Around Beyazit and Sehzadebas - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 180

The funerary chapel can be visited in the company of the imam.
A fragmentary fresco can be seen in the bema, the lower part of a
panel depicting a female donor kneeling before a standing figure of
the Virgin Hodegitria.
The Rotunda was excavated in 1964-5 by R. Nauman and is
described by Striker in his book on the Myrelaion. Its external and
internal diameters are 41.8 and 29.6 metres, respectively, with walls
of finely cut aslar blocks now standing to a maximum height of 3.4
metres. The roof was originlly supported by some 75 columns. The
Rotunda seems to have been in ruins when Romanus decided to
build his palace on its substructure, erecting his church and funerary
chapel just next to it. During the excavations of 1964-6 a fragmentary
sculpture in porphyry was discovered in the Rotunda by the Turkish
archaeologist Nezih Firatlı. Firatlı showed that this fragment, which
we have seen in the Archaeological Museum, was part of a foot of the
group of the Tetrarchs that now stands outside the south-west corner
of the Basilica of San Marco in Venice.
LALELI CAMİİ
We now return to Ordu Caddesi where we are confronted by the
imposing complex of Laleli Camii, built on a high terrace. This is a
very frivolous mosque, perhaps the best of all the baroque mosques
in the city. It was founded by Mustafa III and built between 1759
and 1763 by Mehmet Tahir Ağa, the greatest and most original of
the Turkish baroque architects.
Before we visit the mosque itself we might take a stroll through the
galleries below it, a veritable labyrinth of winding passages and vaulted
shops. In the centre, directly underneath the mosque, is a great hall
supported on eight enormous piers, with a fountain in the centre and
a café and shops round about. The whole thing is obviously a tour
de force of Mehmet Tahir to show that he could support his mosque
apparently on nothing!
The mosque itself is constructed of brick and stone, but the
superstructure is of stone only; the two parts do not seem to fit together
very well. Along the sides run amusing but pointless galleries, the
arcades having round arches; a similar arcade covers the ramp leading