Constantinople

Description

Byzantium – Constantinople – Istanbul: founded as a Greek settlement on the Bosporus, the city’s history is replete with significant political and cultural developments. The Hagia Sophia stems from the early Christian era, the Middle Ages bequeathed us churches and monasteries rich in mosiacs as well as illuminated manuscripts and icons; and the cultural Renaissance in 1453 brought magnificent palaces and mosques, calligraphic treasures, and book and miniature paintings inspired by Persian.