Along the Golden Horn - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 305

of the building, Gül Camii, or the Mosque of the Rose. It seems
that the saint's feast-day falls on 29 May, and on that day in the
year 1453 a great congregation assembled in the church appealing
for Theodosia's intercession. The church had been decked with roses
in celebration of the feast-day, and when the Turkish soldiers entered
the church after the city fell they found the roses still in place: so the
romantic story goes, and hence the romantic name.
The second legend, which seems to have originated long after the
Conquest, has it that the church of St. Theodosia was the final resting-
place of Constantine XI Dragases, the last Emperor of Byzantium.
There are several diferent traditions as to the circumstances of the
Emperor's death and the place of his burial, but the one in favour
among Greeks of an older generation was that he was interred in a
chamber in the south-east pier of St. Theodosia. And indeed there
is a burial-chamber there, reached by a staircase leading up inside
the pier itself, and within it is a coffin, or sarcophagus, covered by
a green shawl. However, an equally persistent Turkish legend has it
that this is not the tomb of Constantine but that of a Muslim saint
called Gül Baba, the eponymous founder of the mosque! To further
complicate the problem, above the lintel of the door leading to the
burial-chamber there is a cryptic Turkish inscription which reads:
“Tomb of the Apostle, disciple of Christ, peace be to him.”
KÜÇÜK MUSTAFA PAŞA HAMAMI
Leaving the church, we turn left and then at the second corner we
turn left again. A short distance along on the left side of the street
we come to one of the oldest and grandest Turkish baths in the city,
now closed for restoration. It is now called Küçük (Little) Mustafa
Paşa Hamamı, but it seems actually to have been founded by Koca
Mustafa Paşa, Grand Vezir to Beyazit II, who built it sometime before
1512. Its plan and the incredibly varied and intricate structure of its
domes would entirely bear out that early date. Its camekân, about
14.5 metres square, is among the largest in the city, so that not even
the wooden galleries around it detract much from its impressiveness;
in its centre there is a pretty marble basin. The soğukluk, as so often,
is merely carved out of the hararet, consisting of its right-hand cubicle