The Seventh Hill - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 324

almost cheek-by-jowl examples of the first interesting beginnings of
Ottoman architecture and of its bitter end. The latter, Valide Sultan
Camii, can be seen just to the north of the overpass. It combines
elements from Moorish and Turkish, Gothic, Renaissance and
Empire styles in a garish rococo hodgepodge. The mosque was built
in 1871 for Pertevniyal Valide Sultan, the mother of Sultan Abdül
Aziz. It used to be ascribed to the Italian architect Montani, but it
seems actually to be by the Armenians Hagop and Sarkis Balyan,
who built some of the late Ottoman palaces we will see along the
Bosphorus.
At the west of the overpass and to the left down the first cross street,
we come to a handsome sibyan mektebi. This was founded by Ebu
Bekir Paşa in A.H. 1136 (A.D. 1723-4); it has recently been restored
and is now in use as a children's library, like so many others of its type.
Beyond the western end of the overpass the two new highways
meet in an acute angle; the southern one, Millet Caddesi, runs up
along the back of the Seventh Hill to Top Kapı and is a very busy and
important thoroughfare; the northern one, Vatan Caddesi, follows
the course of the Lycus River which is canalized beneath it.
MURAT PAŞA CAMİİ
In the angle between these two avenues stands the attractive and
ancient mosque of Murat Paşa, the second of the two mosques of
the “Bursa type” that still exist in Istanbul. It is smaller and less
elaborate than Mahmut Paşa Camii but resembles it in general plan:
a long rectangular room divided by an arch into two squares each
covered by a dome, with two small side-chambers to north and south
forming a tabhane for travellers. Of the two large domes, the eastern
one rests on pendentives with bold and deeply cut stalactites, but
the western one has that curious arrangement of triangles which
we have seen on the smaller domes at Mahmut Paşa. The porch
has five domed bays with six very handsome ancient columns: two
of Syenitic granite, four of verd antique. The capitals are of three
diferent kinds, arranged symmetrically, two types of stalactites and
the lozenge capital. The construction of the building is in courses
of brick and stone. The pious foundation originally included a