1570 Constantinopel des Griechischen Lenserchumbs Hauptstatt/im Land Thracia…

This is one of the earliest published maps of the great city of Constantinople as it appeared approximately a century following its conquest in 1453 by Ottoman Emperor Fatih Mehmed (Mehmed the Conqueror). The hand colored map is accompanied by text in German on both the face and verso. Munster’s map of the great city of Constantinople, while geographically imperfect, conveys a sense of the grandeur of the city which had been the capital of the eastern Roman Empire from the time of Constantine the Great till its walls were felled by invading  Ottomans in May 1453. One particularly interesting feature of the map is the depiction of Hagia Sophia, the great edifice built under the reign of Justinian in the mid 6th century. When Fatih Mehmed and his army broke through the city walls in 1453, he rode straight to its entrance and immediately declared this magnificent Byzantine cathedral to be a mosque, and ordered the construction of a wooden minaret for his muezzin to call his people to pray