I hope my Author will not be thought too particular and exact in describing the several Hills and Vales, upon which Constantinople stands, when it is consider’d, that he is delineating the Finest Situation in the World.
The Manner in which he treats on this Subject is very entertaining; and his Descriptions, though with the greatest Regard to Truth, are embellish’d with a Grace and Beauty, almost Poetical. This, I look upon it, was occasion’d by the agreeable Variety of delightful Prospects and Situations, which the Subject naturally led him to describe.
The present State of Constantinople, I mean as to the Meanness and Poverty of its Buildings, is attested by all those, who have either seen, or wrote concerning it; so that ’tis not Now to be compar’d with it self, as it stood in its Antient Glory. The Turks have such an Aversion to all that is curious in Learning, or magnificent in Architecture, or valuable in Antiquity, that they have made it a Piece of Merit, for above 200 Years, to demolish, and efface every thing of that Kind; so that this Account of the Antiquities of that City given us by Gyllius, is not only the Best, but indeed the Only collective History of them.
In tracing out the Buildings of Old Byzantium, the antient Greek Historians, which he perfectly understood, were of great Service to him; this, with his own personal Observations, as residing for some Years at Constantinople, furnish’d him with Materials sufficient for the present History.
The Curious, who have always admir’d the Accuracy of this Work of Gyllius, have yet been highly concern’d, that it wanted the Advantage of Cuts, by which the Reader might have the agreeable Pleasure of surveying with the Eye, what my Author has so exactly describ’d with the Pen.
I have therefore endeavour’d to supply this Defect, by presenting to the View of the Reader a Collection of Figures, which do not only refer to such Curiosities as be will find mention’d in the several Parts of my Author, but such as have been describ’d by other later Travellers; and by this Means I hope I have given a compleat View of whatsoever is most remarkable in the Antiquities of Constantinople. The Catalogue and Order of the Cuts is as follows;
[I.] The Thracian Bosporus, with the Situation of Constantinople, as antiently divided into Wards; from Du Fresne.
[II.] A Delineation of that City, as it stood in the Year 1422, before it was taken by the Turks; from the same.
[III.] The Ichnography, or Plan of the Church of Sancta Sophia; from the same.
[IV.] The whole View of the Church of Sancta Sophia; from the same.