\paperw4260 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 \fs24 The residence of the Ottoman sultans from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century was the Topkapi palace (now a splendid museum)
. An immense and sumptuous complex of pavilions, courts, and gardens, it stands on the promontory where the inlet of the Golden Horn joins up with the waters of the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara. The palace is divided into two parts: a public section,
with the audience chamber, apartments for functionaries, dignitaries, and ambassadors, libraries, and stables, and the private residence, reserved for the sultan and his family, with the imperial pavilions, rooms for recreation, the harem, and personal
mosque. The majority of the constructions date from the mid-seventeenth century, when Istanbul was the gateway between West and East.\par
