Gilles" mission was to find and purchase ancient Greek manuscripts for François" humanist library. But while in Constantinople Gilles conceived his own project: to study the history and monuments of the former Byzantine capital on the spot and to publish his findings bolstered and compared with what he could learn from the ancient and medieval sources. The result was his "Topography of Constantinople and Its Antiquities in Four Books." Kimberly Byrd offers a new edition of Gilles" important work. This is published in three parts. The first, Pierre Gilles" Constantinople, includes her complete English translation of the Topography with references to Gilles" sources and to the most important recent scholarship on the city and its monuments. English-speaking readers have long relied on John Ball"s 1729 translation and on its modernization published by Italica Press in 1988. This fine edition supplants that volume and offers a fresh and important addition to the scholarship on Constantinople, its ancient heritage, and to the evolving study and practice of classical archaeology in Renaissance Europe. 59 illustrations, 5 maps. Preface, bibliography, index.