The Holy palace in Costantinople New Rome

Abstract

The building expansion foreseen in the centre of Istanbul, in the area surrounding the Blue Mosque, that is the zone over the Sacred Byzantine Palace, arises the problem of the safeguard of the archaeological heritage lying beneath an area of about thousands of square metres. An amazing patrimony, both the Palace of the age of Comneni and the Sacred Palace, more ancient and monumental, whose remains are still visible towards the walls and whose powerful undergrounds recall the monumentality of the structures build in various times in the Byzantine era. But the Sacred Palace is now perceivable through the rare remaining iconographic monuments and, mainly, through its ideological meaning, described in this work.