 janissaries scattered throughout the empire. They protectcastles against the enemy and Christians and Jews against the encroachment of the people. There is no village, town or city, big or small, that does not have janissary guards whose dutyit is to protect Christians, Jews and other helpless people against the wicked. The janissariesusually came to visit me in pairs. When they were admitted to my dining room, they wouldgreet me respectfully, approach me with almost running steps, kiss the hem of my dress or myhand, present me with a bunch of hyacinths or daffodils, and then head for the door at thesame speed, taking care not to turn their backs on me. Turning their backs is considereddisrespectful to them. They would stand at the door with their hands crossed over their chestsand their eyes down, silent and reverent. You could have mistaken them for monks rather thansoldiers…”

“When I was in Istanbul, someone who had just returned from the Turkish camp told me a story. I will be pleased to write it to you as it shows how displeased the people of Asia werewith the Ottoman rule and religion. According to the story, Suleiman (Suleiman theMagnificent) was the guest of an Asian on his way back and spent the night in his house. When the Sultan left, the owner of the house washed the whole place with water and burnedincense in accordance with his religious customs because the chastity of his house had beenviolated by the stay of such a guest. When news of this reached him, Suleiman had the mankilled and ordered his house to be razed to the ground. The Asiatic thus paid with his life forhis arrogance as a result of his bad feelings towards Turks and Iranians.”

(Petrus Gyllıus (Pierre, Gilles), İstanbul’un Tarihi Eserleri, (trans. Erendiz Özbağoğlu), Eren Yayıncılık, İstanbul 1997, pp.63-69.)

In his travelogue “Travels and Adventures”, the traveler Pero Tafur, after arriving in Istanbul, described his first encounter with Sultan Murad III under the title “Description of the Great Turk” and spoke of the Turks with words of praise:

“…The Great Turk sent me a man who asked me when and how I was to leave the empire andin whose ship, and by telling me these things I saw how hospitable this person and the peoplewere. Without exaggeration, I say that the Great Turk about whom I gave information musthave been about 45 years old, good-looking and handsome, with a cautious appearance, witha sharp gaze, more careful than I had ever seen before, with about 600,000 horsemen.”

Pero Tafur, who expressed the splendor of Sultan Murad III with these words, tells that on thesecond day he spent in Istanbul, a Genoese merchant took him to the welcoming ceremony of Sultan Murad III, who had returned from hunting, and what he saw during this welcomingceremony. The traveler mentions that he saw many men returning from hunting on horsebackand that they were carrying eagles, hawks, leopards and hunting equipment. He also statesthat among the hunted animals there were many pheasants, a type of long-tailed bird whosemeat was eaten, and that many other types of birds found in Spain were among the huntedanimals.

Pero Tafur, who, like other travelers, called Istanbul “Pera”, pointed out that the city, whichhad about two hundred thousand inhabitants at the time, was covered with well-protectedwalls and moats, and described the magnificence of the monasteries and churches in the city. He mentioned that the buildings in the city, where the majority of the inhabitants were Greek, were majestic and tall, just like those in Genoa. In his travelogue, Tafur mentioned that thecoastal areas of Istanbul were more densely populated and that the people were not bandaged, i.e. closed.

Stating that Istanbul was crowded and most of the population gathered by the sea, the travelerpointed out that the Turks were very kind-hearted but sad and poor people. He said that whensomeone dies, the door of the funeral home is not opened all year round unless it is necessary, and that there are regular lamentations in the city. Like many other travelers, he referred tothe sultan as the “Great Turk”.

In his ‘Seyahatname (Book of Travels),  the traveler Philippe Du Fresne-Caneye, while in Istanbul on January 15, 1573, saw Turkish caravanserais for the first time and called themhotels. In his travelogue, he referred to caravanserais as public places where people of allreligions could come and stay for the night, built by wealthy statesmen out of humanitarianfeelings, since there was no hotelier in the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, the traveler’sinterpretation of these buildings, which he thought were built with good intentions, was not very positive. According to him, these places were nothing but big stables, because peopleand horses slept together in these places. He continued his criticism by saying, “However, thehorses eat on the ground, and in the surroundings there are corridors with hearths for cookinga little higher up, everyone lays out their belongings masterfully, and whoever has a bed is comfortable here; if he does not have a bed, he lies on the floor, because it is inappropriate tolook for any comfort in these caravanserais.”

