The East, the West, and the Appropriation of the Past in Early Ottoman ArchitectureAuthor(s): Robert OusterhoutSource: Gesta, Vol. 43, No. 2 (2004), pp. 165-176Published by: International Center of Medieval ArtStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067103 .Accessed: 08/03/2011 01:07

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The East, the West, and the Appropriation of the Past in Early Ottoman Architecture

ROBERT OUSTERHOUT

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Abstract

As the Ottoman state emerged in the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries, it encountered the contemporary, medieval cultures

of Western Europe and Byzantium, as well as the past, clas

sical cultures of northwest Asia Minor. An examination of

early Ottoman architecture, including the construction of new

works, adaptation of existing buildings, and attitudes expressed toward older monuments, helps to clarify the nature of the

encounter. The Ottoman appropriation of the past may be

understood as a part of their symbolic control of the land and

as an attempt to position themselves within the larger context

of world history as the rightful heirs of the Roman/Byzantine

Empire.

Is the past really a foreign country? Consider the follow

ing incident. In 1463, a decade after the Ottoman capture of

Constantinople, when Mehmet the Conqueror was on expedi tion to Mitylene, he diverted his army and crossed the Helles

pont to visit Ilium, the site of ancient Troy (Fig. 1). There was

at best a poor village on the site at that time, but Mehmet was

more concerned to see "its ruins and the traces of the ancient

city" as well as the tombs of the heroes?"Achilles and Ajax and the rest," whom he praised and congratulated. Then,

according to his biographer Kritovoulos,

He is reported to have said, shaking his head a little, "God has reserved for me through so long a period of

years the right to avenge this city and its inhabitants. For I have subdued their enemies and have plundered their cities and have made them the spoils of the My sians. It was the Greeks and Macedonians and Thes

salians and Peloponnesians who ravaged this place in

the past, and whose descendants have now through my efforts paid the just penalty after a long period of years, for their injustices to us Asiatics at that time and so

often in subsequent times."1

Mehmet's words resonate against the backdrop of legen

dary Troy, which stood as a historical flashpoint in East-West

relations?or in Mehmet's terms, Asiatic-Greek relations. The

geographic polarity signaled by Mehmet's comments repre sents a remarkably persistent cultural construct in Mediterra

nean history; as Deborah Howard insists, "The concept of

East and West remains fundamental to our political, ideolog ical and cultural framework."2 These categories are linked

to geography only superficially, however; the fundamental

difference lies in radically opposing viewpoints on govern ment, economy, religion, and ethics. Moreover, these catego

ries shifted as each Mediterranean culture fashioned its own

worldview. They could function as part of a binary opposition in the assertion of political identity, but they could also take on increasing importance as that identity was compromised.

In classical antiquity, Asia and the East were symbolized

by Troy and signified Troy; the Trojan War became a potent

metaphor enlisted in times of conflict and conquest. As Brian

Rose has demonstrated, the site of the Trojan War provided a

potent symbolic station-stop for autocratic rulers on the move.3

The Perisan king Xerxes offered sacrifices to Athena Ilias and

to the Trojan heroes on his way westward in an attempt to

conquer Greece in 480 bce. It is unclear if he identified the

Trojans as his fellow Asiatics, as Mehmet later did, although this seems likely; they were linked by their wars against the

Greeks.4 Alexander the Great clearly identified with the Greeks on his eastward campaign in 334 bce; at Troy he sacrificed to Athena Ilias and King Priam and then reenacted the funeral

games of Patroklos.5 The Romans saw themselves as the de

scendants of the Trojans, and following the Roman conquest of Asia Minor, they acknowledged Troy as Rome's mother

city; consequently the pilgrimage to Troy became an ideolog ical necessity for traveling Roman rulers. Julius Caesar visited the site, and Suetonius later claimed Caesar had considered

moving the capital there. The rebuilding of Troy by his heir

Augustus reflects the unprecedented emphasis he placed on

his Trojan ancestry, and it coincides with the writing of the

Aeneid. Hadrian stopped at Troy, followed by Caracalla, who

visited in 214, on his way to battle the Parthians, repeating the

rituals performed by Alexander. Whether successful in their

ambitions or not, for each of these visitors, the legend of Troy and notions of East and West were significant cultural con

structs underlying their concepts of empire and dominion.

The idea of the Eastern/Trojan ancestry of the Romans must have been in the mind of Constantine as well, as he

founded a new capital, Constantinople, in the East, and the

public monuments he imported to decorate his new city may

GESTA XLIII/2 ? The International Center of Medieval Art 2004 165

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FIGURE 1. V/ew o/ r/i? archaeological site of Troy (photo: author).

FIGURE 2. Istanbul, Hippodrome, view in 1574, showing Hagia Sophia, Obelisk of Theodosius, Serpent Column, and Masonry Obelisk. Freshfield Album,

drawing 21, Cambridge, Trinity College Library, MS 0.17.2 (photo: Trinity College Library).

