The Bosphorus - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 439

the senior author of this guide once or twice had the honour to be
included.
Opposite Barbarossa's türbe is a brick and stone mosque, another
work of Sinan; this was founded by another High Admiral, Sinan
Paşa, brother of the Grand Vezir Rüstem Paşa. Inscriptions on the
şadırvan and over the entrance portal give the date A.H. 963 (A.D.
1555-6) as that in which the mosque was finished, two years after
the death of its founder. The mosque is interesting architecturally,
though not particularly attractive. Its plan is essentially a copy of
Üç Şerefeli Cami (1447) at Edirne. Its central dome rests on six
arches, one incorporated in the east wall, the others supported by
four hexagonal pillars, two on the west, one each to north and south;
beyond the latter are side-aisles each with two domed bays. Thus
far the plan is almost like that of Üç Şerefeli Cami, but while there
the western piers are incorporated in the west wall, here Sinan has
added a sort of narthex of five bays, four with domes, the central one
cross-vaulted. The proportions are not very good and the interior
seems squat and heavy. The same indeed is true of the courtyard,
the porticoes of which are not domed but have steeply-sloping
penthouse roofs; the cells of the medrese occupy three sides of it.
Sinan seems to have been least happy when he was more or less
copying an older building; thus the mosque of Kılıç Ali Paşa at
Tophane, a miniature copy of Haghia Sophia, and this copy of Üç
Şerefeli Cami, also much smaller than the original, are among his
least successful works.
There are also two Greek churches in Beşiktaş, both of them
dedicated to the Panaghia (Blessed Virgin). Both churches in their
present form date to the mid-nineteenth century. There is also an
Armenian church, Surp Asvadzadzin (the Immaculate Conception),
which is known to have existed on this site since 1655; the present
building was erected in 1856 and restored in 1987.
Just to the left of the ferry-landing we see the Naval Museum.
In the garden of the museum there are arrayed a number of ancient
cannon, many of them captured by the Turks when the Ottoman
Navy was the scourge of the Mediterranean. The most important
exhibit in the museum itself is the famous chart of North America