A city within the city? Galata and Pera as a Levantine landscape

What is it about?

In a city that straddles across continents and civilizations, a Genoese group of merchants built their vital space, surrounded and protected by walls, in the late Byzantine period (13th to 15th centuries.). But these walls enclosed not only Genoese subjects: a thriving and diverse urban society developed in Galata, with Venetian, Florentine, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Jewish and, in the Ottoman period, Muslim inhabitants. When the walls became too small, Galata began to develop outside their circle, and the cosmopolitan district of Pera took shape over the centuries. The chapter argues that this evolving and diverse urban landscape can be labelled as "Levantine", referring to groups living between worlds, and treating identity as a malleable asset rather than a fixed essence.

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Photo by Emir Taner on Unsplash

Photo by Emir Taner on Unsplash

Why is it important?

While most histories of Galata and Pera in the Ottoman period focus on the "Western" dimension of these districts, I argue that they cannot be understood as Western enclaves in an Islamic city. Rather, they represent a particular form of Ottoman plural environment, largely shaped by migrants, by (former)slaves, by members of diasporas, by Levantines whose siblings and relatives may be of three or four different nationalities. A strongly influential group in the making of this landscape were Armenian subjects who chose the Catholic confession, and lived, until 1830, in a state of semi-clandestinity.

Perspectives