Through the Outer Gardens of the Saray - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 87

all the street-fountains in Istanbul. This fountain was built by Sultan
Ahmet III in 1728 and is a particularly fine example of Turkish
rococo architecture. It is a square structure with an overhanging roof
surmounted by five small domes. On each of the four sides there is
a çeşme, or wall-fountain, and at each of four corners a sebil. Each
of the wall-fountains is set into a niche framed in an ogival archway.
The voussoirs of the arches are in alternating red and pink marble
and the façade is richly decorated with floral designs in low relief.
The corner sebils are semicircular in form, each having three windows
framed by engaged marble columns and enclosed with ornate bronze
grilles. The curved wall above and below each sebil is delicately
carved and elaborately decorated with relieved designs and ornate
inscriptions. Above each of the four fountains there is a long and
beautiful inscription in gold letters on a blue-green ground; the text is
by the celebrated poet Seyit Vehbi, who is here praising the fountain
and comparing its waters with those of the holy spring Zemzem and
of the sacred selsebils of Paradise. The inscription ends with these
modest lines: “Seyit Vehbi Efendi, the most distinguished among
the word-wizards of the age, strung these pearls on the thread of his
verse and joined together the two lines of the chronographic distich,
like two sweet almonds breast to breast: With what a wall has Sultan
Ahmet dammed the waters / For astonishment stopped the flood in
the midst of its course!”
HAGHİA EİRENE
Passing through the Imperial Gate into the first courtyard of the
Saray, we see a little way forward on the left the rose-red apse of a
Byzantine church. This is Haghia Eirene, the former church of the
Divine Peace. According to tradition, the original church of Haghia
Eirene was one of the first Christian churches in the old town of
Byzantium. The church was rebuilt on a larger scale by Constantine
the Great or his son Constantius, and it served as the patriarchal
cathedral until the completion of the first church of Haghia Sophia.
During the reign of Constantius, Haghia Eirene was at the centre of
the violent disputes then taking place between the Arians and the
Orthodox party, the upholders of the Nicene Creed, and in the year