Architecture without Images

Abstract

The Venetian nobleman Ambrosio Bembo (1652–1705) included this panorama of Aleppo by the French artist G.J. Grélot (see Figure 1), as one of the fifty-one carefully observed line drawings of cities, buildings, and people integral to his travelogue, proudly entitled Travels and Journal through Part of Asia during about Four Years Undertaken by Me, Ambrosio Bembo, Venetian Noble. During his visits to Aleppo between 1672 and 1675, Bembo may have crossed paths with the great Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi (1611–82?), who included his own description of that commercial capital of the eastern Mediterranean in his monumental Seyahatname (Book of Travels). Evliya's book does not include a single illustration. This divergence is emblematic of the distinct ways in which early modern societies (in this case, Middle Eastern and European) visualized cities and architecture, and highlights a major challenge to writing the architectural and urban history of the Middle East before the 19th century: the almost complete absence of images that represent architecture.