166

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FIGURE 3. iznik, Haci ?zbek Camii, historie photograph by G. Berggren (from collection of A. A. M. Bryer).

reflect this. The Serpent Column in the Hippodrome, for ex

ample, called to mind the conflict of the Greeks and the Per

sians. It was originally erected in Delphi to commemorate the

Battle of Plataea in 479 bce, in which the army of Xerxes was defeated, an event that was viewed at the time as the

victory of the rational, democratic, civilized Westerners?the

Greeks?over the irrational, uncivilized, despotic Easterners?

the Persians (Fig. 2).6 The foundation of Constantinople fol

lowed on Constantine's vanquishing his eastern co-emperor and rival Licinius in 324, an event presented in terms similar to the Greek victory over the Persians, as the triumph of jus tice over tyranny. In the political propaganda of the period,

Licinius was portrayed as a cruel and depraved despot, the

enemy of the civilized world.7 Perhaps most interesting in

this context of historic destiny and potent political symbol ism, Constantine is said to have considered establishing his new capital at Troy.8 Much of the borrowed symbolism in early

Constantinople referred to the Trojan legend, such as the

sculptural program in the main public bathing institution, the

Baths of Zeuxippos.9 In addition to a variety of Trojan themes in its public

sculpture, the colossal statue of Constantine once displayed atop the porphyry column in his forum is also claimed to have come from Troy; the base of the statue is said to have con

tained the palladium, the ancient wooden guardian statue

associated with Troy and its fortunes, later with Rome and its

destiny.10 As Sarah Bassett argues, early Constantinople was

very much an intellectual construct, one that "grew up around

the intersection of history and myth . . . that makes the city the last link in a chain of destiny that stretched from Troy to

Rome."11

The question I would like to pose in this paper is, what

did Mehmet think he was doing at Troy? The culturally con

structed competitive discourse between East and West briefly outlined above makes sense in the context of classical antiq

uity, from Xerxes to Constantine, with its established attitudes

and prejudices. But why would the classical past have been

appropriated in the establishment of the Ottoman Empire? How did a formerly migratory tribe, whose origins may be

traced to central Asia, come to situate themselves within

the matrix of Western civilization? An examination of early Ottoman architecture, including both the construction of new

works and the appropriation of existing buildings, may help to answer this question. As I shall argue, the Ottoman appro

priation of the past may be understood as part of their sym bolic appropriation of the land and as an attempt to position themselves within the larger context of world history as the

rightful heirs of the Roman/Byzantine Empire. The beginning of the Ottoman state in the late thirteenth

century may be characterized as a period of cultural overlap.12 As the Ottomans settled in the Byzantine territory in north

west Anatolia, they adopted the Greek administration of the

167

region, and the population remained largely mixed. In spite of their clear, dramatic political rise to power in the four

teenth and fifteenth centuries, the origins of Ottoman archi

tecture remain problematic. Before they settled in Bithynia, we have no clear evidence for an architecture in permanent materials. By the 1320s-1330s, however, the former nomads

were actively building, and in a manner technically and sty

listically distinct from the Muslim architecture that had evolved

in other parts of Anatolia. The methods of wall construction

and the decorative detailing follow local, Byzantine prac tices, although plans and vaulting forms may be more closely

aligned with the architecture of the Seljuks of central Anato

lia. Such a mixture of forms would seem to reflect the mixed

background of the Ottomans, who were politically and reli

giously linked with the Seljuks, while occupying Byzantine lands and incorporating Byzantine institutions into their na

scent state. The resulting heterogeneous architecture may be

emblematic of early Ottoman culture.13

The similarities in late Byzantine and early Ottoman

construction techniques have led to numerous confusions, and these have been encouraged by the Ottoman use of spolia in the early buildings. Mosques frequently incorporated ele

ments from ancient and Byzantine buildings?columns, cap

itals, stringcourses, even reused brick?into their construction.

For example, a nineteenth-century photograph by the Swed

ish photographer Guillaume Berggren of the Haci ?zbek

Camii, one of the earliest mosques in iznik (built ca. 1330), is mislabeled "ancienne ?glise byzantine."14 A Byzantine cap ital decorated with crosses appeared prominently in its portico facade, which no longer survives (Fig. 3). With the destruc

tion of the portico, the photograph still confuses scholars.

How should we interpret the Byzantine construction tech

niques and spolia in these buildings? Should they be viewed

as part of the development of a "language of power," indica

tive of the Ottoman domination? Considering the nature of

the Ottoman state during the fourteenth century, however, the

technical similarities and reuse of materials might be better

viewed as an expression of integration, rather than domina

tion. The early Ottoman state was based as much on cooper

ation as on coercion, and it was for mutual benefit that the

disaffected Byzantines of Bithynia were assumed into the tribe

of Osman.15 Beginning with Orhan, there were also strong

diplomatic and family connections between the Osmanh Turks

and the Byzantine court, and this may presume an openness toward Byzantine culture.16 In sum, as a new architecture was

formed to serve the needs of the new Ottoman state, we wit

ness a strong element of cultural continuity. The early, transitional Ottoman examples speak of con

tinuity, what we might call an "appropriation of the present." But when do the Ottomans begin to look deep into regional

history in an attempt to connect themselves with the past? Northwest Asia Minor is an area rich in cultural remains, and

yet our rare mentions of ancient monuments before Mehmet's

time have a sort of fairy-tale quality that stands in sharp con

trast to his response to Troy. When, for example, in the mid

fourteenth century, Siileyman Pa?a saw the Temple of Hadrian

at Cyzicus, he thought that it must have been constructed by

King Solomon?not simply because Solomon was his name

sake, but because Solomon was a legendary magician credited

in folklore with the construction of virtually every impressive ruin, be it Greek, Roman, or Sasanian.17

Just around the corner from ancient Troy is the site of

ancient Assos, which was taken by the Ottomans toward the

end of the fourteenth century. Its architectural transformation

gives some suggestion of early Ottoman attitudes. The Hiid?

vendig?r Camii was apparently constructed during the reign of Murat (ca. 1380), and it was built almost entirely of spolia taken from a variety of local buildings and dating from many different periods, including ancient stone coffer blocks, a tri

glyph and metope frieze, mutules and guttae, Byzantine tem

plon posts, and fragments of an architrave, as well as undetailed

stone and brick (Fig. 4).18 The reuse of an inscribed door

frame from a church of St. Cornelius led the first mission of

the Archaeological Institute of America to claim that the build

ing was originally a church (Fig. 5).19 They later retracted

this, but the confusion persists. In fact, the spolia are of both

ancient and Byzantine derivation.

