{"product_id":"2026100008852-secondhand-the-antiquities-of-constantinople","title":"The Antiquities Of Constantinople","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Very good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: No dust jacket\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: Condition as shown in image\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFew cities have captivated the scholarly imagination quite like Constantinople, and Pierre Gilles — a sixteenth-century French humanist and naturalist who walked its streets firsthand — remains its most meticulous early chronicler. In The Antiquities of Constantinople, Gilles presents a rigorous, ground-level survey of the ancient Byzantine capital, documenting its monuments, topography, cisterns, columns, and churches with an empirical precision that was revolutionary for its age. Drawing on both direct observation and classical sources, he reconstructs the layered grandeur of a city that stood at the crossroads of empires, offering an irreplaceable record of structures that have since been lost, altered, or buried beneath the Ottoman metropolis.\n\nThis second edition, based on John Ball's English translation and enriched with a new introduction and bibliography by Ronald G. Musto, restores Gilles' landmark work to a modern scholarly audience with essential contextual apparatus. Published by Italica Press, it argues powerfully for Gilles' place as a founding figure of urban archaeology and historical geography. Musto's contributions illuminate the intellectual climate of Renaissance antiquarianism while grounding the text in contemporary Byzantine studies — making this edition as indispensable to the historian as it is to the curious traveller who wonders what truly lies beneath the minarets and markets of modern Istanbul.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49336810242267,"sku":"2026100008852-SECONDHAND","price":35.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/03889121-8b90-4f59-b242-721b412d5f62.png?v=1789958336","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100008852-secondhand-the-antiquities-of-constantinople","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}