page_title: Constantinople
section_title: Culture
hierarchical_section_title: Constantinople / Culture
context_page_description: Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the brief Crusader state known as the Latin Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.
  With the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the capital of Turkey was moved to Ankara, and the Greco-Roman name Constantinople was officially changed to Istanbul in 1930, by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. This was a contraction of an earlier Greek name of the city, "εις την Πόλην". The city is still referred to as Constantinople in Greek-speaking sources. The original city is located in what is now the European side and the core of modern Istanbul.
  In 324, the ancient city of Byzantium was made the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was renamed, and dedicated on 11 May 330. From the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe.
context_section_description: Constantinople was the largest and richest urban center in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea during the late Eastern Roman Empire, mostly as a result of its strategic position commanding the trade routes between the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea. It would remain the capital of the eastern, Greek-speaking empire for over a thousand years. At its peak, roughly corresponding to the Middle Ages, it was the richest and largest European city, exerting a powerful cultural pull and dominating economic life in the Mediterranean. Visitors and merchants were especially struck by the beautiful monasteries and churches of the city, in particular the Hagia Sophia, or the Church of Holy Wisdom. According to Russian 14th-century traveler Stephen of Novgorod: "As for Hagia Sophia, the human mind can neither tell it nor make description of it."
  It was especially important for preserving in its libraries manuscripts of Greek and Latin authors throughout a period when instability and disorder caused their mass-destruction in western Europe and north Africa: On the city's fall, thousands of these were brought by refugees to Italy, and played a key part in stimulating the Renaissance, and the transition to the modern world. The cumulative influence of the city on the west, over the many centuries of its existence, is incalculable. In terms of technology, art and culture, as well as sheer size, Constantinople was without parallel anywhere in Europe for a thousand years.
caption: Eagle and Snake, 6th century mosaic flooring Constantinople, Grand Imperial Palace.
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