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Expansion of the Ottoman Empire


The Classical Age of the Ottoman Empire (Turkish: Klasik Çağ) concerns the history of the Ottoman Empire from the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453 until the second half of the sixteenth century, roughly the end of the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520-1566). During this period a system of patrimonial rule based on the absolute authority of the sultan reached its apex, and the empire developed the institutional foundations which it would maintain, in modified form, for several centuries. The territory of the Ottoman Empire greatly expanded, and led to what some historians have called the Pax Ottomana. The process of centralization undergone by the empire prior to 1453 was brought to completion in the reign of Mehmed II.

The Ottoman Empire of the Classical Age experienced dramatic territorial growth. The period opened with the conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed II (r. 1451-1481) in 1453. Mehmed II went on to consolidate the empire's position in the Balkans and Anatolia, conquering Serbia in 1454-5, the Peloponnese in 1458-9, Trebizond in 1461, and Bosnia in 1463. Many Venetian territories in Greece were conquered during the 1463-79 Ottoman-Venetian War. By 1474 the Ottomans had conquered their Anatolian rival the Karamanids, and in 1475 conquered Kaffa on the Crimean Peninsula, establishing the Crimean Khanate as a vassal state. In 1480 an invasion of Otranto in Italy was launched, but the death of Mehmed II the following year led to an Ottoman withdrawal.


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