The Seventh Hill - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 332

HEKİMOĞLU ALİ PAŞA CAMİİ
Some 200 metres beyond Davut Paşa Camii and on the same side
of the street, we come to a grand and interesting complex, that of
Hekimoğlu Ali Paşa. This nobleman was the son (oglu) of the court
physician (hekim) and was himself Grand Vezir for 15 years under
Sultan Mahmut I. A long inscription in Turkish verse over the door
gives the date of construction as A.H. 1147 (A.D. 1734-5); the
architect was Ömer Ağa. One can consider this complex either the
last of the great classical buildings or the first of the new baroque style,
for it has characteristics of both. At the corner of the precinct wall
beside the north entrance is a very beautiful sebil of marble with five
bronze grilles; above runs an elaborate frieze with a long inscription
and fine carvings of vines, flowers and rosettes in the new rococo style
that had recently been introduced from France. The façade of the
türbe along the street is faced in marble, corbelled out towards the
top and with a çeşme at the far end. It is a large rectangular building
with two domes dividing it into two equal square areas. This form
was not unknown in the classical period - compare Sinan's Pertev
Paşa türbe at Eyüp (see Chapter 18); but it was rare and the use of it
here seems to indicate a willingness to experiment with new forms.
Farther along the precinct wall stands the monumental gateway with
a domed chamber above; this was the library of the foundation.
Though the manuscripts have been transferred elsewhere, it still
contains the painted wooden cages with grilles in which they were
stored; an elegant floral frieze runs round the top of the walls and
floral medallions adorn the dome. From the columned porch at the
top of the steps leading to the library, one commands a good view of
the whole complex, with its singularly attractive garden full of tall
cypresses and aged plane trees, and opposite the stately porch and
very slender minaret of the mosque.
The mosque itself, raised on a substructure containing a cistern,
is purely classical in form. Indeed its plan is almost an exact replica
of that at Cerrah Paşa, which we saw earlier on this tour. In contrast
to that, the present building is perhaps a little weak and efeminate;
there is a certain blurring of forms and enervating of structural
distinctions, an efect not mitigated by the pale colour of the tile