In Constructing Melchior Lorichs's Panorama of Constantinople, Nigel Westbrook, Kenneth Rainsbury Dark, and Rene Van Meeuwen propose that Melchior Lorichs's 1559 Panorama of Constantinople was created by using a viewing grid. The panorama is thus a reliable graphic source for the lost or since-altered Ottoman and Byzantine buildings of the city. The panorama appears to lie outside the conventional symbolic mode of topographical depiction common for its period and constitutes a rare "scientific" record of an encounter of a perspicacious observer with a vast subject. The drawing combines elements of allegory with extensive empirical observation. Several unknown structures, shown on the drawing, have been located in relation to the present-day topography of Istanbul, as a test-case for further research.
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March 2010
Research Article|
March 01 2010
Constructing Melchior Lorichs's Panorama of Constantinople
Nigel Westbrook,
Nigel Westbrook
The University of Western Australia
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Kenneth Rainsbury Dark,
Kenneth Rainsbury Dark
University of Reading
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Rene van Meeuwen
Rene van Meeuwen
The University of Western Australia
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Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2010) 69 (1): 62–87.
Citation
Nigel Westbrook, Kenneth Rainsbury Dark, Rene van Meeuwen; Constructing Melchior Lorichs's Panorama of Constantinople. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1 March 2010; 69 (1): 62–87. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2010.69.1.62
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