"Late Voyage of Constantinople"

In the news since 532 CE, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul. Commissioned by the emperor Justinian, for nearly a thousand years it was the world's largest Christian cathedral. It was converted to a mosque in 1453, and turned into a museum in 1935. In 2020 it reopened as a mosque.

These views are by artist & traveler Guillaume-Joseph Grelot, published in his "Late Voyage to Constantinople" (London, 1683), after the French edition of 1680, dedicated to Louis XIV. Grelot sought to convince the French monarch of the beauty and importance of Constantinople, and to relay useful diplomatic intelligence, while securing the king's patronage, support vital to artists and scholars of the time.