Overview: At the time of Elizabeth I, the greatest power in the world was not England, France or Florence, it was the Ottoman Empire – one of the world’s first truly global and multicultural Empires. The film follows the rise of the Ottomans in the Anatolian city of Bursa and tells the dramatic story of how they conquered Byzantium and transformed Istanbul. The great Topkapi Palace of Istanbul is the stage on which we describe the growth of the Ottoman Empire and hear of the unprecedented developments in science and the arts ushered in by the rule of enlightened Sultans.