Map of Constantinople Illustration from the Liber insularum archipelagi (The Book of the Islands of the Archipelago) by Cristoforo Buondelmonti (ca. 1380/90–post-1430) Italy (Florence?), ca. 1420–30 Ink and colors on parchment Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice (Ms. cod. Marc. lat. xiv, 25=4595, p. 123) Cristoforo Buondelmonti was an interesting figure, a Florentine pilgrim/adventurer who spent about fifteen years (ca. 1415–30) journeying the eastern Mediterranean Sea and visiting its coasts and islands.[1] His travels resulted in the compilation of a geographic and historical treatise, the Liber insularum archipelagi, a work possibly inspired by Ptolemy’s Geography, that was dedicated to the cardinal Giordano Orsini, of whom Buondelmonti was the prior. The majority of extant manuscripts of the work are illustrated with seventy-nine maps. Numerous versions of the text survive, in both an expanded and a short form,[2] but the original text sent to Cardinal Orsini before 1420 seems to be lost. The many later copies have therefore guaranteed the preservation of the text, while also moving it farther and farther away from the original. Although the book’s title implies that only the islands of the Greek archipelago in the Aegean Sea are dealt with, Buondelmonti added a last chapter devoted to Constantinople, which he had visited and knew very well. In his time, the city was only a shadow of the great imperial Byzantium, its population having shrunk to about seventy thousand from half a million,[3] and many of its most prominent buildings were partially in ruins. His maps of Constantinople, however, provide a rare glimpse of this city, still splendidly decadent, just a few decades before the Ottomans captured it in 1453.[4] The present map, from one of the earliest extant manuscripts, is an extremely clear and useful bird’s-eye view of the city.[5] The most important monuments are captioned in Latin and neatly illustrated on this map that shows sparse urban sprawl. The lower part, the historical city, is dominated by Hagia Sophia, which adjoins the Hippodrome; several honorific imperial columns still stand; double walls guard the side unprotected by water. The Golden Horn separates this portion of the city from the relatively new urban area of Pera, the mostly Genoese, partly Venetian, colony that had recently become the maritime trading center. The only walled building on that coast is the arsenal, but the inner city, which includes the tall Turris Christi (later known as Galata Tower), is fortified. Since the coastline of Pera was walled between 1431 and 1435, this map of Pera also provides a terminus ante quem for Buondelmonti’s map.[6] sc 1. R. Weiss 1964 is one of the most important biographical articles on Buondelmonti. 2. According to Thomov 1996, p. 435, there exist three expanded versions and thirty-seven short ones. 3. In the year 600, the city had an estimated population of up to 500,000. See Magdalino 2002, p. 529 and n. 1. 4. Gerola 1931b is still the best comparative survey of Buondelmonti’s maps of Constantinople. 5. Mathews 1998, fig. 9. 6. Barsanti 1999, p. 41. References: Gerola 1931b; R. Weiss 1964; Thomov 1996; Barsanti 1999; Magdalino 2002. [Please refer to the Bibliography and Exhibition Checklist in the Resources section for further information.] BACK TO TOP