Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City (31 page)

Behind the mosque is the usual walled garden of türbes, but the türbes themselves are very unusual indeed, for they provide a veritable historical museum of the two best periods of Turkish tiles, the first extending from the time of the Conquest up until about 1555, and the second and greatest from 1555 up till 1620. The türbes in the precincts of Haghia Sophia are larger and grander, but their tiles, magnificent as they are, are all much of the same date and style, as are those of the Süleymaniye. Here, on the other hand, the buildings are of sufficiently different dates to cover the whole span of the great age of the Iznik kilns, together with a few of those produced at a later period at Tekfur Saray. Unfortunately, these türbes are not open to the public, except for that of Destar
ı
Mustafa Pa
ş
a.

The first and largest türbe in the centre of the garden is, of course, that of the
Ş
ehzade Mehmet himself. It is octagonal, the faces separated by slender engaged columns; the stonework is polychrome, panels of verd antique with inscriptions being inset here and there in the façades, while the window frames and arches are picked out in terra-cotta. The dome, which is double, on a fluted circular drum, is itself fluted. The small entrance porch has a fine pavement of
opus sectile.
It is a very handsome building in the decorated style of the mosque itself.

The inscription in Persian verse over the entrance portal, which gives the date of the Prince’s death, A.H. 950 (A.D. 1543), suggests that the interior is like the garden of paradise. It is indeed – all apple green and vivid lemon yellow – for it is sheathed in tiles from the floor to the cornice of the dome. These are almost the last and by far the most triumphant flowering of the middle period of Iznik tiles, done in the
cuerda seca
technique. Tiles in this technique and in these colours are extremely rare. They were first manufactured at Iznik in about 1514, when Selim I brought back a group of Persian craftsmen after his conquest of Tabriz, while the latest known examples, in the lunettes of the windows of Kara Ahmet Pa
ş
a Camii on the Seventh Hill (see Chapter 16), date from 1555. Other examples are in the mosque and türbe of Selim I (see Chapter 13) himself, some here and there in the Saray, and in the porch of the Çinili Kö
ş
k, and that is about all. Thus the türbe of the
Ş
ehzade contains far and away the most extensive and beautiful collection of tiles of this rare and lovely type.

The tile decoration of the interior was clearly designed as a whole. Panels of floral design separate the lower tier of windows; in the lunettes above them are inscriptions framed in arch-shaped borders; in the spandrels between these appears an occasional boss in faience. Above, a continuous series of large panels, each spanning two windows, contains a long inscription; then comes the upper tier of windows framed in floral panels with a lovely medallion between each pair of windows. The ground is in general apple-green, sometimes dark blue; on this are designs of leaves and flowers in lemon yellow, turquoise, dark blue, white, and a curious unfired pinkish-mauve; the colours are separated by the thin, almost black line of the
cuerda seca.
The whole effect is lyrically beautiful, truly like a garden in paradise, making this türbe a masterpiece unrivalled of its kind.

And the beauty of the türbe is not limited to its ceramics, for the upper row of windows contains some of the most perfect of Turkish stained-glass in rich and brilliant colours. Some of these are, alas, broken and damaged, but several remain entire; only in the Süleymaniye is there so extensive and brilliant a display of Turkish stained-glass of the sixteenth century. The dome, supported on a deep cornice of stalactites with a frieze of
trefles
, preserves its original arabesque painting: a great medallion in the crown with a circle of leaf-like forms in rich brick-red from which a sort of cascade of smaller medallions and lozenges rains down nearly to the cornice. Since one must perforce use superlatives in describing this building, one might venture the view that this is the very best painted dome that survives in the city. Still another unique feature of the türbe is the very curious baldachino over the
Ş
ehzade’s cenotaph. It is of dark walnut wood, supported on four legs beautifully inlaid with ivory in a style that seems almost Indian; above this is a sort of openwork box of interlacing polygons, made of the same wood without inlay. One wonders if the box-like structure may not be intended to represent the Kaaba at Mecca, so that the effect would be that the Prince had been buried in the most holy place on earth. On his left is buried his daughter Huma
ş
ah Sultan; on his right his crippled brother, Prince Cihangir, who died in 1553 from love of his elder half-brother, the unfortunate Prince Mustafa, put to death by their father Süleyman.

Just to the left and behind the türbe of the
Ş
ehzade is that of the Grand Vezir Rüstem Pa
ş
a. This türbe is also by Sinan and it too is completely sheathed in tiles from floor to dome; but here everything is a little wrong. The building is too high for its diameter and too small to support the overwhelming quantity of tiles; and the tiles themselves, though beautiful, are just too early to display the full perfection of the Armenian bole technique. Rüstem evidently had a passion for tiles since not only his türbe but his mosque is entirely revetted with them; but he was unfortunate in his date, for he died in 1561, just ten years before complete mastery in the new technique was achieved. Here the most gorgeous panels are those between the lower windows; vases with a deep blue mandorla of flowers rising out of them. Between the lower and upper windows is a continuous inscription – white on dark blue – and between the upper windows floral tiles without an overall pattern. The drawing and composition are firm and good and the colours – on a white ground, dark blue, turquoise, a little green and red – are clear and vivid (all but the red, which in many tiles is muddy or brownish). There is no doubt that this türbe suffers greatly by comparison with that of the
Ş
ehzade and with that of Ibrahim Pa
ş
a nearby.

