Levantines: A little-known community of the Ottoman Empire. From the beginning to the present. We see the Levantines as foreign subjects born and living in the Levant, especially in Constantinople, where people of all nationalities and religions came together. After the conquest of the city in 1453, Constantinople was where the Ottoman Latin Community was formed and where the foreign Latin Community was re-established. We later witness the spread of this Latin Community (Ottoman or foreign) in Mersin, Iskenderun, Samsun, Trabzon, Edirne and Izmir. In the strict sense of the term, Levantines are Latin Catholic foreign subjects in the Ottoman Empire, as opposed to Latin Catholic Ottoman subjects or Latin subjects. The Levantines are not Westerners, or even Easterners. In a sense, they are a living synthesis of the East and the West, inheriting some traditions from each other. As pioneers of a Europe without borders, they knew how to live together, all nations were together, and each knew how to preserve its own identity.