(Philippe du Frense Canaye, Fresne Canaye Seyahatnamesi 1573, (trans. Teoman Tunçdoğan), Kitap Publishing House, Istanbul, February 2009)

Reinhold Lubenau, on the other hand, devoted most of his travelogue to information aboutIstanbul. Although Lubenau, like other travelers, occasionally admired the Turks, he mostlyrefrained from expressing it. In addition to what he saw in his travelogue, it is seen that he often included the information he gathered from around. One of the remarkable rumorsamong these is an event that the patriarch of Constantinople told Reinhold after Mehmet theConqueror’s conquest of Istanbul. According to this, Mehmet the Conqueror was not pleasedwith the statue of a three-headed snake he saw while walking around the city on the third dayafter the conquest, and he said, “What kind of idol is this?” and broke the lower jaw of one of the snakes with his pluck. Later he was told by a sorcerer that this statue was put there to keepthe city free from snakes and other pests, so he left the rest of the statue untouched. However, it is said that from that day onwards the snakes swarmed into the city, but did not harmanyone. It was believed that if the column had been completely destroyed, the snakes wouldhave caused great harm to people. As the story goes, Mehmet the Conqueror then rode his horse towards the Hagia Sophia Church and in the square in front of the church he saw a statue of a man on a horse made of bronze and covered with gold. The man had once held a globe in his hand, a symbol of state sovereignty, which had fallen to the ground twice shortlybefore the occupation of the city, and although Emperor Constantine had ordered the globe tobe placed back in the statue’s hand, it had never been replaced. The Greeks believe that theman on the horse was “Emperor Iusiniaus”. When Mehmet the Conqueror saw the statuecovered in gold, he swung his mace and smashed it with his own hands. But this time, theGreeks reported that this statue had prevented the plague in the city. When the sultan heardthis, he regretted what he had done and promised never to destroy anything again and evenpromised to pay a lot of money to anyone who could repair these statues, but no one cameforward. That year there was such an outbreak of plague in the city that there was not a housewithout a dead body in it. Reinhold, who continued to describe what he had heard and seenabout Istanbul in this way, referred to the Hagia Sophia Church as surpassing the “PantheonChurch” in Rome in terms of perfection and beauty.

He mentions a place called “Hippodromus” where Byzantine Emperors trained their horsesand organized races and other shows to entertain the public, which the Turks also called“Horse Square”. Giving an interesting information about the Turkish rulers, the traveler madea heavy criticism on this subject and continued his words with the harem: “Turkish Sultans do not have married wives. The reason is that when Sultan Yıldırım Bayezit and his wife werecaptured by Timurlenk, his wife was raped in front of his eyes.

Gerald de Nerval was among the travelers who visited Ottoman lands during this century. When he arrived in Istanbul from Egypt, he referred to these lands as the lands of MuslimEurope and stated that he felt peaceful and that there were features here that reminded him of his homeland. On the other hand, he was surprised by what he saw in Istanbul and said, “Istanbul is a strange city! Splendor and misery, tears and joy, a stricter administration thananywhere else and more freedom than anywhere else.” He stated that Turks lived withArmenians, Greeks and Jews with respect. He also stated that the Turks had a very strongreligious belief and therefore all the beautiful places in Istanbul were allocated for cemeteries. He saw the coffeehouses in Beyoğlu as a meeting place for the people and described Turkishwomen as elegant and beautiful ladies who dressed elegantly and fashionably.

“The Bosphorus is a beautiful place, surrounded on the right and left by hills that can be wellcultivated and harvested, with some olive trees, some vineyards and plenty of arable land. Itis indisputable. Together with its outskirts, Istanbul is one of the largest cities in Europe. It is as if the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus have been opened to bring to it riches from all overthe world. These two Straits are called the gates of Istanbul. However, in this dazzling cityfrom the outside, the houses in Galata were low, mostly made of wood and adobe, so thatwhen a fire broke out, thousands of them would burn down in a day. Apart from fire, the Turkshad two other scourges: the plague and the levies.’

