Around the Blue Mosque - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 115

he married Süleyman's sister Hadice, at which time he was given
this palace on the Hippodrome. Some idea of the enormous wealth
and influence which Ibrahim had at this time can be gained from
even a casual view of the palace, the grandest private residence ever
built in the Ottoman Empire, far greater in size than any of the
buildings in Topkapı Sarayı itself. But the very magnitude of this
wealth and power was the ultimate cause of Ibrahim's ownfall. Later
in Süleyman's reign, when he fell under the influence of his wife
Roxelana, the Sultan was persuaded that Ibrahim must be eliminated,
for he was taking on the airs of royalty. And so one night in the year
1536, after having dined alone with the Sultan, as he had so often
in the years of their intimacy, Ibrahim retired to an adjacent room
in the Saray and was there murdered while he slept. Immediately
afterwards all of Ibrahim's wealth and possessions were confiscated
by the state, including the palace on the Hippodrome. For a time,
Ibrahim's palace seems to have been used as a dormitory and school
for the apprentice pages in the Saray. The great hall, that part of the
palace which fronts on the Hippodrome, was in Ibrahim's time the
Audience Room of the Grand Vezir, and afterwards it was probably
the High Court of Justice. In later times it seems to have been used
as a barracks for unmarried Janissaries and also as a prison. By the
beginning of the nineteenth century much of the palace was in ruins,
but then it was restored and opened to the public in 1983 as the
Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art.
After passing through the entrance lobby, one enters the north-
east corner of the great central courtyard; this has been restored very
attractively, with marble paving around a garden and with a balcony
overlooking the Hippodrome. Part of the north wing has been fitted
out as an old-fashioned Istanbul cofee-house, an ideal place to relax
before or after seeing the exhibits in the museum.
Before going through the galleries, one might pause to survey
the structure of the palace. What one sees here is the main part of
the original palace of Ibrahim Paşa. In addition to this there was
another section of almost equal size adjoining the present structure
to the north-west, apparently an enormous han-like edifice, which
has vanished except for the wing nearest the Hippodrome. The most