What is noteworthy in the case of Assos is that neither

the cathedral (probably the basilica in the gymnasium of the

lower city) nor the archaic Doric temple, situated nearby on

the acropolis, was transformed. The cathedral may have been

in disrepair by this time, but the archaic temple on the acrop olis was still standing when the mosque was built, surrounded

by some Byzantine houses and a separate fortification wall, but it was left alone. Of the numerous spolia employed in the

construction of the mosque, I can identify only one piece, a

broken triglyph, that may have come from the temple. As in

the earlier examples, it seems most likely that spolia were

used in the Hiid?vendig?r Camii precisely because Byzantine construction practices were observed. More often than not,

the architectural sculptures that appear in late Byzantine build

ings are spolia.20 In Ottoman examples, spolia were used for

exactly the same purposes they served in their original Byz antine context and are set in exactly the same places.21

Ottoman domination and the Islamic present were cer

tainly more clearly expressed in the standard practice of trans

forming the main church of a conquered city into a mosque, as for example the Ayasofya Camii at iznik or the Fatih Camii

at Trilye. At Bursa (conquered in 1326), intriguingly, we have no record of a cathedral converted to a mosque, but two Byz antine churches were appropriated for use as the mausolea

of Osman and Orhan. Both were destroyed by earthquake in

the nineteenth century but are known from drawings.22 The

conversion of Byzantine churches to house the tombs of the

founders of the Ottoman dynasty is an act I find redolent with

meaning.

The evidence for church conversions provides useful

information about attitudes toward cultural interchange. In

168

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FIGURE 4. Behremkale (Assos), H?d?vendig?r Camii, late 14th century, view from south (photo: author).

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FIGURE 5. Same, inscribed Byzantine doorframe (photo: author).

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FIGURE 6. Istanbul, Hagia Sophia, interior view to east in 1672, with Byz antine figurai decoration still exposed (from G. J. Grelot, Relation nouvelle

d'un voyage de Constantinople, Paris, 1680, Dumbarton Oaks Library).

169

contrast to spoliation, the actual, functional appropriation of

important Byzantine buildings was symbolically significant and would have been clearly understood by the contemporary viewer, whether Christian or Muslim. In most instances, the

physical transformation of the building was minimal, often

without the immediate destruction of its figurai decoration. A minaret would have been added on the exterior, a mihrab and other necessary furnishings on the interior, giving the

building a sort of transitional appearance?at once identifi able as both a church and a mosque. I would argue that in these instances, the building would have functioned symbol

ically as a monument of conquest and domination. What was

most important, I believe, was the clear recognition that the

building used to be a Christian church but was no longer. Ini

tially in Hagia Sophia at Constantinople and other converted

buildings, much of the original interior decoration was left

intact, although the visibly Christian elements were understood

differently by later, more religiously conservative generations (Fig. 6).23

On the other hand, a competitive discourse with the past can occur only once there has been a clearly defined chron

ological break.24 For the Ottomans, that break came in 1453. The conquest of Constantinople and the reign of Mehmet II mark a turning point in both architectural and historical con

sciousness. What impressed Mehmet when he viewed Con

stantinople was not so much its contemporary state as its ancient monuments and glorious past, and he attempted to

establish parallels between himself and the Byzantine emper ors Constantine and Justinian as he effected a symbolic re

founding of the city.25 His actions bespeak both a fascination

with history and a scholar's interest in historic authenticity. Instead of relying on the oral history of the city, Mehmet com

missioned the collection and translation of standard historical and topographical works, including the Patria and the Diege sis, as well as works of contemporary scholarship, including a Greek version of Christopher Buondelmonti's Liber insu larum archipelagi.26

Mehmet converted the church of Hagia Sophia to a

mosque in one of his first official acts following the conquest of Constantinople, and it was clearly done for its symbolic content (Figs. 2 and 6). The conversion involved minimal

physical transformation, and even its name remained the

same?in Tbrkish, Ayasofya Camii. As appropriated, how

ever, the scale and evocative power of the building cry out for a symbolic reading. Half a millennium later, for example,

Atat?rk performed a similar symbolic transformation: as he

secularized the Tbrkish state, he secularized Hagia Sophia. Two aspects of the conversion of Hagia Sophia from a church to a mosque are important to our discussion. First, it was nec

essary to create an Islamic text and an Ottoman legend for

Hagia Sophia.27 Borrowing from Byzantine accounts, Ottoman historical texts interwove history and myth to situate Hagia Sophia in an Ottoman present and to justify its conversion into a royal mosque. Thus, according to one version, when the

FIGURE 7. Istanbul, Fatih Camii, view from north, showing dome and half

dome, from the K?pr?l? Su Yollari Haritasi, 1672, K?pr?l? Library, Istan

bul, document no. 2441/1 (photo: S?leymaniye Library).

