With the aid of an interpreter known as Frenk Hasan, a German converted to Islam, the traveller had an audience with the Sultan, and was unable to conceal his astonishment when asked to work in the service of the Ottoman authorities. The first of the European travellers to carry out a detailed archaeological survey of the city was the Frenchman Pierre Gilles.Gilles(or Gyllius). He lived in Istanbul between 1544 and 1547 and carried out investigations. He wrote two separate books about he results of his survey, one about Istanbul and one about the Bosphorus. These books are still considered to be valuable source material. GiIles, who had been sent by the king of France and was in fact a botanist, appreciated the natural beauty of Istanbul and the value of its geographical location. He had the following to say about it: "All the earth's cities are doomed to perish sooner or later, but as long as mankind remains on earth this city will endure." M. d'Aramon, who was French ambassador to Istanbul during the same period, that is, in the reign of SUleyman the Magnificent, had the following to say in the travel memoirs he dictated to his private secretary Jehan Chesneau: "It is abundantly clear that Istanbul is now an entirely Turkish city. Its hills are adorned with mosques, the hillsides are covered with houses and groups of buildings can be seen between the trees." With the aid of certain paintings executed during this period it is possible to get a better impression of the appearance of the city. Two woodcuts by the Dutch painter Pieter Koeck van Alst were published in 1533. In the first we can see the city from the other side of the Golden Horn and in the other, Sultan Siileyman the Magnificent passing through the Hippodrome with his suite. In the background we can see a statue brought from Budin by the art-loving grand vizier lbrahim Pa~a in 1526. which was still standing at that time but was later destroyed after the murder of the latter. However, the picture which depicts Istanbul in the reign of SUleyman most accurately and is at the same time the liveliest and the most monumental is that by Melchior Lorch (or Lorich) of Flensburg. This panorama, eleven metres in length, was painted in 1599 and is now kept in the Dutch city of Leiden. It depicts, perhaps with a certain amount of imaginative additions, an attractive view of the city from the hills of Galata, Kasimpa~a and Hasköy. The flotilla of boats and sailing ships that fills the Golden Horn, the cupolas and minarets to be seen at frequent intervals between the groups of houses, the magnificent mosque complexes adorning the high ground all combine to convey a far more accurate and colourful impression of the Ottoman capital during the reign of SUleyman than many books of travels. Lorich took a considerable interest in the Süleymaniye Mosque and surrounding complex, construction of which was being completed when he was in the city. He painted a fine picture of Sinan's great work and later published it in the form of an engraving.

Together with this panorama of Istanbul, executed in the reign of SUleyman (which can also be considered the golden age of the Ottomans), by Lunch of Flensburg. there is a travelogue by another German. Hans Dernswan, who lived in Istanbul and in Turkey in around 1554. It is possible to find the Turkish Istanbul, with all its beauty and individual features in Dernswans book. This traveller, who was also a keen researcher, tried to see and investigate everything in the reign of Süleyman and he did not neglect to keep a detailed record of his life in the Istanbul of that time. It is also possible to judge what 16th century Istanbul looked like from the miniatures of the Turkish arfist Nasuh-u Silahi (Matrakct Nasuh). for at the beginning of his book about the Iraq campaign there are some miniatures of Istanbul and Galata. These graceful compositions show Istanbul with the great mosque complexes, the shipyard at Kawmpasa, the royal palace, (Saray-i Hhmayunlari), all of which had been built before that date, and details of the inner city with all the structures that existed at the time such as its covered markets and wooden shops (for they had still not been rebuilt in brick and stone). In the miniature of Istanbul that adorned Seyyid Lokman's work "Hünername", written in the 16th century, we see the main mosque complexes and a tightly-packed mass of houses. In some of the versions of Pin Reis's navigation guide "Kitabh'l-Bahriye" (the author died some time between 1553 and 1554). we see another miniature of Istanbul. The quality of the copies made of the pictures in this handwritten work varies, In the best of these we see Istanbul with its major mosque complexes, its houses and the Golden Horn, which resembles an inner harbour.

After the conquest an immediate and planned campaign was launched to make it a Turkish city. A count was made of the number of dwelling houses in the city on a scale quite impressive for that age and Istanbul was redeveloped according to certain principles. Twenty five years after the conquest according to records kept by Muhiddin celebi. the cadi (Muslim judge) of Istanbul and Mahmud çelebi, zaim (the person who held the fief of the city), of Istanbul there were 975 Muslim Turkish, 31 Romany. 4893 Christian and 1647 Jewish households in Galata. Mehmet the Conqueror, who possessed all the qualities of a European renaissance ruler, brought craftsmen to Istanbul from Italy. This tradition continued for many years. After Bellini had been employed in the palace. mention was made of inviting Michaelangelo and even Leonardo da Vinci to Istanbul to build a bride over the Golden Horn. Towards the end of the 15th century. in the reign of Bayezid II, Istanbul was visited by a German named Arnold von hlarff. who stated that it was “a great and magnificent city”, and went on to remark that the system of admin- istration in the city was an extremely vigilant one. Von Harff. who had left his ship at Galata and entered a han without notifying anybody was horrified to hear the next day that he had been summoned to the palace.