The Ottoman Classical Age

The Ottoman Classical Age, roughly 1453 to 1566, marks the height of Ottoman power and institutional development, beginning with Mehmed II's conquest of Constantinople in 1453, which ended the Byzantine Empire and gave the Ottomans a magnificent new capital, and culminating in the long reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, under whom Ottoman territory reached its greatest extent across the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa. The period saw the maturation of Ottoman law, architecture under the great court architect Sinan, and a sophisticated administrative and military system built around the elite Janissary corps, while Ottoman fleets and armies contested control of the Mediterranean and pressed deep into Central Europe, reaching the gates of Vienna in 1529. Suleiman's death in 1566 is often taken as the close of the classical age, after which the empire, though still formidable, entered a longer period of more gradual institutional strain.