half-dome of the apse collapsed on the night of the Prophet Mohammed's birth, it could be repaired only with a mortar

composed of sand from Mecca, water from the well of Zem

zem, and the Prophet's saliva.28 In addition, Muslim and Otto man symbols were introduced into Hagia Sophia, including the first minaret, the mihrab, and other mosque furnishings, as well as sacred relics and battle trophies. Yet a tension re

mained, and the Christian memory was never entirely erased: a firman (official decree) of 1573 indicates that there was still

some opposition to the preservation of a building built by non-Muslims.29

The second point about the conversion is the profound influence direct exposure to Hagia Sophia had on Ottoman

architecture, in both form and scale. The new Fatih Camii

(Mosque of the Conqueror), begun in 1463 to replace the

dilapidated Church of the Holy Apostles, was smaller than

Hagia Sophia, but it was dramatically larger in scale than any

previous Ottoman mosque?or any Byzantine church built

since the sixth century. Although rebuilt after its destruction

in the earthquake of 1766, an illustration from the seven

teenth century shows its original form (Fig. 7). The plan, with a square domed bay expanded with an axial half-dome, fol

lowed the model of Hagia Sophia. As Julian Raby has argued, this combination of forms marks a new departure in mosque

design, which could have only been inspired by the direct ob

servation of the Byzantine masterpiece. The connection was

clearly recognized at the time of the Fatih Camii's construc

tion. Mehmet's biographer Ibrsun Bey wrote that Mehmet had

"constructed a great mosque on the design of the apprentice work of Ayasofya, which apart from combining all the artifices

of Ayasofya, has found, according to the uses of the moderns, a sort of new style and immeasurable beauty, and in its efful

gence its miraculous quality is evident."30

170

The construction of the Fatih Camii with its adjoining mausoleum is recognized as one of Mehmet's important sym

bolic acts of refoundation, as it replaced the old Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles and the Mausoleum of Constan

tine, that is, replacing the martyrium of the founder of the

Christian city with that of his Muslim successor. But Tursun

Bey's account sets the building into a somewhat different

perspective. As he explains, Mehmet (or rather his architect) followed the model of an ancient monument to create a new

style, "according to the uses of the moderns."31 Mehmet, from

the sound of it, is behaving like a Renaissance man.

In fact, Mehmet was a Renaissance man, as is made

clear when he visited Athens in 1458. He came well informed

about its history and was anxious to view the antiquities of

the city, over which he lingered for several days; his biog

rapher Kritovoulos goes so far as to describe him as a "Phil

hellene," explaining that when he visited the Acropolis he did

so with knowledgeable eyes: "He reconstructed mentally the

ancient buildings . . . and he conjectured how they must have

been originally."32 Mehmet's appreciation of Athens may have

been aided by a curious text entitled The Theaters and Schools

of Athens, written about 1458-1460 by an anonymous Greek

author. Several scholars have suggested that it was produced as a vade mecum specifically for the visit of Mehmet.33 Writ

ten in grammatically flawed Greek, the text is full of wishful

misinformation, attempting to associate the famous schools

of classical Athens with the standing remains.34

It was either at this time, or perhaps before Mehmet's

second visit to Athens in 1460, that the Parthenon was con

verted into a mosque. It had been transformed into a church

in the late sixth century, and throughout the Middle Ages it

had served as the cathedral of Athens, dedicated to the Virgin

Mary. As with Hagia Sophia, very little physical change was

effected. The altar and belfry were removed; a minaret, mih

rab, and minbar were added. As a mosque, the Parthenon still

preserved its marble peristyle and a good portion of its ancient

sculptures on the exterior, as well as Byzantine paintings in

fresco and mosaic on the interior?including a mosaic of the

Virgin and Child in the apse and a fresco of the Last Judgment at the entrance, all of which were left intact.35 Mehmet's

aesthetic appreciation of the monument is paralleled in the

later response by the noted Ottoman traveler Evliya ?elebi, who in Athens marveled at the "hundreds of thousands of

works of art carved in white virgin marble," commenting that

"whoever looks upon them falls into ecstasy and his body grows weak and his eyes water for delight."36 With the addition

of a minaret, the Parthenon stood until its explosion in 1687 as perhaps the most evocative monumental summation of the

mixed cultural and religious heritage of the Mediterranean.37

Mehmet knew his classical history long before he arrived

in Athens. In fact, in addition to his Muslim instructors, Meh

met had two European tutors, one trained in Greek, the other

in Latin?the latter was an Italian colleague of Cyriacus of

Ancona; Mehmet thus had an education similar to that of many

of his Italian contemporaries.38 He had read ancient history and was familiar with the life of Alexander the Great?not

simply from the popular medieval legend, the Iskendername, but from Arrian's biography of Alexander. Scholars have been

quick to point out how Mehmet's actions and his concept of a world empire were modeled on those of Alexander, and his

biographer Kritovoulos took pains to emphasize the connec

tion, to compare symbolic acts in his history of conquest, in

sisting that the sultan's exploits "were no way inferior to

those of Alexander of Maced?n."39 His visit to Troy parallels Alexander's visit. Moreover, Mehmet's library included par allel editions of the two biographies, Arrian's of Alexander

and Kritoboulos' of Mehmet, in identical bindings, copied by the same scribe.40

Mehmet's uses of the past were manifold. At one point he attempted to legitimize his claim as the emperor of Byz antium through his alleged descent from the great twelfth

century Komnenos dynasty.41 But his self-authenticating ex

tended far deeper into history and into the rhetoric of history. Within his library was a copy of the Iliad, prepared for Meh

met shortly after his visit to Troy, and his knowledge of the

text may be due to its enduring importance in Byzantine cul

ture.42 In the quotation at the beginning of this paper, Mehmet

called the Turks "Mysians," using the ancient name for north

west Asia Minor. Curiously, there was a legend, well known

in Europe at that time, that the Turks were descended from

the Trojans, through Teucer, the mythological first king of

Troy. Thus, Italian humanists equated the "Turci" with the

"Teucri."43 This belief appeared already in medieval Euro

pean texts; in fact, following the Romans, everyone from the

Merovingians to the citizens of Cologne professed Trojan descent. As a consequence, Western Europeans looked more

favorably on the Trojans, as their common ancestors, than on

the Greeks. But the claim of Trojan ancestry for the Turks was upsetting, to say the least, particularly after the fall of

