- Emeritus Research Director, CNRS
- Honorary Director of Studies, EPHE
- Member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres
- Historian of the Ottoman Empire, mainly in the modern period
His work focuses on relations with the Western world in the 15th and 16th centuries ; the Ottoman practice of power ; epitaphs, cemeteries and death among the Ottomans ; the succession of Ottoman sultans ; and piracy. He is currently working on Hayreddin Barbarossa.
He has practiced funerary epigraphy, published and translated Ottoman chronicles and archival documents, and contributed to the catalog of the Ottoman archives of the monastery of Saint John on Patmos. He is currently collaborating on the edition of an unpublished Mühimme defteri kept at the National Library of Vienna and on the inventory of the archives of the Baile of Venice.
Many of these works are the fruit of collaborations, particularly with Gilles Veinstein, Stéphane Yerasimos and Elizabeth Zachariadou, all three deceased, Elisabetta Borromeo, Claudia Römer and Edhem Eldem.
