The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II - Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire by John Freely
Authors: John Freely
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First Hill, the pleasure dome that would come to be known as Topkapı Sarayı.
Kritoboulos goes on to write that Mehmet also ordered his notables ‘to construct many very fine arsenals to shelter the ships and their furnishings, and to build very strong, large buildings for the storing of arms, cannon, and other such supplies’. The naval arsenal, known as the Tersane, was on the Golden Horn, while the armoury, called Tophane, was on the Bosphorus, both of them just outside the walls of Galata on those sides.
A number of Mehmet’s vezirs also erected mosque complexes in Istanbul. The earliest of these is Mahmut Pasha Camii. This mosque complex was built on the Second Hill in 1462 by Mahmut Pasha, who succeeded Zaganos Pasha as grand vezir three years after the Conquest. Kritoboulos writes in praise of Mahmut Pasha, who by all accounts was the greatest of all of the Conqueror’s grand vezirs and one of the best who ever held that post in the Ottoman Empire. ‘This man had so fine a nature that he outshone not only all his contemporaries but also his predecessors in wisdom, bravery, virtue, and other good qualities. He was…a man of better character than them all, as shown by his accomplishments.’
The mosques and other structures built by Mehmet and his vezirs marked the first phase of the transition in which Greek Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, became Turkish Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire. One can see this transition in the famous Buondelmonti maps, the earliest of which is dated 1420 and the latest 1480. The city looks essentially the same in these two maps, but in the later one we can see the castles of Rumeli Hisarı and Yedikule, the Mosques of the Conqueror and Mahmut Pasha, the palaces of Eski Saray and Topkapı Sarayı, the Covered Bazaar, the naval arsenal on the Golden Horn, the cannon foundry on the Bosphorus, and even the minaret on what was now the Great Mosque of Haghia Sophia, which in itself symbolises the transition from Byzantine Constantinople to Ottoman Istanbul.
5
Europe in Terror
When news of the fall of Constantinople reached western Europe there was general consternation, and it was reported that Mehmet was assembling a huge army and fleet to attack Sicily and Italy. Cardinal Bessarion’s letter to the Doge of Venice after the fall of Constantinople catches the sense of terror in Europe caused by the Turkish onslaught: ‘A city which was so flourishing…the splendour and glory of the East…the refuge of all good things, has been captured, despoiled, ravaged and completely sacked by the most inhuman barbarians…by the fiercest of wild beasts… Much danger threatens Italy, not to mention other lands, if the violent assaults of the most ferocious barbarians are not checked.’
Frederick III, the Holy Roman Emperor, broke down in tears when he heard the news and shut himself away in his quarters to pray and meditate. His adviser, Bishop Aeneas Silvio Piccolomini, the future Pope Pius II, convinced him that he should take direct action and lead a holy war against the Turks. Aeneas wrote to Pope Nicholas V with this same proposal on 12 July 1453, pointing out the terrible threat posed by the Grand Turk, and urging him to call for a crusade:
Here we have horrible news of the fall of Constantinople - if only it were false… Now we see one of the two lights of Christendom extinguished. We behold the seat of eastern empire overthrown, all the Glory that was Greece blotted out … Now Mohammed reigns among us. Now the Turk hangs over our very head. The Black Sea is closed to us, the Don has become inaccessible. Now the Vlachs must obey the Turk. Next his sword will reach the Hungarians and then the Germans. In the meantime we are beset by internecine strife… Let them make a peace or a truce with their fellow Christians, and with joined forces take up arms against the enemies of salvations.
The Pope issued a bull calling for a crusade, condemning Mehmet
Kritoboulos goes on to write that Mehmet also ordered his notables ‘to construct many very fine arsenals to shelter the ships and their furnishings, and to build very strong, large buildings for the storing of arms, cannon, and other such supplies’. The naval arsenal, known as the Tersane, was on the Golden Horn, while the armoury, called Tophane, was on the Bosphorus, both of them just outside the walls of Galata on those sides.
A number of Mehmet’s vezirs also erected mosque complexes in Istanbul. The earliest of these is Mahmut Pasha Camii. This mosque complex was built on the Second Hill in 1462 by Mahmut Pasha, who succeeded Zaganos Pasha as grand vezir three years after the Conquest. Kritoboulos writes in praise of Mahmut Pasha, who by all accounts was the greatest of all of the Conqueror’s grand vezirs and one of the best who ever held that post in the Ottoman Empire. ‘This man had so fine a nature that he outshone not only all his contemporaries but also his predecessors in wisdom, bravery, virtue, and other good qualities. He was…a man of better character than them all, as shown by his accomplishments.’
The mosques and other structures built by Mehmet and his vezirs marked the first phase of the transition in which Greek Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, became Turkish Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire. One can see this transition in the famous Buondelmonti maps, the earliest of which is dated 1420 and the latest 1480. The city looks essentially the same in these two maps, but in the later one we can see the castles of Rumeli Hisarı and Yedikule, the Mosques of the Conqueror and Mahmut Pasha, the palaces of Eski Saray and Topkapı Sarayı, the Covered Bazaar, the naval arsenal on the Golden Horn, the cannon foundry on the Bosphorus, and even the minaret on what was now the Great Mosque of Haghia Sophia, which in itself symbolises the transition from Byzantine Constantinople to Ottoman Istanbul.
5
Europe in Terror
When news of the fall of Constantinople reached western Europe there was general consternation, and it was reported that Mehmet was assembling a huge army and fleet to attack Sicily and Italy. Cardinal Bessarion’s letter to the Doge of Venice after the fall of Constantinople catches the sense of terror in Europe caused by the Turkish onslaught: ‘A city which was so flourishing…the splendour and glory of the East…the refuge of all good things, has been captured, despoiled, ravaged and completely sacked by the most inhuman barbarians…by the fiercest of wild beasts… Much danger threatens Italy, not to mention other lands, if the violent assaults of the most ferocious barbarians are not checked.’
Frederick III, the Holy Roman Emperor, broke down in tears when he heard the news and shut himself away in his quarters to pray and meditate. His adviser, Bishop Aeneas Silvio Piccolomini, the future Pope Pius II, convinced him that he should take direct action and lead a holy war against the Turks. Aeneas wrote to Pope Nicholas V with this same proposal on 12 July 1453, pointing out the terrible threat posed by the Grand Turk, and urging him to call for a crusade:
Here we have horrible news of the fall of Constantinople - if only it were false… Now we see one of the two lights of Christendom extinguished. We behold the seat of eastern empire overthrown, all the Glory that was Greece blotted out … Now Mohammed reigns among us. Now the Turk hangs over our very head. The Black Sea is closed to us, the Don has become inaccessible. Now the Vlachs must obey the Turk. Next his sword will reach the Hungarians and then the Germans. In the meantime we are beset by internecine strife… Let them make a peace or a truce with their fellow Christians, and with joined forces take up arms against the enemies of salvations.
The Pope issued a bull calling for a crusade, condemning Mehmet
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