Joseph De Tournefort also stated in his travelogue that the most important problem threatening Istanbul, apart from the fire, was the Leventler. He characterized these soldiers, who constantly caused trouble, especially threatening foreigners, and who served on ships, as ‘rabble‘ who ran towards people in order to scare them.

Simeon mentioned that there are seven Selatin mosques in Istanbul and Hagia Sophia is themost beautiful among them, its location gives it great superiority, while he disliked theConstantinous Palace (Tekfur Palace) in Istanbul, calling it a dilapidated structure.

Simeon of Poland described all the places he visited in Anatolia with a divine description. Simeon, who was an extremely religious traveler, could not hide his astonishment after seeingHagia Sophia in Istanbul. He mentions miracles about Hagia Sophia. “Arslanhane (church), Horse Square, Hünkâr Palace, Captive Bazaar, Old Bedesten” are among the places he described. Among them, one of the ones that attracted Simeon’s attention the most was the“Constantine Palace” in Balat.

(Simeon of Poland, Armenians in History (1608-1619), (translated by Hrant D. Andreasyan), Everest Publications)

Although J.B. Tavernier was impressed by the beautiful tombstones he saw on both sides of the road as he passed through Üsküdar in Istanbul in the spring, he did not speak of Istanbuland the Turks in his travelogue with very flattering words. He said that Istanbul was an ordinary city and that Topkapı Palace resembled a prison rather than a sultan’s palace becauseof the walls and fortifications around it.

In his travelogue, Italian traveler Pietro Della Valle stated that Istanbul was a colony of theGenovese at the time and that almost all of the inhabitants spoke Turkish. However, he addedthat there were also families who kept Greek customs (religion, language, clothing) alive. Oneof the important points that attracted Della Valle’s attention in Istanbul was that there weremany churches in Pera, where different groups of people lived together, which had previouslybelonged to Christians and had been converted into mosques.

The roofs of the houses here were decorated with beautiful and wide eaves. On the roofs, which were painted in various colors, there were pine terraces similar to European-stylebalconies.

Della Valle also referred to the Sultan as the Great Turk. According to his information, thepalace where the Great Turk stayed was at the other end of the city, across the ruins of Chalcedon, just across the sea, in the place that all writers call Bizantium.

“I have seen the small and great festivals of the Turks. These are religious festivals in whichthey eat in the streets like those further east, gather in mosques as unusual, and celebrateeach other. Their entertainment lasts day and night, from the beginning to the end of the city, and they like instruments that make various strange sounds. There is not a Christian orTurkish youth who does not sway (dance) and show off his physique and talent, especially ifhe is a woman.”

(Pietro Della Valle, An Italian traveler in Ottoman lands, TDK Publishing.)

Istanbul in the 18-19th century travelers

Édouard Antoine De Thouvenel, a French traveler and diplomat who came to Istanbul in theearly 1800s, made interesting observations about Istanbul in his travelogue. The traveler, whocame to Varna via the Danube River and then to Istanbul, conveyed important informationabout the Ottoman Empire and the Turks in his work. Among the places he saw in Istanbul, he first gave information about Tarabya, where the French embassy was located, and Üsküdar, which he described as the city of graves. Other travelers also mentioned the cemeteries in Üsküdar. Thounvel, too, was struck by the large number of graves in Üsküdar, which is whyhe described it as a “field of graves”. The traveler, who could not hide his surprise at thissight, emphasized that the cemeteries in Üsküdar did not frighten people like in Europe, on the contrary, he mentioned that it was a quiet and serene place with a peaceful appearance. Thouvenel evaluated the Turks he saw in this city, which has a large area between Eyüp Mosque and Hagia Sophia Church, as lazy people.

