Paleologi Imperatores Constaninopoletani et Marchiones Montisferrati

Title

Paleologi Imperatores Constaninopoletani et Marchiones Montisferrati

Description

Map shows a total bird´s eye view of Constantinople and the genealogical tree of the kings, with beautiful heraldic cartouche

ca. 1626

Artist

Albizzi (1547-1626)

Antonio Albizzi (1547 - 1626 ). Writer, jurist and genealogist from a noble Florentine family. Albizzi was born in Florence. Little is known about his life. In 1576 he was in the service of Cardinal Archduke Andrew of Austria. In 1585 he converted to Lutheranism. From 1608 he spent the rest of his life in the Protestant imperial city of Kempten (Bavaria), where he died in 1626.

Historical Description

Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman and Byzantine (330 –1204 and 1261–1453), the Latin (1204–1261), and the Ottoman (1453–1922) empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD at ancient Byzantium, as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, and dedicated on 11 May 330.In the 12th century, the city was the largest and wealthiest European city and it was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times. After the loss of its territory, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire was reduced to just its capital city and its environs, eventually falling to the Ottomans in 1453. Following the Muslim conquest, the former bastion of Christianity in the east, Constantinople, was turned into the Islamic capital of the Ottoman Empire, under which it prospered and flourished again. After the founding of the modern Republic of Turkey the successor state of the Ottoman Empire the city was renamed Istanbul in 1923. Istanbul is probably the Turkish modification of the ancient Greek. This interpretation seems conclusive, because those who spoke colloquially "the city" in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages in the Eastern Roman Empire generally meant Constantinople, which, with its five hundred thousand inhabitants and its mighty walls, could not be compared to any other city in a wide area .