From the Founder of Constantinople to the Founder of Istanbul: Mehmed the Conqueror and the Church of the Holy Apostles, lecture by Julian Raby (Freer|Sackler, Smithsonian Institution), SOAS, University of London, October 9, 2019, 7:00 pm

The Islamic Art Circle at SOAS, University of London, is pleased to announce their first lecture for the 2019/20 academic year will be given by Dr Julian Raby, formerly Director of the  Freer | Sackler, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, 9 October 2019 at 19.00 in the Wolfson Lecture Theatre, 1/f Paul Webley Wing, Senate House, Malet Street, WC1H 0XG. He will talk on the topic: From the Founder of Constantinople to the Founder of Istanbul: Mehmed the Conqueror and the Church of the Holy Apostles. The meeting will be chaired by Professor Scott Redford, Nasser D. Khalili Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology.

In 1453 the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople and transformed the Byzantine capital into the Ottoman city of Istanbul. He ended 1200 years of Christian hegemony, and symbolically appropriated Hagia Sophia for Islam. But what happened to the second most important church of the Byzantine city, the church of the Holy Apostles, which was not only an architectural masterpiece – the model for San Marco in Venice – but the pantheon of the Byzantine Emperors? It has long been a controversy, but recent research has revealed how Mehmed’s response was more complex and intriguing than imagined. It was a response not only to a building, but to Byzantium’s imperial past.