Great Fire of 1660
Fire in Constantinople in 1660
Two-thirds of Constantinople (now Istanbul) was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1660. The chronicler Abdi Paşa estimated that the fire destroyed 280,000 houses and burned for approximately forty-nine hours.
During the reconstruction of the city, the Ottomans enacted unprecedented policies concerning Christian and Jewish houses of worship. In previous periods, the Ottomans had usually allowed the rebuilding of churches and synagogues. However, in this period they did not.
Background
On July 24, 1660, a great fire broke out in Constantinople, destroying two-thirds of the city. Contemporary sources report that thousands of homes were engulfed in the blaze. The fire began west of Eminönü and consumed densely populated neighborhoods filled with old-fashioned wooden houses. Abdi Paşa described the fire as having "marched across the city like an invading army." Contemporary sources estimate that 280,000 homes were destroyed and 40,000 lives were lost in the conflagration. The fire also destroyed seven synagogues and at least 25 churches.
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This entry incorporates text from “Great Fire of 1660” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.