Constantinople. Cardinal Isidore, who was present at the fall, called Mehmet both the Antichrist and "prince of the Tro

jans."44 According to Laonikos Chalkokondiles, writing in the

1480s, many Greeks ascribed the fall of the Byzantine capital to vengeance for the sack of Troy, and the Romans firmly believed this.45 This belief was taken seriously enough in

fifteenth-century Italy to worry the pope, and Mehmet him

self certainly must have been familiar with the legend. Pius II

(whose original name, Aeneas, is not without some irony in

this context) attempted to debunk the legend while calling for

a crusade against the Turks.46 Even today, Turks living around

the archaeological site of Troy insist on the veracity of the

legend.47

Mehmet's personal association with the past may sound

familiar to scholars of Renaissance Italy. In fact, in his new

capital, Mehmet's actions were not dissimilar from those of

his papal contemporary. He collected classical sculpture and

classical texts and maintained an active Greek scriptorium. He commissioned histories, spoke and read several languages,

171

FIGURE 8. Costanzo da Ferrara, Portrait medal of Mehmet the Conqueror,

obverse, Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collec

tion (photo: National Gallery of Art).

and he even knew how to draw the human figure, as may be seen in the pages of a preserved Schoolbook.48 He supported Italian court painters, and he commissioned portrait medals

with heroic representations in the Italian manner (Figs. 8 and

9).49 I suspect we should be looking at Mehmet as another

enlightened warrior-prince of the early Renaissance. Never

theless, Western history tends to present him less favorably, as a brutal, murdering tyrant, crediting him with bringing the

final flowering of classical culture in the East to a violent end.

With the fall of Constantinople, Pius II (Aeneas Silvius

Piccolomini) complained of "a second death to Homer and a

second destruction of Plato."50 Andrea Cambini, writing in

1529, still concerned with the origins of the Tbrks, insisted

that they were descended from the Scythians, because their

present conduct could be compared with the abominations of

the Sythians, as related by classical writers.51 Western con

temporaries were eager to dismiss Mehmet as yet another ex

ample of the irrational oriental despot. In addition to his cultural interests, Mehmet derived much

of his political program from Western Europe. "How closely the Conqueror corresponded to Machiavelli's ideal of a po tentate and despot is shown by every page of his biography,"

wrote his modern biographer Franz Babinger.52 That he so

successfully out-Machiavelli'ed his Italian contemporaries, that he threatened Italy in a way none of its homegrown petty

tyrants could, may explain why we emphasize his political role at the expense of his cultural interests. Contemporary

?jiifllM

FIGURE 9. Reverse of Figure 8.

Italian condottieri could be just as brutal, if far less success

ful, and they were usually far less well educated. In contrast

to his Ottoman predecessors, whom we can see as part of a

continuity and cultural overlap with Byzantium, Mehmet seems

to have understood the difference between the classical past and what had transpired in the intervening period. That is to

say, his view of history, and of his position in it, seems to

have been shaped in large part by his familiarity with con

temporary Italian culture.

Let us return to Troy, where we began. For Mehmet, as

for his Roman imperial predecessors, Troy was more than

simply a symbol of conquest. It also represented his ancestral

home, as well as the common literary culture of the Medi terranean elite, both East and West.53 In the end, the past was

no more foreign to Mehmet than it was to his Italian contem

poraries, who viewed and used history similarly. The downfall of Troy came about with a horse, so it

seems appropriate to conclude with horses. On the medal cast

about 1481 by Constanzo da Ferrara, Mehmet is represented on horseback on the reverse, celebrating his military exploits with a bravado that evokes the classical past (Fig. 9). More

over, the equestrian image appears here on a portable object that could circulate freely between the eastern and western

Mediterranean and could attest to Mehmet's political power in a language well understood in Italy, at a time when the

equestrian portrait was just beginning to reappear in monu

mental sculpture.54

172

FIGURE 10. Equestrian statue of Justinian, Budapest, University Library, MS 35, fol. 144v (photo: University Library).

The fates of two equestrian monuments may be illu

minating in the context of an East-West discourse. In Con

stantinople, the colossal equestrian statue of a Byzantine emperor, usually identified as Justinian, dominated the Au

gustaion square at the entrance to the Great Palace and was a

landmark of the city visible from afar.55 Facing east, the rider

held a globe in his left hand and gestured with his right. It is

known from several representations, notably a drawing now

in Budapest (Fig. 10), but it also appears in several city views

in the manuscripts of Buondelmonti, and in the 1436 version

of the Notitia dignitatum (Fig. II).56 Except for the clumsi ness of the Budapest drawing and the rather curious head

dress, the equestrian statue seems to have been a standard

Roman imperial representation. To the Byzantine viewers,

however, as well as to Frankish and Muslim visitors, the

statue stood as a talisman. Its gesture was ascribed apotropaic powers, commanding the oriental enemy to stay back beyond the Byzantine border.57

Mehmet had amassed a collection of antique statuary and

had left many antique public monuments in place throughout

Constantinople, including the Serpent Column and the obe

?MT> S* C O N.ST'ANT?NQPQUTANA NOVA gwOMA.

FIGURE 11. View of Constantinople, from the Notitia dignitatum, 1436,

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon misc. 378, fol. 84 (photo: Bodleian

Library).

lisks in the Hippodrome (Fig. 2), but he nevertheless felt

obliged to remove the equestrian statue from the Augustaion,

perhaps answering to popular sentiment. Allegedly, the bronze

statue was broken into pieces, melted down, and used to fab

ricate cannons for the siege of Belgrade in 1456, but there is

some evidence that Mehmet attempted to preserve at least part of it. The curious drawing now in Budapest came from the

Topkapi Library and may have been from his personal col

lection.58 Because Mehmet was not an iconoclast by nature, the destruction stands uncomfortably amid his antiquarian interests. Nevertheless, he clearly understood the symbolic

power of antique monuments, and the destruction presents an

act as evocative as his appropriation of ancient buildings.