Thouvenel thought that the reforms that were tried to be implemented in Istanbul after theTanzimat Edict were comically manifested in the city. He wrote this explicitly in his travelogue. As Thouvenel and his delegation headed towards the Hagia Sophia Mosque, Thouvenel remembered Mahmut II’s massacre of the janissaries as they passed through theHorse Square, and thought that the Sultan had lost his best army by acting in this way and wasleft without soldiers. According to him, while the hippodrome was the scene of horse racesduring the Byzantine Empire, it was the scene of bloody events during the Turkish period. While jotting down these thoughts, he did not forget to mention the obelisk and the serpentcolumn from the Byzantine Empire in the square.

The most interesting 19th century traveler was Armenius Vamberry. His travel book, published under the title ‘Memoirs of a Jewish spy in the Ottoman Empire‘, is full of important information. In 1857, Vámbéry came to Istanbul and spent six years here, duringwhich time he taught many names such as Mithat Pasha, and first settled as a guest in themansions of Ottoman Pashas, and then learned Turkish at a level that made him accepted andstarted to give private lessons.

Vámbéry’s command of western languages and his studies on philology attracted the attentionof Sultan Abdülmecid and the Sultan rewarded Vámbéry with a compliment. When he returned to his country, he defended the Turks in his articles against Russia’s expansionistpolicy towards Central Asia. Sultan Abdülhamid II invited Vámbéry to Istanbul for thesecond time and asked him to liaise with the British on his behalf. In June 1890, Vámbérywas again commissioned by Sultan Abdülhamid II and sent to the Palestine region, where he tried to convince the Jews to gather and establish their own state.

In his travelogue, the traveler Vámbéry included many correspondences between Sultan Abdülhamid II, Britain and the Rothschild Family and described in detail how the Palestinianterritories were divided according to the 1918 Sykes Picot Treaty.

In his travelogue, Henry Fanshawe Tozer provided important information about the famine in the Ottoman lands between 1873-1875 and the situation of the people. In a speech on January24, 1875, Edgar Whitaker, the owner of “The Levant Herald” newspaper published in English and French in Istanbul, confirmed what Tozer wrote in his travelogue and mentioned thefamine that had been going on in Anatolia for almost 20 months at that time and accused theIstanbul Government of irresponsibility towards this event. He stated that the population of the region had decreased as a result of diseases and migrations, and after the disaster wasrecognized by the administration in Istanbul, missionaries, especially from England andAmerica, extended a helping hand to the people in distress. Eventually, the Turkishadministration also tried to mobilize all the means at its disposal for the people suffering fromthe famine.

In 1849, Layard, who traveled from Trabzon to Erzurum, complained that trade had come to a standstill due to the poor maintenance of bridges built by local administrators and, like Tozer, attributed this to the centralization policy and considered it as the abuse of localadministrators. According to both of them, the interests of the people of the region were not taken into consideration when reforms towards centralization were implemented. Again, during the famine in Anatolia, the palace was indifferent to the people and some tradeagreements with foreign countries and the entry of cheap but poor quality goods into thecountry played an important role in the famine.

Hagia Sophia notes by travelers

To enter Hagia Sophia, a decree from the Sultan is required. And this is not so easy. Twotravelers, Michaud and Poujoulat, could not enter the Hagia Sophia because they could not obtain a decree, so they wrote a series of travelogues stating that the tolerance of Muslimstowards foreigners in the Ottoman Empire did not apply to mosques. According to anothertraveler, Mme de Gasparin, non-Muslims could not enter Hagia Sophia through the main gate, not only during Ramadan but at all times due to the intolerance of the Turks. Therefore, theyhad to pass through a narrow passage. The traveler Pouqueville described in his travel bookthat he entered Hagia Sophia without any difficulty provided that he bribed the imam.

He said that the depictions in Hagia Sophia were as vividly colored as the day they were firstmade, but that they were covered with a layer of paint. Stating that the corners of the mosque, whose pulpit was in a spider web due to neglect, were covered with paintings representing thecrucifixion of Jesus Christ, Walpole added that due to the different architectural style andstyle he saw in some parts of Hagia Sophia, the Byzantine architecture as well as otherneighboring states had influences on the formation of the architectural structure of thischurch.

Source:

*Changing Turkish Image through the Eyes of Western Travelers between XV-XIX. Centuries, Ottoman Empire, Istanbul and Hagia Sophia, Asılah Kılınç

Journal of Academic History and Thought