Istanbul in the Descrizione Topografica by Cosimo Comidas De Carbognano

Abstract

Cosimo Comidas De Carbognano, was born in Istanbul from an Armenian family converted to Catholicism.He was a dragoman for the Bourbon governments of the Two Sicilies and Spain in the Ottoman Empire. His curiosity about the history of Istanbul and his conviction that the various descriptions of the city, provided by foreign travellers, were incompleteasthey lacked ofʻsomeparticularitiesʼled him to write the DescrizioneTopograficadellostatopresente di Costantinopoli (Topographic Description of the Present State of Costantinopole). The book, published in 1794, is dedicated to Ferdinand IV of The Two Sicilies and it has the merit of exposinga description of the various classical monuments, both Christian and Islamic, in the city and in its surroundings in a highly contextualized manner and enriched by twenty-one illustrations.

In this paper we propose some reflections on the image of Istanbul at the end of the 18^th century, based on the information provided by De Carbognano.