rebels seized Qazvin and installed his son Tahmasp Mirza as a puppet ruler in the city for a while. In the spring of 1596, Hamza Mirza marched on Qazvin and overthrew the Turkomans. Qazvin appears to have emerged relatively unscathed from this drama – Don Juan of Persia, who visited the city soon after, described it as large and prosperous. He wrote that it had over 100,000 heads of households, or upwards of 450,000 people in total, with over 500 mosques and a "sumptuous" palace quarter. A member of Anthony Shirley's entourage, which arrived in Qazvin in December 1598, was less enthusiastic and wrote that it was an unremarkable city except for a few mosques and the palace gate; he estimated its population as a somewhat smaller than London's. In 1607, the Catholic priest Paul Simon wrote that Qazvin, though no longer the capital, was still a large city rivalling Isfahan in size. He said it was an important commercial destination for silks, carpets, and brocades. Pietro della Valle, who visited Qazvin in 1618, was not very impressed with the city and wrote that it had "nothing to satisfy the expectations of a royal residence". Thomas Herbert, writing in 1627, said Qazvin was "equal for grandeur to any other city in the Persian Empire", except for Isfahan, and estimated its population at 200,000. About a decade later, Adam Olearius offered a lower estimate of 100,000 people. In 1674, Jean Chardin visited Qazvin, and he wrote that its walls were in ruins by that time and it had lost its grandeur. He estimated that it had 12,000 houses and 100,000 people. He wrote that there were "a great many merchants in Qazvin, but not many rich ones" and commented on its shoe-makers, who he said made "the best shoes in the whole country" out of shagreen and coming in green, white, and other colors. There were also artisans who made gilded horse saddles and bows. There was an outbreak of plague in Qazvin in 1635/6 (1045 AH). The original Safavid palace complex is located at what is now the city's maidan or central square. Two parts of this now survive: the Chehel Sotun pavilion, which now hosts the Qazvin museum, and the monumental Ali Qapu portal which now serves as the city's police headquarters. The palace complex was probably originally at the northern end of the city - earlier monuments are