Introduction: Constantinople as a centre of diplomatic culture

The development of the diplomatic community in Constantinople deserves serious consideration by scholars of European diplomacy, not least because, as Daniel Goffman has suggested, European resident diplomatic practices developed in dialogue with the Ottomans. In parallel with these developments, historians have approached the study of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century—during a period of imperial expansion and consolidation—frequently with a view toward understanding both the development of imperial culture, broadly construed, and the place of the Ottomans and their empire in the wider world. The Ottoman court’s place as a significant global hub invites us to understand how it functioned as a centre of diplomacy and how diplomatic cultures developed as ambassadors from across Africa, Asia, and Europe interacted with the Ottomans and, sometimes, each other. By the middle decades of the sixteenth century, a confident Ottoman architectural aesthetic increasingly dominated the cityscape.