On İstanbul’s Italian footprints

In the 13th century, a small community of Genoese people, supported by the Byzantines against their common rival, the Venetians, settled in a small district of Constantinople, Galata, as a virtually independent official Genoese city-state in 1261.

Strolling through the back streets of the district today, one can still find the remnants of the old city wall that surrounded Galata at that time. Actually, the Genoese had only obtained permission to surround their city with a moat. However, they soon started connecting the houses at their district's outer limits by a wall and thus, in time, developed a walled defensive system of their own. The former wall's inscriptions -- including the Italian names of those who participated in the project at the time -- are now exhibited in the İstanbul Archeology Museum.

The most important part of the Genoese wall system was definitely the Galata Tower, built in 1348 and originally named the “Christea Turris” (Tower of Christ). Later serving as a fire lookout point and a prison, today it amuses thousands of visitors who enjoy the amazing view from the 61-meter tower.

In fact, during the Middle Ages, Galata was a typical Italian city, built, like Genoa, on a slope, it contained everything needed for the Italian community's social life. The district had a small “Piazza” (square) in the Karaköy quarter and a “Palazzo del Comune” (Palace of the Municipality), built in 1314 by famous architect Montano de Marinis, a copy of the San Giorgio Palace in Genoa. The buildings ruins can still be found in the back streets of Galata on Bankalar Street, together with a few remains of the surrounding Genoese houses of the early 1300s.

Typical of the Italian churches of that time was surely the one devoted to St. Paul and St. Dominic built in the second decade of the 14th century in the style of the Italian mendicant friars' order. The building is now the Arab Mosque -- after the Moors from Andalusia who had migrated to İstanbul in the 16th and 17th centuries and took shelter there. You can have a look at the building in today's “Thursday Bazaar,” the worker's quarter in Karaköy.

Galata and Pera -- Treasuries of Italian history

However, after the conquest in 1453, when Fatih Sultan Mehmet famously captured Constantinople for the Ottomans, most of Galata's defenses were destroyed and the quarter became an integrated part of the city rather than a separate entity. The Italians were allowed to keep their own buildings and property, however, and thus, during the following centuries, went on contributing to the economic, social and cultural life of the empire in great number. Italian people worked in various branches of trade, as well as in the medical profession and in the fields of art and architecture.

This was especially so during the mid-19th century, which was a kind of reformation era for the Ottoman Empire called “Tanzimat.” During this period, Italy was very much associated with the fine arts and so during the reign of Mahmut II numerous Italians of different backgrounds, such as officers, musicians and doctors, found a second homeland in the Ottoman Empire. Among them were famous names such as the composers and conductors Giuseppe Donizetti, Angelo Mariani, Pisani and Callisto Guatelli, as well as many architects, including Giulio Mongeri, Guglielmo Semprini, Gaspere Fossati, Vitaliano Poselli, Piero Arigoni and painters, such as Bellini, Fausto Zonaro and Leonardo de Mango.

The beautiful chapel of “San Antonio di Padova” (St. Antoine) was designed by Mongeri. Completed in 1912, it is still the largest Catholic Church in İstanbul. Located in the middle İstiklal Street, it is easy to find and definitely worth having a look at.

As a result of Italian migration, the originally Genoese district of Galata had thus expanded in the direction of what is today's Pera quarter of İstanbul's famous Beyoğlu district. In fact, it is even said that the name Beyoğlu -- which can be translated as "Son of the Regent" -- was named after an Italian, Luigi Gritti, the handsome son of the Doge who rode daily through the main street of Pera on his white horse.

Juridical authority over another Italian group, the Venetian citizens, who had also started living within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, was accorded to the Emissary of Venice. The “Palazzo Venezia” (Venice Palace), which used to be the Venetian Ambassador's residence, is now the Italian Consulate. Have a look at the building and its magnificent park in Galata's Tom Tom Street. It is said that the world-famous lover Casanova stayed there as a guest for three months.

However, the Italian architect who probably influenced the city's 19th century architecture the most was Raimondo D'Aronco, a celebrity in İstanbul at the time. Serving for 16 years as a kind of state architect under Sultan Abdülhamid II, he designed many public buildings such as the Ministry of Agriculture, the Medical College, and the Tophane Fountain, as well as dozens of summer residences (Köşks) across the city.

He is most famous for the Botter Apartments, a seven-story apartment block located on İstlikal Street near the Swedish Consulate. Constructed in 1900 for Jean Botter, the official tailor of the Sultan, the fashions of Europe were presented to the elite of İstanbul in fashion shows held in the building. A favorite place of İstanbul's high-society at its peak, the building's facade has unfortunately lost some of its charm today. With that building, it is said D'Aronco brought “art nouveau” to Turkey.

And indeed many art nouveau buildings in İstanbul bear his name or traces of his work. Among them is the Huber Mansion, located on the Rumeli Bank of the Bosporus, south of Tarabya. At that time belonging to Baron Auguste Huber, the representative of the German Krupp steel factory, today it is the official İstanbul residence of the Turkish president. Still, it is absolutely worth having a look at as much as you can from the shore. Its tremendous grounds measure not less than 77 acres and the oldest greenhouse in Turkey is to be found in the mansion.

So this is a first glimpse into the Italian history of İstanbul. If you want to learn more about Italian history in Turkey, you can visit the Italian Cultural Center in İstanbul. Though its Web site at www.iicİstanbul.esteri.it is only in Turkish and Italian, its library contains a great deal of information, including a good number of English-language titles.