Journal of Modern Greek Studies

In the spring of 2015, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the Benaki Museum, and the Museum of the City of Athens–Vouros-Eutaxias Foundation organized a multifaceted cultural project of exhibitions, public lectures, museum tours, and a symposium. This book is one of the tangible results of this project and brings together a wealth of material on the Ottoman past of the city of Athens. Originating in a symposium organized at the Gennadius Library on “The Topography of Ottoman Athens: Archaeology and Travel,” the essays focus mainly on archival sources, chronicles, and travel accounts. The contributing authors discuss questions of perception, topography, conditions in the city, with a few essays dedicated to existing monuments and the city’s archaeological past. The papers are arranged in approximate chronological order from the fifteenth century to the years of the Greek War of Independence.

This book reflects the huge change that has occurred in the field of Early Modern Greek studies during the last decades. Most of the archival materials on which the book relies were long known, as were also the substantial collections of the partnering institutions—the Benaki Museum, the Gennadius Library, and the Museum of the City of Athens. What has changed is twofold: the passage from the era of “collectionism” to that of scholarly research, and the realization that various nationalist generalizations simply do not hold up under the scrutiny of the sources. The book presents the work of a generation of multinational scholars who combine their diverse disciplinary backgrounds in order to understand how the documentary information can speak about and apply to the urban landscape. Their work reflects the vivid interest in studying the Late Modern era (traditionally divided into Late Ottoman and Modern Greek times) as a way to understand our contemporary perceptions of the past from an archaeological, cultural, and architectural perspective. The book takes us through an eye-opening process that reveals the complexity of socio-cultural conditions, especially when compared to the simplistic overviews of earlier historiography.

The volume opens with George Tolias’s study of the humanist geography (fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries) that created a powerful image of the ancient Greek past with Athens as its capital; this aura of legend provoked European interest in the city and the extensive reconnaissance travels that [End Page 238] would follow. Tasos Tanoulas introduces two little-known sources on the Athenian topography and examines the information they provide on the Acropolis monuments. The first source—Vienna anonymous (ca. 1460)—includes creative identifications for the Propylaia as the seat of ancient schools. The second source—the Bassano Drawing (1670)—is used to rectify inaccuracies that have misled earlier research. Elizabeth Key Fowden begins her discussion with Evliya Çelebi’s (1660s) descriptions of Athens. She traces Evliya’s viewpoints, the traditions he draws from, and the associations to which he alludes. Then she extends the scope of her study to include accounts of Sultan Mehmed II’s visit to Athens and the Parthenon Mosque, as well as those of various seventeenth-century European visitors. Finally, she takes into account a lesser-known early eighteenth-century work written by the local mufti (Muslim legal expert) Mahmud Efendi.

The astonishing text of Mahmud Efendi gets further attention in the article by Gülçin Tunalı, which also includes a detailed table of contents. Tunalı explores the sources and networks through which Mahmud was able to write his historical account, including the work of Georgios Kontares and the help of two eminent local figures, Theophanes Kavallares and Gregorios Soteres. Tunalı evaluates Mahmud’s work as an example of a shared intellectual reality, a product of its time mediating between the ancient past and the Ottoman present.

Moving from the history to the topography of Ottoman Athens, the article of Dimitris Karidis explores in its first part the city...