Pera and Galata - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 407

are now in the course of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, generally by grants of land bestowed by the sultans, and
each formed the centre of its “Nation”, as it was called, that is, of
the community of resident merchants and officials of the various
countries. These embassies came to play a greater and greater role
in the destiny of the Ottoman Empire as its powers declined, and
collectively they dominated the life of Pera until the establishment
of the Turkish Republic. Near the embassies, various churches were
established, more or less under their protection, and some of these
survive in a modern form.
Taking the second turning on the left after St. Anthony's, we see
on the right the Maison de France; it is situated in a fine French
garden with views of the Bosphorus and the Marmara. Though one
of the earliest embassies to be established in Pera towards the end of
the sixteenth century, the present building dates only from soon after
the fire of 1831. (It was on this site that the great Turkish astronomer,
Takiuddin, built his observatory in the 1570s.)
The chapel connected with the embassy, that of St. Louis of the
French, is the oldest in foundation of the Latin Churches in Pera,
dating from 1581; though the present structure dates only from
about 1831. Among the masses celebrated there every Sunday is one
in the Chaldean rite. St. Louis is the local house of worship for the
Chaldean Church, an eighteenth-century ofshoot of the ancient
Nestorian Church which is now in union with Rome. The members
of this Church in Istanbul are all from the Hakkari section in the far
south-east of Turkey and are descendants of the ancient Chaldean
and Assyrian peoples; parts of the mass are still sung in Aramaic, the
language which Christ would have spoken.
Continuing along Istiklal Caddesi on the same side of the street
we come next to the Dutch Embassy, a very pretty building looking
rather like a small French chateau. The present building was designed
by the Fossati brothers and completed in 1855; the lower structure,
visible from the garden, goes back two centuries or more in time. The
original Embassy, built in 1612, was burned twice, but parts of the
substructure of the earlier buildings were preserved and incorporated
into the present Embassy.