According to an Italian who had been taken prisoner and

who had served in the household of Mehmet, astrologers had

advised the sultan to destroy the statue because it was a threat

to the Ottomans; as long as it stood, its talismanic properties would guarantee the triumph of Christianity.59 Similarly, the

globis cruciger held by the rider had been understood by most viewers to symbolize world dominion, and this belief no

doubt lay behind the Ottoman legend of the Red Apple: to

achieve world dominion one must capture Constantinople and

take the orb.60 Following the conquest of Constantinople, however, this legend was transferred to other cities, in par ticular, to Rome.61 Thus, as the battle lines were drawn in

the discourse of the fifteenth century, the West was Rome and

Christian, while the East was istanbul/Constantinople and

173

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FIGURE 12. Rome, Campidoglio, Statue of Marcus Aurelius, as erected after 1536, University of Illinois School of Architecture slide collection (photo: A. K. Laing).

Muslim. At the same time, both Mehmet and his Italian con

temporaries looked to antiquity to legitimate their positions. Three-quarters of a century later in Rome, the equestrian

statue of Marcus Aurelius was transported to the city center to become the centerpiece in Michelangelo's redesign of the

Campidoglio (Fig. 12). In pose and gesture, the statue is quite similar to the Constantinopolitan monument just discussed.

Long thought to represent Constantine, the first Christian

emperor and founder of Constantinople, the Roman statue had been preserved through the Middle Ages in the Lateran Pal

ace, where it had accrued an array of legendary and talismanic associations similar to those attached to the statue of Justin ian.62 Perhaps most important to the present discussion are the circumstances leading to the relocation of the statue of Marcus

Aurelius to the Campidoglio: it was inspired by the "triumph" staged in Rome in 1536 to honor Charles V, following his naval

victory over the Ottomans at Tbnis. That victory was accorded the utmost significance at the time, for it checked the Ottoman

Empire's westward expansion. As reerected in its new position, the imperial figure gestures triumphantly westward, toward the dome of St. Peter's, the center of Christendom.63

We might wonder if somehow the complex meanings associated with the destruction of one equestrian statue encour

aged the politically and religiously charged re-presentation

of the other.64 Certainly the fate of the Constantinopolitan monument was known in Italy, just as the fate of Constanti

nople was known, and the meanings ascribed to the two may have been intertwined. As an emblem of the Christian, Byz antine city, the equestrian statue is a standard feature in the

fifteenth-century views of Constantinople that accompanied the text of Christopher Buondelmonti's Liber insularum

archipelagi, which was widely disseminated.65 Drawing on

its symbolic value, Mantegna included the equestrian statue of Justinian as an evocative image in his Agony in the Garden

(London, National Gallery), painted immediately after the fall of Constantinople. As Michael Vickers has demonstrated, in this painting Constantinople is represented as Jerusalem; the fall of the city to the Ottomans is thus equated with the be

trayal of Christ by Judas.66 In New Rome one mounted emperor faced east and was

destroyed; in Old Rome the other was reerected triumphantly facing west. As with the compulsory rulers' homage at Troy during antiquity, by the time of the Renaissance, the players had changed and the boundaries had shifted, but the compet itive discourse continued to be reflected in the monuments.

As the gestures of the two statues indicate, the concepts of East and West remained fundamental to the cultural, ideolog ical, and political framework of the Mediterranean.

174

NOTES

1. Kritovoulos, History of Mehmed the Conqueror, trans. C. T. Riggs

(Princeton, 1954), IV, 72-72, 181-182.

2. D. Howard, Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on

Venetian Architecture, 1100-1500 (New Haven, 2000); note also review

by R. Ousterhout, "In Pursuit of the Exotic Orient," Journal of Aes

thetic Education, XXXV/4 (2002), 113-118.

3. For Troy in the classical construction of an East-West encounter, as

well as the development of the myth of the Trojan origin of the Ro

mans, see C. B. Rose, "Troy and the Historical Imagination," Classical

World, 1998, 98-100; idem, "Bilingual Trojan Iconography," in Mauer

schau. Festschrift f?r Manfred Korfmann (T?bingen, 2002), I, 329

350; idem, "The Theater of Ilion," Studia Troica, I (1991), 69-77; and

idem, "The 1997 Post Bronze Age Excavations at Troy," Studia Troica,

VIII (1998), 71-113.1 thank Brian Rose for sharing his research with me.

4. Rose, "Bilingual Trojan Iconography," 329-330.

5. Ibid.; see also M. Sage, "Roman Visitors to Illium in the Roman Im

perial and Late Antique Period: The Symbolic Functions of a Land

scape," Studia troica, X (2000), 211-231.

6. For the history of the column, see T. Madden, "The Serpent Column of

Delphi in Constantinople: Placement, Purposes, and Mutilations," Byz antine and Modern Greek Studies, XVI (1992), 111-145.

7. T. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, MA, 1981), 68.

8. For Ilion/Troy as an alternative site, see Theophanes, XXIII, ed. de Boor;

Zonaras XIII, 3, 1-4, ed. Bonn, III, 13-14.

9. R. Stupperich, "Das Statuenprogramm in der Zeuxippos-Thermen.

?berlegungen zur Beschreibung der Christodorus von Koptos," Istan

buler Mitteilungen, XXXII (1982), 210-235, who associates the Trojan

iconography with civic identity; see also S. G. Bassett, "Historiae cus

tos: Sculpture and Tradition in the Baths of Zeuxippos," AJA, C (1996),

491-506.

10. Malalas, XIII, 7, ed. Bonn, 321; C. Mango, "Constantine's Column," in

Studies on Constantinople (Aldershot, 1993), study III, 1-6.

