Around the Mosque of the Conqueror - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 238

is from the side, and beside each entrance is a tiny garden planted
with trees - an efect as rare as it is pretty. Beyond each medrese
there was originally an annexe about half as large: these have quite
disappeared, but seem to have consisted of porticoes around three
sides of a terrace. All in all there must have been about 255 hücres,
or students' rooms, each occupied by perhaps four students. Thus
the establishment must have provided for about 1,000 students -
a university on a big scale. These fine buildings have recently been
restored and are now again used as residences by students.
THE HOSPICE
The south-east gate of the precinct, called Çorba Kapısı, or
the Soup Gate, from the proximity of the imaret, is a bit of the
original structure. Notice the elaborate and most unusual designs in
porphyry and verd antique set into the stonework of the canopy, as
well as the “panache” at the top in verd antique. Through this gate
one comes to what is perhaps the finest building of the külliye, the
well restored tabhane, or hospice, for travelling dervishes. It has a
very beautiful courtyard and is in general an astonishing, indeed
unique, building. The 20 domes of the courtyard are supported on
16 exceptionally beautiful antique columns of verd antique and
Syenitic marble, doubtless from the Church of the Holy Apostles.
At the east end a large square room (which has unfortunately lost its
dome) originally served as a mescit-zaviye , or room, for the dervish
ceremonies. On each side of this are two spacious domed rooms
opening onto two open eyvans . These are very interesting: each has
two domes supported on a rectangular pillar that one would swear
at first sight to be baroque. Closer examination, however, shows the
same engaged ribbed columns ending in intertwined designs and an
hour-glass capital and base that we found on the entrance portals of
the mosque itself. The rosettes, too, and even the very eighteenth-
century mouldings, can be paralleled in this and other buildings of
Fatih's time. It is thought that the two open eyvans were used for
meetings and prayers in summer, the two rooms adjoining the mescit-
zaviye for the same purpose in winter, and the two farther rooms in
the corner as depositories for the guests' baggage. The two rooms at