Seminar
March 15, 2025 / 15:00
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were when the Byzantine Empire struggled with political and socio-economic problems. Marketplaces emerge as scenes reflecting these hardships and venues where, despite everything, a prosperous trade continued to thrive. Many travellers from various societies who passed through Constantinople during these centuries did not fail to mention the capital's marketplaces. Byzantine authors also made references to life in these bustling centres. Some recounted the fights and accidents they witnessed; others complained about the officiousness of vendors and inspectors, and others believed that nearby magical statues controlled the buying and selling. Alongside expensive items such as luxury Italian fabrics and spices arriving via Persia, one could also encounter far more modest goods, like cabbages, onions, copper cauldrons, and ladles.
Marketplaces were also the crossroads where the paths of captives fleeing the Turks, begging widows, curious intellectuals, and ostentatious state officials intersected with Byzantine, Italian, and Ottoman merchants and Russian, Arab, and Spanish travellers.
In the seminar organized as part of the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Anatolian Weights and Measures Collection, Associate Professor Dr. Siren Çelik (Marmara University) examines the marketplace—an integral venue of daily life in the last centuries of the Byzantine Empire—together with its merchants, customers, and products.
The one-hour event, which will be held in Turkish at the Pera Museum Auditorium, is free of charge. Reservations are not required.
About Siren Çelik
After completing her bachelor's degree in Social and Political Sciences at Sabancı University in 2011, Siren Çelik earned her master's degree in Byzantine Studies from the University of Birmingham in 2012 and her PhD in 2016. Her main research interests include Late Byzantine history, Byzantine literature, historiography, and daily life in Byzantium. She is a faculty member in the Department of History at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Marmara University.
Image Credit
Half Stavraton, Silver,
Manuel II Palaiologos (1391-1423), Constantinopolis, 1403-1425
Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Anatolian Weights and Measures Collection
Temporary Exhibition
As the measurement of discovery became the substance of myths, weighing and measuring, beyond being mere physical actions, became an important means of self-expression to those captivated by the universe and what lay beyond the boundaries of knowledge.
Click for more information about the exhibition.
As artisanship became a part of artistic practices with the blurring of art and craft, the use of traditional motifs has also flourished. In this context, how are these motifs currently structured or designed beyond their traditional connotations?
Pera Museum presents an exhibition of French artist Félix Ziem, one of the most original landscape painters of the 19th century. The exhibition Wanderer on the Sea of Light presents Ziem as an artist who left his mark on 19th century painting and who is mostly known for his paintings of Istanbul and Venice, where the city and the sea are intertwined.
The Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation’s Orientalist Painting Collection includes two children’s portraits that are often featured in exhibitions on the second floor of the Pera Museum. These portraits both date back to the early 20th century, and were made four years apart. One depicts Prince Abdürrahim Efendi, son of Sultan Abdulhamid II, while the figure portrayed on the other is Nazlı, the daughter of Osman Hamdi Bey.
Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 - 19:00
Friday 10:00 - 22:00
Sunday 12:00 - 18:00
The museum is closed on Mondays.
On Wednesdays, the students can
visit the museum free of admission.
Full ticket: 200 TL
Discounted: 100 TL
Groups: 150 TL (minimum 10 people)