11. S. Bassett, The Formation of Urban Identity in Late Antique Constan

tinople (Cambridge, forthcoming). I thank the author for this reference.

12. See, among others, R. P. Lindner, Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval

Anatolia (Bloomington, IN, 1983); C. Kafadar, Between Two Worlds:

The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley, 1995); and H. Lowry, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Albany, 2003).

13. As I have discussed in "Ethnic Identity and Cultural Appropriation in

Early Ottoman Architecture," Muqarnas, XIII (1995), 48-62.

14. Ibid., 54; unfortunately, the copy of the photograph published here cuts

off the misidentifying inscription.

15. Here I borrow the language of Lindner, Nomads and Ottomans, esp. 1-50.

16. Following initial hostilities, Orhan developed a friendship with John

VI Cantacuzenus, who in 1346 gave his second daughter Theodora in

marriage to Orhan; see D. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium,

1261-1453 (London, 1972), 209.

17. J. Raby, "El Gran Turco: Mehmed the Conqueror as a Patron of the

Arts of Christendom" (Dissertation, Oxford University, 1980), 233.

18. Ousterhout, "Ethnic Identity," 54-55; see also ?. Serdaroglu, Assos

(Istanbul, 1995), 96-97.

19. Apparently the excavators were unable to get a close look at the build

ing during their first excavation season, but in the errata they state

clearly, "The edifice is referable to the earliest ages of Turkish archi

tecture?probably to the 14th century"; J. T. Clark, "Report on the In

vestigations at Assos, 1881," Papers of the Archaeological Institute of America (Classical Series, I) (Boston, 1882), 122-123 and errata, x.

The mosque is still often said to have originally been a Byzantine church, see A. Kuran, The Mosque in Early Ottoman Architecture (Chicago,

1968), 38; also B. McDonagh, Turkey: The Aegean and Mediterranean

Coasts (Blue Guide) (London, 1989), 204.

20. See, for example, the assessment of O. Hjort, "The Sculpture of the

Kariye Camii," DOP, XXXIII (1979), 199-289; R. Ousterhout, The

Architecture of the Kariye Camii in Istanbul (Washington, DC, 1987),

esp. 140.

21. Ousterhout, "Ethnic Identity," passim; further discussed in idem, Master

Builders of Byzantium (Princeton, 1999), 140-145.

22. M. Lindgren, ed., C. G. L?wenhielm Artist and Diplomat in Istanbul,

1824-1827 (Uppsala University Library, Exhibition Catalogue no.

XXXIII) (Uppsala, 1993), II, 18, IV, 39 (I thank Lars Karlsson for this

reference); and M.-F. Auz?py and J.-R Gr?lois, eds., Byzance retrouv?e.

Erudits et voyageurs fran?ais (XVIe-XVIIIe si?cles) (Paris, 2001), 139

and Fig. 74. These buildings will be addressed by Suna ?agaptay-Ankan in her Ph.D. dissertation on the architecture of fourteenth-century

Bithynia.

23. G. Necipoglu, "The Life of an Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia after

Byzantium," in Hagia Sophia from the Ages of Justinian to the Pres

ent, ed. R. Mark and A. ?akmak (Cambridge, 1992), 195-225, esp. 206-207.

24. G. Necipoglu, "Challenging the Past: Sinan and the Competitive Dis

course of Early Modern Islamic Architecture," Muqarnas, X (1993), 169-180.

25. S. Vryonis Jr., "Byzantine Constantinople and Ottoman Istanbul: Evo

lution in a Millennial Imperial Iconography," in The Ottoman City and

Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order, ed. I. Bierman, R. Abou

el-Haj, and D. Preziosi (New Rochelle, NY, 1991), 13-52; ?. Kafes

cioglu, "The Ottoman Capital in the Making: The Reconstruction of

Constantinople in the Fifteenth Century" (Dissertation, Harvard Uni

versity, Cambridge, MA, 1996).

26. J. Raby, "Mehmed the Conqueror's Greek Scriptorium," DOP, XXXVII

(1983), 15-34.

27. Necipoglu, "Life of an Imperial Monument," 195-225.

28. Ibid., 200, with further references.

29. Ibid., 206-207.

30. Raby, "El Gran Turco," 253 note 111; see also Necipoglu, "Challeng

ing the Past," 171; Mehmet's mosque collapsed in the earthquake of

1766 and was subsequently rebuilt; see W. M?ller-Wiener, Bildlexikon

zur Topographie Istanbuls (T?bingen, 1977), 405-411.

31. Raby, "El Gran Turco," 253 and note 111.

32. Kritovoulos, History of Mehmed the Conqueror, 136.

33. W. Miller, The Latins in the Levant (London, 1908), 443-445; Raby, "El Gran Turco," 232.

34. For text, see A. Michaelis, Der Parthenon (Leipzig, 1871), 353.

35. For the Parthenon in the Middle Ages, see M. Korres, "The Parthenon

from Antiquity to the 19th Century," in The Parthenon and Its Impact in Modern Times, ed. P. Tournikiotis (Athens, 1996), 138-162; and

R. Ousterhout, '"Bestride the very peak of heaven': The Parthenon

after Antiquity," in The Parthenon: From Antiquity to the Present, ed.

J. Neils (Cambridge, forthcoming).

175

36. Significant sections appear in translation in K. Andrews, Athens Alive

(Athens, 1979), 68-77; for the Greek version, see K. Bires, Ta Anika

tou Evlia Tselebi (Athens, 1959), 28-42.

