San michele church of genoese galata (Pera): Historic records and material evidence on its chronology

Today a long lost monument; San Michele Church, which stood once as the cathedral church of the Genoese colony, has a significant place in the history of Galata. It was founded replacing the Byzantine church of Hagia Thekla as Galata transformed into a Genoese settlement in 13th century. Serving as a church, it was still intact when Galata went under Ottoman rule. It has lost its congregation and started to serve as a storage unit as part of state property. It must have survived for a hundred more years under the Ottoman rule until its ownership changed to private property, and eventually it was replaced by a monumental caravanserai for the grand vizier Rüstem Pasha, designed by Architect Sinan in mid 16th century, later named Kurşunlu Han. The first parts of this study focus on the Genoese and Ottoman archival documents referring to the church, to draw an outline of the history of the church, and the site, through Byzantine, Genoese and Ottoman periods. The second part presents the on-site observations and aims to merge these with the data acquired from historic documents questioning any possible traces on the 16th century Ottoman monument that may date back to the church. This study aims to bring to light the above mentioned chronology of the church, portray as much as possible its architecture, its functional transformations, its afterlife under Ottoman rule and physical evidence that might be tracing back to San Michele Church within the body of Kurşunlu Han, which replaced it.