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The Seraglio

The word seraglio, which was not unfrequently employed as equivalent to harem, is an Italian modification (usually spelled serraylio from assimilation to serrare, to shut in) of the Persian term serai, which simply means a palace or large building, as in the familiar compound caravanserai.

What other Eastern name awakened such lurid yet confused ideas, such melange of imagination and history, as the word Seraglio ? It vibrates with every possible echo of human experience and passion. To the Western mind it comprehends all the ranges from an earthly paradise to a gehenna. The term has entered English through the medium of the Italian, and is derived from the Persian word " sera'i," or seray which means a palace. Every place honored by the residence of the Sultan was called " serai; " Europeans frequently use the word Seraglio as a synonym for harem, i.e., that portion of a dwelling set apart for the use of the women of the household. It really meant the entire imperial residence.

To the poet, the historian, the traveller, there was only one Seraglio in the world. It is situated on the first, or most eastern, of the seven hills. It looks out upon the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus, and the Marmora, and commands a glorious view up the European and Asiatic shores. It is rounded by every incoming steamer that casts its anchor in the harbor of the capital. Much of the site of ancient Byzantium lies under its northern slope, and its southern sweep partly includes the pleasure-grounds of the Great Palace of Constantine. So the Seraglio of the sultans rivets together the pre-Christian classic and the Christian mediaeval cities, and rides triumphant above them both.

Its scattered, disconnected buildings are islanded amid a luxuriant mass of trees, " o'ertopped by cypresses dark green and tall," which descend in terraces almost to the water's edge. The incurving roofs and rounded domes and sharpened spires are all sheathed in lead, as that metal, like a royal flag, suggests to an Eastern mind the abode of majesty. Most strenuous have been the Ottomans for this outward indication of rank. One dethroned sultan bitterly protested when his keepers hastily confined him in a building covered by earthen tiles. The unanswerable justice of his complaints was recognized. Forthwith he was removed to another prison, whose leaden roof was considered more in keeping with the dignity of the discrowned monarch.

The term Seraglio comprehends both the structures raised by the sultans and the vast enclosed territory by which they are surrounded. The grounds are of irregular shape, with a circumference of over two miles, the length being nearly twice the breadth. The whole extent consists of two distinct and distinctly separated portions, the outer and the inner.. The outer comprises more than ninetenths of the total area, and completely surrounds the second or inner portion.

All the approaches are still guarded by a suspicious soldiery, but every person is free to pass through the gates of the outer wall, and wander where he pleases along its outer circuit. Nevertheless, if he lingers to gaze at the high white walls which surround the inner enclosure, the sanctum sanctorum of the sultans, or stands for a moment lost in revery, there breaks upon his ear the harsh, insolent shout of some omnipresent sentinel, " Yasak ! yasak ! " (It is forbidden! it is forbidden !) and the loiterer must move on.

Once it was deemed sacrilege, worse than treason, even from a distance to turn one's eye in this direction. In 1634 a Venetian was hanged, and his possessions confiscated, because from the window of Lis house he had looked towards it through a glass For this crime of their coreligionist, hundreds of Italians, Frenchmen, and Englishmen were thrown into prison, and from Sir Peter Wych, the English ambassador, was roughly taken away the sword wherewith the English king had dubbed him knight. The arm of England was shorter then than now, and no reparation was ever made for the insult.

Along the water the Seraglio was defended by the wall and towers of Constantine and Theophilos, of which a small portion still exists. These fortifications curved with the shore from the Gate of Eugenios (a senator who came with Constantino from Rome), on the Golden Horn, to the wicket gate of Michael the Protovestiary, on the Marmora.

Old Seraglio (Topkapi Sarayi)
Topkapi Palace / Topkapi Saray

The new Seraglio is beautifully situated on a point of land extending into the sea, and contains, within the area of nine miles which are embraced by its walls, several mosques, gardens, and buildings, capable of accommodating 15,000 or 20,000 persons. The old Seraglio is a dark-red, noble-looking pile, but somewhat heavy in comparison with the rest of the environs. The new Seraglio looks handsome and invites the eye. Round about stand splendid kiosks, where rich marble columns support the glittering spiral roofs.

Under the Ottomans the former became Yali Kiosk Kapou, and the latter Balouk Khaneh Kapou. Between the two, for protection on the western or landward side, was built the irregular crenellated wall of stone, with square projecting towers, which remained in almost perfect preservation.

The earlier discarded structure in the heart of the city became known as the Old or Eski Sera'i, and was finally appropriated to the families of deceased sultans. For more than three centuries this, the New or Yeni Serai, the Seraglio of Ottoman history, was the heart and center of the state. Twenty-one successive sultans here more than anywhere else wrought out their destiny and the destiny of their Empire. On his accession, in 1839, Sultan Abd-ul Medj id bade it farewell, and withdrew to his palaces on the Bosphorus. It was the habitation of no sultan since.

The magnificent Topkapi Palace, the Ottoman Sultans' residence for five centuries, is now a museum. Topkapi Palace has enjoyed great popularity ever since the movie "Topkapi" was filmed here. In the movie "Topkapi" the thieves have to pluck an emerald- encrusted dagger from the museum. With its irregular, asymmetric, non-axial, and un-monumental proportions as some European travelers described it, Topkapi Palace was certainly quite different from the European palaces with which they were familiar whether in terms of appearance or of layout. But it was also fundamentally different from oriental or Islamic palaces even though they might have had similar patterns of spatial organization. In fact, Topkapi was a sui generis microcosm, a paradise on earth or to borrow a term from Ottoman palace terminology, The Palace of Felicity.

This monstrous palace is placed upon the most eastern of the hills of Stamboul, which descends gently towards the sea of Marmora, the mouth of the Bosphorus, and the Golden Horn ; on the spot anciently occupied by the acropolis of Byzantium, by a portion of the city, and a wing of the palace of the Emperors. It is the most beautiful of the hills and the most favored by nature of all the promontories of the European coast.

There is not indeed in all Europe another corner of the earth whose name alone awakens in the mind so strange a confusion of beautiful and terrible images; about which so much has been thought, and written, and divined ; which has given rise to so many vague and contradictory notices ; which is still the object of so much insatiable curiosity, of so many insensate prejudices, and so many marvellous histories.