37. Unlike Hagia Sophia, which preserves its Ottoman accretions and thus

stands as a sum of its history, the later additions to the Parthenon were

removed in a flurry of antiquarian interest in 1843 following the Greek

war of independence; see R. McNeal, "Archaeology and the Destruc

tion of the Later Athenian Acropolis," Antiquity, LXV (1991), 49-63; see also comments in J. Hurwitt, The Athenian Acropolis (Cambridge,

1999), 298-302.

38. Earlier scholars believed that Cyriacus had been the tutor in question, but see J. Raby, "A Sultan of Paradox: Mehmet the Conqueror as a Pa

tron of the Arts," Oxford Art Journal, V/l (1982), 3-8.

39. Raby, "Scriptorium," 18; Kritovoulos, History of Mehmed the Con

queror, 3-6.

40. Raby, "Scriptorium," 18.

41. A Komnene prince is alleged to have fled to Konya, converted, and

married a Seljuk princess; M. F. K?pr?l?, Les origines de l'empire otto

man (Paris, 1953), 82-88; derived from T. Spandounes, On the Origin

of the Ottoman Emperors, trans. D. Nicol (Cambridge, 1997), 11.

42. Raby, "Scriptorium," 18.

43. A. Pertusi, "I primi studi in occidenti sull'origine e la potenza dei

Turchi," Studi veneziani, XII (1970), 465-552; Raby, "El Gran Turco,"

233-234.

44. Letter preserved in B. von Breydenbach, Peregrinatio ad terram sanctam

(1486); T. Spencer, "Turks and Trojans in the Renaissance," Modern

Language Review, XLVII/3 (1952), 330-333.

45. Spencer, "Turks and Trojans," 331; for text, Migne, Patrologiae cursus

completus, XXXIX, col. 397c.

46. A. S. Piccolomini, Europa, in qua sui temporis varias historias com

plectitur (1548), II, chap. 26; ed. F. Strowski, II, 106; cited in Spencer, "Turks and Trojans," 332; see also S. Runciman, "Teucri and Turci," in

Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies in Honor of Aziz S. Atiya, ed.

S. Hanna (Leiden, 1972), 344-348.

47. The popularity of the recent film Troy with Brad Pitt has reignited the

debate on the possible Trojan origins of the Turks, a cause taken up by several Turkish politicians; see most recently, H. ?ahin, Troyahlar Turk

M?yd?? (Istanbul, 2004), a collection of recent essays from the Turk

ish press. I thank Suna ?agaptay-Ankan for bringing this amusing little

book to my attention.

48. Raby, "El Gran Turco," 195-198; idem, "Sultan of Paradox," Fig. 2.

The various antiquities used as spolia throughout Topkapi Palace may

represent part of Mehmet's collection; see H. Tezcan, Topkapi Sarayi ve ?evresinin Bizans devri arkolojisi (Istanbul, 1989).

49. Raby, "El Gran Turco," passim.

50. See J. Brotton, The Renaissance Bazaar: From the Silk Road to Michel

angelo (Oxford, 2002), 49.

51. Spencer, "Turks and Trojans," 332.

52. F. Babinger, Mehmet the Conqueror and His Time, ed. W. C. Hickman, trans. R. Manheim (German ed., 1953; Princeton, 1978), 502.

53. Sage, "Roman Visitors," 230-231.

54. Brotton, Renaissance Bazaar, 138-144.

55. C. Mango, "The Columns of Justinian and His Successors" and "Jus

tinian's Equestrian Statue," in Studies on Constantinople (Aldershot,

1993), studies X and XI, the latter reprinted from AB, XLI (1959),

351-356; see also J. Raby, "Mehmed the Conqueror and the Eques trian Statue of the Augustaion," Illinois Classical Studies, XII (1987),

305-313.

56. M. Vickers, "Mantegna and Constantinople," BM, CXVII (1976), 680

687, esp. 683; see also R. Stichel, "Zum Bronzekolo? Justinians I. vom

Augusteion in Konstantinopel," in Griechische und r?mische Statuetten

und Gro?bronzen, Akten der 9. internationalen Tagung ?ber antike

Bronzen (Vienna, 1988), 133-136; F. Alto Bauer, Stadt, Platz und

Denkmal in der Sp?tantike (Mainz, 1996), 158-162.

57. As Procopius explained in De aedif. I, 2, Iff.; trans. C. Mango, The Art

of the Byzantine Empire: Sources and Documents (Toronto, 1986), 110-111.

58. Raby, "El Gran Turco," 221-222 and 351-359.

59. The account in the Diario di viaggio of Gian-Maria Angiolello is thor

oughly discussed by Raby, "Mehmed the Conqueror and the Eques trian Statue," 307-308.

60. Ibid., 305 note 1.

61. F. W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans (Oxford, 1929),

II, 736-740.

62. D. Kinney, "The Horse, the King, and the Cuckoo: Medieval Narra

tions of the Statue of Marcus Aurelius," W&I, XVIII (2002), 372-398.

63. S. Kostof, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals, 2nd ed.

(Oxford, 1995), 495.

64. The motivation behind the transfer of the statue to the Capitoline Hill

is not recorded; see J. S. Ackerman, The Architecture of Michelangelo

(Harmondsworth, 1986), 136-170; M. Mezzatesta, "Marcus Aurelius,

Fray Antonio de Guevara, and the Ideal of the Perfect Prince in the

Sixteenth Century," AB, LXVI (1984), 620-633, suggests a personal association of Charles V with Marcus Aurelius, but this would not ne

gate the hypothesis presented here.

65. I. Manners, "Constructing the Image of a City: The Representation of

Constantinople in Christopher Buondelmonti's Liber insularum archipe

lagir Annals of the Association of American Geographers, LXXXVII

(1997), 72-102, esp. 86.

66. Vickers, "Mantegna and Constantinople," 683.

176