Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [122]
Just outside the At Meidan, in full view of the Blue Mosque and near the ruins of the palace of Antiochous, is the mosque of Firaz Aga. It was built in 1491 by the chief treasurer of the realm. The design of the mosque couldn’t be simpler and contrasts sharply with all but the earliest imperial mosques: a dome upon a square, with a solitary minaret at the northeast corner. But the rudimentary form is probably not the result of limited means but simply that the mosque predates the borrowing of ideas from Byzantine basilicas.
Halfway to Beyazit Square on the right side is the mosque of Atik Ali. It sits askew to the surrounding buildings because it was laid out in 1496, long before the modern street and quarter were planned. Atik Ali was Sultan Beyazit’s chief eunuch and for his mosque he chose the old form of two domed rooms separated by a north-south crosswall. The design has been varied by replacing the eastern dome by a semidome with stalactite decoration. The building is set in a flagged court with shade trees and gardens and has been little touched by time or the restorer’s hand.
Several hundred yards beyond Atik Ali is Beyazit Square, near the center of the city. The Covered Bazaar and the university are within easy walking distance. The mosque of Sultan Beyazit II was an imperial foundation erected in 1506 on what was very near the grounds of the old palace (Eski Saray) of Mahmet the Conqueror. It includes the customary courtyard with domed portico and the interiors of the domes have been freshly painted in burgundy, black, and gold to bring out their floral designs. The building was reputed to be so carefully oriented toward Mecca that sailors could set their compasses and astronomers their clocks by it.
This was the first of the imperial mosques to owe a heavy debt to Hagia Sophia. Its central dome is flanked on the east and west by semidomes and on the north and south by tympanic arches. But the arches are supported on only one rather than three columns, hence the division of nave from aisle is less pronounced and the interior space is correspondingly more open. The curious wings to the south and north, both of which terminate with minarets, are also a borrowing from church architecture and give the effect of a narthex, or vestibule.
The area around the mosque is usually awash with students coming from the university or with shoppers on their way to the bazaars and is thus a favorite place to loiter and observe. If sitting on the staircase in total indolence seems too sinful, one can always visit the second-hand book market alongside the mosque. The Sahaflar Charshi, as it is known, was the book and paper market of Byzantium and, but for a brief period as the center for turban making and engraving, has continued to serve as such. It was there that I sampled one of the delicious semits, or sesame seed bread rings, on sale in the nearest things Istanbul has to automatic vending machines: a Plexiglas box divided in two. You simply take a bread ring from one half and deposit a ten-lira note in the other.
A short amble up the great staircase and through the university grounds with their pines and cypresses leads to the greatest Ottoman building Istanbul has to offer: the Suleimaniye of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Suleiman assumed the Sultanate from his father, Selim I, in 1520. During his reign of forty-six years the Ottoman Empire reached its zenith. What his emissaries and statesmen in the courts of Europe could not achieve, his armies in the field did. The Turkish court was one of the most brilliant in the world and its manners and intrigues passed into the arts and literature of sixteenth-century Europe.
The mosque and its associated buildings form a truly immense ensemble and are a supreme tribute both to the Sultan and to his principal architect,