Ottomans · a Light

A twenty one year old took Constantinople in May 1453

On 29 May 1453 the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II entered Constantinople after a siege of about seven weeks. He was twenty one. The walls that had held for a thousand years were broken by cannon cast for the purpose, some of them by a Hungarian founder who had offered his services to both sides. Mehmed made the city his capital and set about refilling it: he brought in Greeks, Armenians, Jews and Turks by decree and incentive, confirmed a Greek patriarch, and within decades the population had grown several times over. He collected Greek manuscripts and had his portrait painted by the Venetian Gentile Bellini. The city has been called Istanbul ever since.

Mehmed II · Constantinople, 29 May 1453