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faces allows the müezzin to call to prayer. Although a very minor
antiquity indeed, this lonely minaret stands as a monument to the
great Sinan - may it be preserved forever from the modern tenements
which encroach upon it.
MESİH PAŞA CAMİİ
Retracing our steps, we walk back uphill along Akşemseddin Caddesi
for about 250 metres until we come to a square dominated on its left
side by a fine classical mosque. This is Mesih Paşa Camii, built by an
unknown architect in 1585. (The mosque is popularly attributed to
Sinan, but without evidence.) The founder was the eunuch Mesih
Mehmet Paşa, infamous for his cruelty as Governor of Egypt, who
became Grand Vezir for a short time at the age of 90 in the reign
of Murat III. The courtyard of the mosque is attractive but rather
sombre. It consists of the usual domed porticoes under which, rather
unusually, are the ablution fountains; this is because the place of
the şadırvan in the centre of the courtyard has been taken by the
picturesque open türbe of the founder. The mosque is preceded
by a double porch, but the wooden roof of the second porch has
disappeared, leaving the arcades to support nothing; the inner porch
has the usual five bays. In plan the building is an octagon inscribed in
a square with semidomes as squinches in the diagonals; to north and
south are galleries. But the odd feature is that what in most mosques
of this form are aisles under the galleries are here turned into porches.
That is, where you would expect an arcade of columns, you find a
wall with windows opening onto an exterior gallery which, in turn,
opens to the outside by enormous arches, now glazed in. The mihrab
and mimber are very fine works in marble, as are the grilles above
the windows. Tiles of the best period complete the decoration of this
interesting building.
HİRKA-İ ŞERİF CAMİİ
If we leave by the south gate of the mosque and follow the winding
road uphill, we come in a moment or two to a mosque of a very
diferent style indeed. Hirka-i Şerif Camii, the Mosque of the Holy
Mantle, was built in 1851 by Sultan Abdül Mecit to house the second
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