The Seventh Hill - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 329

most of the complex has been well restored. The medrese is immediately
across the street from the mosque. It is of the usual type - a porticoed
courtyard surrounded by the student's cubicles and the dershane; but
apart from its truly imperial size, it is singularly well-proportioned
and excellent in detail. Its 20 columns are of granite, Proconnesian
marble, and vend antique; their lozenge capitals are decorated with
small rosettes and medallions of various elegant designs and here
and there with a sort of serpentine garland motif, a quite unique
design. Also unique are the two pairs of lotus flower capitals, their
leaves spreading out at the top to support a sort of abacus; though
soft and featureless, they make a not unattractive variation from the
almost characterless lozenge. Two carved hemispherical bosses in the
spandrels of the arcade call attention to the dershane, a monumental
square room with a dome. The great charm of the courtyard must
have been still greater when the faience panels with inscriptions were
still in place in the lunettes of the windows; many years ago when the
building was dilapidated they were removed to the museum and are
now on display in the Çinili Köşk. Next to the medrese is the large
and very oddly-shaped sibyan mektebi in two storeys with widely-
projecting eaves.
The imaret, which was still in use up until the early 1970s, is beyond
the mektep, entered through a monumental portal which leads to an
alleyway. At the end of this, one enters the long rectangular courtyard
of the imaret, shaded with trees. Vast kitchens with large domes and
enormous chimneys (better seen from inside at the back) line three
sides of the courtyard.
The hospital is behind the medrese, entered from the street behind
the külliye to the north. It is a building of most unusual form:
the court is octagonal but without a columned portico. The two
large corner rooms at the back, whose great domes have stalactited
pendentives coming far down the walls, originally opened to the
courtyard through huge arches, now glassed-in; with these open
rooms or eyvans all the other wards and chambers of the hospital
communicated. Opposite the eyvans on one side is the entrance
portal, approached through an irregular vestibule, like that so often
found in Persian mosques. On the other side are the lavatories, also