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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

The Great Palace of Constantinople A G Paspatēs 9781146299121 Books

I am disappointed with "The Great Palace of Constantinople" in many ways. The most important are: (1) it is a small sized book considering the information it contains on such a specific topic; (2) upon opening, the use of very small fonts and letter sizes make it very hard to read; one of those page-sized magnifiers might help; (3) it really seems only a bound "xerox" copy of a manuscript with "smudges", as from bad erasure marks, and definitely not a type-set book, as I was expecting; and (4) it is almost worthless when trying to read and understand the graphs, drawings and such included in this manuscript. If I would have viewed this book beforehand, I never would have ordered it.

Product details Paperback 398 pages Publisher Nabu Press (March 1, 2010) Language English ISBN-10 1146299125

Tags : The Great Palace of Constantinople [A G. Paspatēs] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters,A G. Paspatēs,The Great Palace of Constantinople,Nabu Press,1146299125,Architecture,Architecture General,General
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The Great Palace of Constantinople A G Paspatēs 9781146299121 Books Reviews

The Great Palace of Byzantium was the principal stage upon which the Byzantine emperors and empresses played out their stories over a period of fully 750 years, from 330 to 1080 A.D. (and it remained a secondary setting for another 180 years beyond that, after the emperors shifted their main residence to the Blachernae Palace). With the possible exception of the Forbidden City in Beijing, there is no other building or complex of buildings I can think of that played as central a part in the history of the world for such a lengthy period of time.

Moreover, in its prime, particularly in the ninth and tenth centuries, the Great Palace was a stunningly rich and beautiful place - a progression of residences and halls and pavilions and chapels and churches, glittering with gold mosaics and vividly-colored marbles, hung with rich fabrics and filled with costly furnishings and ingenious mechanical contraptions made of precious metals, which spilled down a series of terraces and slopes overlooking the sea. Had it survived, it would undoubtedly be considered one of the world's greatest historical and artistic monuments.

Alas, practically none of it still exists. The only remains of the Great Palace that a visitor can see in Istanbul today are an extensive series of sixth century mosaic pavements that once filled a large courtyard and the ravaged, hollow-eyed shell of one of the old imperial residence halls, sadly neglected in a small park along the seaside.

Thus, any lover of Byzantine history is likely to be intrigued by a book that tries to re-create the layout and appearance of the Great Palace in its glory days. But this volume by A.G. Paspates, a respected Greek scholar of the late nineteenth century who lived in Constantinople and devoted his professional career to seeking out and identifying the city's Byzantine remains, only partially succeeds in that objective.

Paspates' method is straightforward. He moves through the Palace, building by building and area by area. He quotes heavily from the "Book of Ceremonies" of the tenth century emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, which meticulously described the progression of the emperor, empress, and their retainers through the palace and its grounds while conducting the various ceremonies that occupied so much of their time, as well as any other contemporary sources that describe the lay-out or appearance of the buildings. He also relies on his own explorations of the area of the Palace, which seem to have taken place between 1870-1890.

Paspates' book does a good job of pulling together in a single volume the contemporary accounts of the Palace. And his accounts of what he found still standing at the end of the nineteenth century are intriguing, if heartbreaking (for a Byzantinist), because most of what he saw has since been lost - much of it during the construction of the seafront railway leading to the Sirkeci station below the Topkapi Palace in the 1870's. For example, he notes that the Byzantine seaside Karea Gate was discovered intact inside the walls of a Turkish garden, but was destroyed because it was in the path of the railway (23). He also describes substantial remains surviving from what he thought was the Bucoleon Palace, but was more likely the Magnaura (173-74), which were likewise sacrificed to the railway. He believes he was able to still find part of the great Pharos or lighthouse which stood within the Palace grounds (163-65), as well as some of the supporting vaults and basement of the Hall of Justinian II "Cut-Nose" (162-63, 239).

But although Paspates was a highly respected Constantinople antiquarian and scholar who had a better opportunity than many of his successors to compare contemporary accounts of the Palace with surviving remains, many of his interpretations seem off the mark, or have not been followed by most subsequent scholars. He thought the great square known as the Augustaeum ran south from the Haghia Sophia and separated the Hippodrome from the Great Palace; modern scholars all seem to think it was oriented along an east-west axis. While I think he may be right about the location of the Pharos, most modern experts place it right along the seawalls (where a portion of a tall tower survives), not further up the hill. He places the Church of Our Lady of the Copper-Workers along the Augustaeum to the south of the Haghia Sophia, whereas it actually seems to have stood northwest of the Great Church. And the Bucoleon Palace is believed by most scholars to be the surviving wrecked hall along the Kennedy Caddesi also known as the House of Justinian, not the remains due east of Haghia Eirene to which Paspates assigned this designation. (He also mistakenly thinks that the walls around the Topkapi Sarai were built by Michael Palaeologus, rather than by Mehmed II after the Turkish conquest, and he likewise has a completely incorrect understanding of the course of the walls of ancient Byzantium.)

