Around the Mosque of the Conqueror - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 248

TÜRBE OF NAKŞİDİL
Opposite Fatih's tabhane is the türbe complex built in 1817-18 for
Nakşidil Valide Sultan, wife of Abdül Hamit I and mother of Mahmut
II. The legend goes that this lady was Aimèe Dubuc de Rivery, cousin
of the Empress Josephine, captured by Algerian pirates and presented
to the Sultan by the Bey of Algiers. This legend also holds that it was
her influence on her son and others in the Saray which brought about
the pro-French policy of the Sublime Porte in the early years of the
nineteenth century, and even that she was one of the instigators of
the reform movement. A romantic tale has been made of this story by
Leslie Blanch in her Wilder Shores of Love; unfortunately, there seems
to be little or no foundation for the legend. However this may be,
Nakşidil's türbe is a very charming one in its baroque- Empire way,
forming a pleasant contrast to the austerity of the classic structures
of the Fatih külliye. At the corner stands the enormous türbe, which
has 14 sides; of its two rows of windows the upper ones are oval, a
unique and pretty feature. The 14 faces are divided from each other
by slender (too slender) columns which bear, on top of their capitals at
the first cornice level, tall flame-like acanthus leaves carved almost in
the round, giving a fine bravura efect - altogether a very original and
entertaining building. The wall stretching along the street opposite the
tabhane contains a gate and a grand sebil in the same flamboyant style
as the türbe. The gate leads into an attractive courtyard from which
one enters the türbe, whose interior decoration is rather elegant and
restrained. Diagonally opposite at the far end of the court is another
türbe, round and severely plain. In this türbe are interred Gülüstü
Valide Sultan, mother of Mehmet VI Vahidettin, the last Sultan of
the Ottoman Empire, together with other members of the family of
Abdül Mecit. Outside, the wall along the street running north ends in a
building at the next corner which was once a sibyan mektebi and is now
used as a sewing school. Both wall and mektep building, constructed of
brick and stone, seem to belong to an older tradition than the türbe of
Nakşidil, but the recurrence here and there of the flame-like acanthus
motif shows that they are part of the same complex.
Retracing our steps and passing Nakşidil's türbe, we walk along
Aslanhane Sokağı, the Street of the Lion-House, and soon find