Narrating the Fall of Constantinope (1453) and Tenochtitlán (1521)

Workshop, 7 – 8 April 2022, at Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) Mainz

Siege of Constantinople (Enluminure ornant La Cronicque du temps de tres chrestien roy Charles, septisme de ce nom, roy de France par Jean Chartier, c. 1470-79, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. Français 2691, folio 254 verso; Source)

This workshop is the first of three conferences that ex- plore similarities and connections between Ottoman and Spanish histories of expansion in the early modern period as well as lasting memories thereof. It focuses on two key events in world history: the fall of Constantinople and the fall of Tenochtitlán. Although these events have much in common and were interrelated, they have rarely been looked at together.

Conquista del señorio caxcán de Apulco por los españoles y Tlaxcaltecas, 1585, Artist: Diego Muñoz Camargo (Source)

The workshop brings together historians of different regions to discuss how contemporaries saw the end of an old and the beginning of a new era, how they con- nected these events to ancient prophecies, how they wrote their histories of loss and victory, and how these early narratives have since shaped respective memory cultures. Did the conquerors, the conquered, and the various intermediaries in the Old and New World draw connections between their histories? Did they see, for instance, that the Ottoman expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean pushed the Spanish and Portuguese to seek new trading routes to Asia, which eventually led to the conquest of the Americas?

Organizers: Denise Klein (IEG), Thomas Weller (IEG), Barbara Henning (University of Mainz), Richard Herzog (University of Marburg)

Download Workshop Programm

The workshop is organised by IEG for the Leibniz Research Alliance “Wert der Vergangenheit” (Value of the Past)