So Paspates has to be read with caution, and should be supplemented by David Talbot Rice's reports of his excavations in the area of the Great Palace between the 1930's and 1950's, which revealed the mosaic pavements now included in the Mosaic Museum. Still, this book will help you to visualize the glories of the Great Palace. It is delightful to learn that the ceiling of the bedroom of the imperial children had an inscription thanking God "that thou hast surrounded us with children." And there are some marvelous descriptions, like this one of the "New Chamber" built by the Emperor Basil I

"This bedchamber . . . was built from the foundation by Basil the Macedonian. It had a domed roof supported on a series of sixteen marble pillars. Eight were of green Thessalian marble, six of onychite, which the sculptor had ornamented with vines and animals; the other two were decorated with monograms. The walls above the pillars, and the eastern semi-dome were enriched with gold mosaics, representing the builder Basil the Macedonian sitting on a throne surrounded by his generals, offering him as gifts, the cities which he had taken. On the roof were depicted the labours of Basil, his efforts on behalf of his subjects, and the hardships of his military expeditions. In the middle of the floor was a brilliantly colored mosaic representing a peacock, framed in Carian marble. In the four corners of the room, which were square, there were four eagles formed of small stones of various colours. These are described as wonderful works of art, which looked as if they were alive and about to fly away. In addition to so much ornament the walls bore a representation of Basil and his consort Eudokia in their Imperial robes. Beside them were their children, holding books."

Even Paspates eventually feels obliged to apologize for subjecting the reader to "the dry and repellent study of so many buildings" (302), and the relentless focus on physical structures, with relatively little about the people who lived in them, does get tedious towards the end. Another not-so-small complaint is that the only map included on the book, which is in color on the cover and black-and-white in the endspiece, is so small and so complicated (with a key that runs to at least 30 items) that it is of limited help in trying to follow Paspates's descriptions of the lay-out of the Palace. You can download a larger version from the Elibron Books website, but you will still need a good magnifying glass for the map to be of much use.
The Great Palace of Byzantium was the principal stage upon which the Byzantine emperors and empresses played out their stories over a period of fully 750 years, from 330 to 1080 A.D. (and it remained a secondary setting for another 180 years beyond that, after the emperors shifted their main residence to the Blachernae Palace). With the possible exception of the Forbidden City in Beijing, there is no other building or complex of buildings I can think of that played as central a part in the history of the world for such a lengthy period of time.

Moreover, in its prime, particularly in the ninth and tenth centuries, the Great Palace was a stunningly rich and beautiful place - a progression of residences and halls and pavilions and chapels and churches, glittering with gold mosaics and vividly-colored marbles, hung with rich fabrics and filled with costly furnishings and ingenious mechanical contraptions made of precious metals, which spilled down a series of terraces and slopes overlooking the sea. Had it survived, it would undoubtedly be considered one of the world's greatest historical and artistic monuments.

Alas, practically none of it still exists. The only remains of the Great Palace that a visitor can see in Istanbul today are an extensive series of sixth century mosaic pavements that once filled a large courtyard and the ravaged, hollow-eyed shell of one of the old imperial residence halls, sadly neglected in a small park along the seaside.

Thus, any lover of Byzantine history is likely to be intrigued by a book that tries to re-create the layout and appearance of the Great Palace in its glory days. But this volume by A.G. Paspates, a respected Greek scholar of the late nineteenth century who lived in Constantinople and devoted his professional career to seeking out and identifying the city's Byzantine remains, only partially succeeds in that objective.

Paspates' method is straightforward. He moves through the Palace, building by building and area by area. He quotes heavily from the "Book of Ceremonies" of the tenth century emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, which meticulously described the progression of the emperor, empress, and their retainers through the palace and its grounds while conducting the various ceremonies that occupied so much of their time, as well as any other contemporary sources that describe the lay-out or appearance of the buildings. He also relies on his own explorations of the area of the Palace, which seem to have taken place between 1870-1890.

