Palace of the Porphyrogenitus

The Palace of the Porphyrogenitus was a Byzantine palace built in the late 13th century in the northwestern part of Constantinople as part of the Blachernae Palace complex. "Porphyrogenitus" means "born in the purple" and it refers to an imperial prince born to a reigning emperor. At the time, purple dye was extremely difficult to obtain, and thus was reserved exclusively for the imperial family. Furthermore, the chambers where successive empresses gave birth often, were constructed from the rare purple-spotted stone known as porphyry. The name of this palace is derived from this origin. The palace suffered severe damage during the fall of Constantinople. Although it was later utilized for a wide variety of purposes, a major fire in the 19th century reduced it completely to ruins. In modern times, it underwent restoration and the palace reopened to the public in 2019 as a Turkish ceramics museum. However, aside from the building itself, it appears to have little connection to the vanished royal court of old.