Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
walnut wood, supported on four legs beautifully inlaid with ivory in
a style that seems almost Indian; above this is a sort of openwork box
of interlacing polygons, made of the same wood without inlay. One
wonders if the box-like structure may not be intended to represent
the Kaaba at Mecca, so that the efect would be that the Prince had
been buried in the most holy place on earth. On his left is buried his
daughter Humaşah Sultan; on his right his crippled brother, Prince
Cihangir, who died in 1553 from love of his elder half-brother,
the unfortunate Prince Mustafa, put to death by their father
Süleyman.
Just to the left and behind the türbe of the Şehzade is that of the
Grand Vezir Rüstem Paşa. This türbe is also by Sinan and it too is
completely sheathed in tiles from floor to dome; but here everything
is a little wrong. The building is too high for its diameter and too
small to support the overwhelming quantity of tiles; and the tiles
themselves, though beautiful, are just too early to display the full
perfection of the Armenian bole technique. Rüstem evidently had a
passion for tiles since not only his türbe but his mosque is entirely
revetted with them; but he was unfortunate in his date, for he died
in 1561, just ten years before complete mastery in the new technique
was achieved. Here the most gorgeous panels are those between the
lower windows; vases with a deep blue mandorla of flowers rising
out of them. Between the lower and upper windows is a continuous
inscription - white on dark blue - and between the upper windows
floral tiles without an overall pattern. The drawing and composition
are firm and good and the colours - on a white ground, dark blue,
turquoise, a little green and red - are clear and vivid (all but the red,
which in many tiles is muddy or brownish). There is no doubt that
this türbe sufers greatly by comparison with that of the Şehzade and
with that of Ibrahim Paşa nearby.
To this we now proceed - it is just opposite the south-west gate
- passing in front of the unadorned türbe of Prince Mahmut, son
of Mehmet III. The Grand Vezir Ibrahim Paşa, son-in-law of Murat
III, died in 1601 and his türbe was completed in 1603; it is by the
architect Dalgıç Mehmet Ağa. This türbe almost equals that of the
Şehzade in splendour and perfection. It is octagonal and fairly plain
Search WWH ::
Custom Search