Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of Sokollu Mehmet, and just beyond the graveyard is a building in
the same style as the dershane: this is the dar-ül kura
or school for the
various methods of reading the Kuran. This little complex as a whole
is certainly one of Sinan's most attractive.
Sokollu Mehmet Paşa was perhaps the greatest and most capable
of the long line of able grand vezirs of the sixteenth century. He
was the son of a Bosnian priest and was born in the castle of Sokol,
“the falcon's nest”, in Bosnia. But he was taken in the devşirme and
brought up in the Palace School at the Saray. He married the princess
Ismihan Sultan, daughter of Sultan Selim the Sot. His outstanding
genius brought him early preferment and he successively held the
posts of Lord High Treasurer, Grand Admiral, Beylerbey of Rumelia,
Vezir, and finally Grand Vezir, a position which he held continuously
for 15 years under three sultans, Süleyman, Selim II and Murat III,
from 1564 to 1579, in which year he was murdered in the Divan
itself by a mad soldier. Posterity owes him three of the most beautiful
architectural monuments in Istanbul: the present complex, the
mosque at Azap Kapı, and - most beautiful of all - the mosque at
Kadirga Liman under the Hippodrome; all were the work of Sinan.
The türbe across the street from Sokollu's is that of Siyavuş
Paşa, austere like the other but adorned within by inscriptions and
pendentives in excellent Iznik tiles. It is also by Sinan; Siyavuş outlived
Sinan by a dozen years and died in 1601, but he seems to have had
Sinan build this türbe originally for some of his children who died
young, and then was finally buried there himself. Still another türbe
by Sinan is to be found half-way up a narrow and picturesque little
alleyway beside the türbe of Siyavuş that leads back towards the
mosque of Eyüp through a forest of tombstones. This is the tomb
of Pertev Paşa, of a very unusual design, rectangular and more like a
house than a tomb. It was originally divided into two equal areas each
covered by a dome of wood exquisitely painted; this survived until
1927 when it fell victim to neglect. Inside are still to be seen some
charming marble sarcophagi of Pertev and his family.
One has now come full circle back to the north gate of the courtyard
of Eyüp Camii. If one crosses the court and takes the inner of the two
roads parallel with the Golden Horn, one soon comes to the second
Search WWH ::
Custom Search