Travel Reference
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vast courtyard is surrounded with porticoes, the one on the ground
floor giving access to the windowless storerooms and stables, with
staircases on each side leading up to the first floor gallery, more open
and brighter, from which the living rooms were reached. In the centre
of the courtyard there was generally a small mosque. Today, with the
replacement of the horse and camel by the motor-truck, the character
of these old hans has changed considerably, and they are now given
over to every conceivable form of commerce and industry. Most of
them, like Vezir Hanı, are in a shocking state of dilapidation and
near ruin. Nevertheless they are still grand and picturesque, evoking
something of the now almost vanished Oriental atmosphere of old
Stamboul.
Returning once again to Divan Yolu, we continue on past
Constantine's column on the same side of the street to an interesting
mosque, Atik Ali Paşa Camii. This is one of the oldest mosques in
the city, having been built in 1496 by the Hadım (Eunuch) Atik
Ali Paşa, Grand Vezir of Sultan Beyazit II. Surrounded by a quiet
garden of the busy street, it is an attractive little mosque, especially
from the outside. Its plan is somewhat unusual, in that it consists
of a rectangular room divided into unequal parts by an arch. The
western and larger section is covered by a dome, the eastern by a
semidome under which is the mihrab, as if in a sort of great apse.
The western section is also flanked to north and south by two rooms
with smaller domes. The semidome and the four small domes have
stalactite pendentives, a common feature in mosques of early date.
Atik Ali Paşa Camii originally had several dependencies: a tekke,
an imaret and a medrese. Of these only a part of the medrese remains;
it is across the Divan Yolu from the mosque, the remainder having
been destroyed some time ago when the road was widened. This
building, though mutilated, is interesting as being one of the very
few medreses of the pre-classical period that survive in the city.
THE COMPLEX OF KOCA SİNAN PAŞA
A short distance beyond Atik Ali Paşa Camii, on the same side of
the avenue, we come to the külliye of Koca Sinan Paşa, enclosed by
a picturesque marble wall with iron grilles. The külliye consists of a
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