Paspates' book does a good job of pulling together in a single volume the contemporary accounts of the Palace. And his accounts of what he found still standing at the end of the nineteenth century are intriguing, if heartbreaking (for a Byzantinist), because most of what he saw has since been lost - much of it during the construction of the seafront railway leading to the Sirkeci station below the Topkapi Palace in the 1870's. For example, he notes that the Byzantine seaside Karea Gate was discovered intact inside the walls of a Turkish garden, but was destroyed because it was in the path of the railway (23). He also describes substantial remains surviving from what he thought was the Bucoleon Palace, but was more likely the Magnaura (173-74), which were likewise sacrificed to the railway. He believes he was able to still find part of the great Pharos or lighthouse which stood within the Palace grounds (163-65), as well as some of the supporting vaults and basement of the Hall of Justinian II "Cut-Nose" (162-63, 239).

But although Paspates was a highly respected Constantinople antiquarian and scholar who had a better opportunity than many of his successors to compare contemporary accounts of the Palace with surviving remains, many of his interpretations seem off the mark, or have not been followed by most subsequent scholars. He thought the great square known as the Augustaeum ran south from the Haghia Sophia and separated the Hippodrome from the Great Palace; modern scholars all seem to think it was oriented along an east-west axis. While I think he may be right about the location of the Pharos, most modern experts place it right along the seawalls (where a portion of a tall tower survives), not further up the hill. He places the Church of Our Lady of the Copper-Workers along the Augustaeum to the south of the Haghia Sophia, whereas it actually seems to have stood northwest of the Great Church. And the Bucoleon Palace is believed by most scholars to be the surviving wrecked hall along the Kennedy Caddesi also known as the House of Justinian, not the remains due east of Haghia Eirene to which Paspates assigned this designation. (He also mistakenly thinks that the walls around the Topkapi Sarai were built by Michael Palaeologus, rather than by Mehmed II after the Turkish conquest, and he likewise has a completely incorrect understanding of the course of the walls of ancient Byzantium.)

So Paspates has to be read with caution, and should be supplemented by David Talbot Rice's reports of his excavations in the area of the Great Palace between the 1930's and 1950's, which revealed the mosaic pavements now included in the Mosaic Museum. Still, this book will help you to visualize the glories of the Great Palace. It is delightful to learn that the ceiling of the bedroom of the imperial children had an inscription thanking God "that thou hast surrounded us with children." And there are some marvelous descriptions, like this one of the "New Chamber" built by the Emperor Basil I

"This bedchamber . . . was built from the foundation by Basil the Macedonian. It had a domed roof supported on a series of sixteen marble pillars. Eight were of green Thessalian marble, six of onychite, which the sculptor had ornamented with vines and animals; the other two were decorated with monograms. The walls above the pillars, and the eastern semi-dome were enriched with gold mosaics, representing the builder Basil the Macedonian sitting on a throne surrounded by his generals, offering him as gifts, the cities which he had taken. On the roof were depicted the labours of Basil, his efforts on behalf of his subjects, and the hardships of his military expeditions. In the middle of the floor was a brilliantly colored mosaic representing a peacock, framed in Carian marble. In the four corners of the room, which were square, there were four eagles formed of small stones of various colours. These are described as wonderful works of art, which looked as if they were alive and about to fly away. In addition to so much ornament the walls bore a representation of Basil and his consort Eudokia in their Imperial robes. Beside them were their children, holding books."

Even Paspates eventually feels obliged to apologize for subjecting the reader to "the dry and repellent study of so many buildings" (302), and the relentless focus on physical structures, with relatively little about the people who lived in them, does get tedious towards the end. Another not-so-small complaint is that the only map included on the book, which is in color on the cover and black-and-white in the endspiece, is so small and so complicated (with a key that runs to at least 30 items) that it is of limited help in trying to follow Paspates's descriptions of the lay-out of the Palace. You can download a larger version from the Elibron Books website, but you will still need a good magnifying glass for the map to be of much use.
I am disappointed with "The Great Palace of Constantinople" in many ways. The most important are (1) it is a small sized book considering the information it contains on such a specific topic; (2) upon opening, the use of very small fonts and letter sizes make it very hard to read; one of those page-sized magnifiers might help; (3) it really seems only a bound "xerox" copy of a manuscript with "smudges", as from bad erasure marks, and definitely not a type-set book, as I was expecting; and (4) it is almost worthless when trying to read and understand the graphs, drawings and such included in this manuscript. If I would have viewed this book beforehand, I never would have ordered it.