Cosmopolitan Mosaics: Italian Heritage in the Heart of Istanbul

Walking along Istiklal Caddesi, the great pedestrian artery of Beyoğlu, you might be surprised to come upon a neo-Gothic church that seems more at home in Venice or Milan than in the heart of Istanbul. It is Saint Anthony of Padua, the city’s largest Catholic church, built in 1912 by Italians. This is not an isolated anomaly: Istanbul in fact preserves a little-known yet significant cultural heritage tied to the Italian presence. From the Dominican churches of Galata to the Genoese palaces, from Levantine schools to the painters who depicted the Bosphorus, the traces of this long history are still present and speak to the role Italians played in shaping the city’s cosmopolitan character.