To this we now proceed – it is just opposite the south-west gate – passing in front of the unadorned türbe of Prince Mahmut, son of Mehmet III. The Grand Vezir Ibrahim Pa
ş
a, son-in-law of Murat III, died in 1601 and his türbe was completed in 1603; it is by the architect Dalg
ı
ç Mehmet A
ğ
a. This türbe almost equals that of the
Ş
ehzade in splendour and perfection. It is octagonal and fairly plain on the exterior, though two marble panels on either side of the entrance portal, carved with elaborate floral and arabesque designs in low relief, are unusual and lovely. Inside, it is another bosk of the paradisical garden, but with a very different colour scheme: white, intense blue, turquoise and scarlet. Here the walls to the top of the lower tier of windows are of marble with a surbase of flower tiles. Between the two rows of windows there are two continuous friezes of calligraphy, white on dark blue, divided by a deep band of interlaced polygons in scarlet on a white ground. The effect is astonishing but beautiful, and there is nothing quite like it in existence. The upper windows are divided by superb floral panels predominantly turquoise picked out in scarlet. All the tiles are absolutely perfect in technique, the Armenian bole standing out boldly in relief and displaying its scarlet colour at its most intense: notice the spots of it in the curliques of the calligraphy, like liquid drops of blood.

This türbe, too, has almost an
embarras de richesses
: between the lower windows are cupboards with carved wooden doors; open these and you will find the interiors also lined with tiles. These were evidently added later, for some of them, one suspects, are from the Tekfur Saray kilns, but very good examples of the work. The two cupboards on either side of the door have tiles with an unusual and attractive Chinese cloud pattern; the other have the more ordinary floral designs. The dome, too, preserves its original painting, with elaborate arabesques and flowers on a terra-cotta ground; it is rather heavy and more cluttered than that of the
Ş
ehzade, but far finer than any modern imitation. Ibrahim Pa
ş
a’s cenotaph is the usual wooden box, but beyond it are two tiny tombs for his son and daughter, of gaily painted marble.

There are two other türbes in the garden, those of Hatice Sultan, daughter of Murat III, and of Fatma Sultan, granddaughter of Prince Mehmet, but these are unadorned. There is, however, one more remarkable türbe to be visited, but it is outside the garden just opposite the south door of the mosque by the entrance to the outer precinct. It is that of Destari Mustafa Pa
ş
a, dated by its inscription to A.H. 1020 (A.D. 1611). This has now been restored and is open to the public. It has the unusual form of a rectangle, like two other türbes built by Sinan: one for Pertev Pa
ş
a at Eyüp (see Chapter 18), the other for Ahmet Pa
ş
a in the garden of Mihrimah Camii at the Edirne Gate (see Chapter 17). Unlike these, however, this one preserves its roof a low central dome flanked at each end by a shallow cradle-vault. The effect is very pretty. The walls between the windows are revetted with tiles, still of the best period; they are perhaps not quite so stunning as those of Ibrahim Pa
ş
a, but they contain a lot of Armenian bole at its most brilliant.

The medrese of the
Ş
ehzade foundation is on the far side of the precinct, at the north-west corner. It is a handsome building of the usual form. The south side, facing the mosque precinct, has a portico but no cells. Opposite the entrance, instead of the usual dershane, is an open loggia, the lecture hall itself being in the centre of the east side; opposite, a passage between two cells leads to the lavatories. The building has been well restored and is again in use as a residence for university students.

In line with the medrese but farther east is the kervansaray which now serves as a science laboratory for the adjacent Vefa Lisesi. This building is probably not by Sinan, though obviously contemporary or nearly so, with the rest of the complex. It has no door into the mosque precinct but is entered from the other side. It is L-shaped, the bottom stroke of the L consisting of a long, wide hall, its eight domes supported on three columns down its length; perpendicular to this is a block of eight cubicles with two spacious halls giving access to them. This interesting building is in good shape and makes a fine science laboratory.

Between the reservoir tank and the wall of the türbe garden a gate in the east wall of the precinct leads out into a side street, Dede Efendi Caddesi. Opposite, to the left, are the primary school and public kitchen of the complex. The primary school, or mektep, is of the usual type. The public kitchen, or imaret, consists of a spacious courtyard, on one side of which are three double kitchens and a large refectory, its four domes supported on three columns. This is a charmingly proportioned and gracious building. It is now used as a storage place; but the fabric is in good condition and one may hope that a more worthy use can be found for it.