#ottoman-empire-legacy

#ottoman-empire-legacy

Berat is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its unique historic downtown characterized by 18th and 19th century Ottoman structures and urban design, but human presence in the area goes back to the 4th/3rd millennium B.C. and there is evidence of an urban settlement in Berat defined by defensive walls dating to the 7th-6th century B.C.

A new law empowering Turkey's central government to seize historic properties from local authorities is raising fears that heritage sites are becoming the latest front in a wider campaign against opposition-led municipalities. Among the sites at stake are cultural venues run by the Istanbul municipality, whose mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu launched an ambitious conservation drive and expanded cultural programming before he was jailed last year after announcing plans to run for president.

The Nizaris had survived in part because of their position on a warring frontier. They had been irritating but, as a buffer state against the Franks, they fulfilled a useful function for their much bigger Sunni neighbours. Now even that usefulness was gone. As the Franks were forced back to their last enclaves on the coast, the Assassins looked increasingly anomalous - a Shi'ite nuisance in the midst of victorious Sunni orthodoxy.

An intact mosaic from Late Antiquity discovered during restoration of a historic municipal building in Istanbul is now a floor again, covered in plexiglass and welcoming visitors to the new Zeytinburnu Mosaic Museum. Visitors of Turkey's newest museum move across elevated glass walkways, suspended right above the original floors themselves. The mosaics are not relocated fragments mounted on walls, but surfaces that remain exactly where they were first laid, preserving their context for all to see.

It is approximately 10 by 13 feet in dimension and features two main sections consisting of a central hexagonal panel bordered on each side with five square panels and one rectangle. The space between the squares is filled with triangular panels. Each panel contains different geometric and abstract botanical designs. The hexagonal panel in the center contains a Solomon's Knot (two interlocked ovals). The square panels contain flowers with four pointed petals. The triangular panels contain small solid triangles.

This project will focus on the Camaldolese hermits' proposal for achieving what they considered to be the most crucial task in the repair of the church, eliminating Islam and all Muslims. Our study will begin with an examination of the recipient of the Libellus, Giovanni de' Medici, who would become Pope Leo X. Next will be an exploration into the backgrounds of Paolo Giustiniani and Pietro Querini,