Birzamanlar Yayıncılık

Marseille, Genoa, Aleppo, Istanbul… Italian, French, Armenian, Jewish, Greek, Turkish… Ships, journeys, encounters… A family that is like a historical novel, a summary of the vast Ottoman geography: The Eyes of the Palace invites us to the story of the Sébah and Joaillier families, founders of Sébah&Joaillier, one of the first photography studios of the Ottoman Empire, and the Casaretto family, who started producing and selling pasta in Istanbul in the 1800s. The author of the family story, which started with cooking and jewelry and then extended to photography, is Fabrizio Casaretto, one of the last representatives of this Levantine family still living in Istanbul. Starting from a video recording of his grandmother talking, Casaretto curiously researches the family history, and not only does so, but also transforms them into characters in a novel, inviting the reader to a colorful world stretching from the 19th century to the 21st century. The Eyes of the Palace is another “these lands” story, adorned with emotional and surprising memories of the Casaretto family, who have been in this city for two hundred years, and the Sébah & Joaillier Photography Studio, which was the official photographer of the palace, took the first panoramic photographs of not only Istanbul but also many cities such as Bursa and Izmir, photographed our traditional costumes together with the famous painter Osman Hamdi Bey, and in short, left us a priceless cultural treasure.