In the current description of the Byzantine palaces, the Hippodrome, and the renowned neighboring Augusteion, I recall the great toil of this work.

Those who have studied these palaces, as recorded in the later writings of both foreign and our own authors, understand the confusion of this history is often confessed by the same writers.

Many, believing that in this strange land, now solely inhabited by Ottomans, no ruins have been preserved, have never visited the place, drawing everything from the surviving Byzantine historians and contemporary geographers.

(. . .) [Excerpt from the text of the preface]