Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City (74 page)

Our tours have now taken us through nearly every part of the city and to most of its historical monuments. But, as we have perhaps learned on our strolls, Istanbul is much more than just an inhabited museum, for the old town has a beauty and fascination that go quite beyond its history and its architecture. One is apt to feel this when seated at a
çayevi
or
meyhane
in a sun-dappled square, or while taking one’s ease in a vine-shaded café beside the Bosphorus. Little has been said of the Stamboullus themselves, but the visitor will surely have experienced innumerable examples of their grave friendliness and unfailing hospitality. Much of the pleasure of visiting or living in this city derives from the warm and relaxed company of its residents.
“Ho
ş
geldiniz!”
(Welcome), they say to the stranger who arrives in their city or their home; and when one leaves one is sent off with a
“Güle Güle!”
(Go with Smiles), as if to lessen the inevitable sadness of departure. But how can one not feel sad when leaving this beautiful city.

But before we leave let us take one last stroll through Stamboul, to visit an enchanting place which we have somehow missed on our earlier tours. This is the venerable district of Kum Kap
ı
, which lies at the foot of the Second and Third Hills along the Marmara shore. There are no monuments here of any historic or architectural importance, just a wonderful old Stamboul neighbourhood. The harbour of Kum Kap
ı
, the ancient Kontoscalion, is the last of the Byzantine ports still left on the Marmara coast of the city. It is always filled with picturesque caiques and the quayside is often carpeted with brilliantly-dyed fishing nets spread there to be dried and mended. The fish market there is one of the liveliest and most colourful in the city; the shouts and cries of the fishmongers are liable to be in any of several languages: Turkish, Greek, Armenian and even Laz, raucous and ribald in all four.

From the port a cobbled road leads down under the railway line and through the now almost vanished remnants of the ancient Porta Kontoscalion. In Turkish times this was known as Kum Kap
ı
, the Sand Gate, whose name now survives in that of the surrounding neighbourhood. Up until the beginning of this century one could still see on the tower to the left of this gate the imperial monogram and coat of arms of Andronicus II Palaeologus (r. 1282–1328).

A short distance along we come to the picturesque village square of Kum Kap
ı
. (Another discovery of our strolls is that Istanbul is really a collection of villages, usually clustering around a mosque or a market square such as the one we see here.) The square has an old street fountain in its centre and is surrounded by the stalls and barrows of a fish and fruit and vegetable market, as well as several excellent fish restaurants. (Up until the early 1970s one of these restaurants was called Cans
ı
z Bal
ı
k, the Dead Fish, but its one-eyed Armenian owner was persuaded that the sign frightened away customers and so he has changed its name.) When we have had our fill and more we can sit by the window and watch the infinitely varied procession of local life passing through this most colourful square. At times like this we feel that the old town, for all its faults and flaws, has managed to retain some of the humane qualities of communal life and rich connections with the past that have been lost in most modern cities. In that mood we think of our own strolls through Stamboul and of the dear friends who were our companions here, many of them now departed and some gone forever. We think too of Evliya Çelebi, who has been our companion-guide for so long, and wonder what he might say if he could once again walk through the streets of his beloved town, so changed but so much the same. Knowing him as we do, we imagine that he might repeat the words of his contemporary, the historian Solak Dede, whom Evliya quotes in the
Seyahatname: “‘
Oh, my God,’ said Solak Dede after finishing his
Description of Constantinople
, ‘let this town flourish till the end of time!’”

Appendices

BYZANTINE EMPERORS

THE LATIN OCCUPATION

BYZANTINE EMPERORS IN NICAEA

RESTORATION OF BYZANTIUM

OTTOMAN SULTANS

NOTES ON BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURAL FORMS

The earliest buildings to be used as churches in the ancient world were chiefly of two types: the basilica and the centralized building. The basilica, developed in Hellenistic and Roman times for a variety of public purposes, was for several centuries the plan most widely adopted for ordinary churches. It is a long rectangular building divided by two rows of columns into three parts, a wide central nave flanked by an aisle on each side; at the east end of the nave is a semicircular projection or apse
.
The entrance, at the west and opposite the apse, is generally preceded by a vestibule or narthex, which in turn opens into a large arcaded courtyard or atrium
.
Dozens of early examples of this plan are to be found in all parts of the Roman Empire, but in Istanbul only one pure basilica has survived, the church of St. John of Studius, built in 449–50, now partly ruined, but whose basilical structure is still clearly visible.

The early basilicas had pitched roofs and flat ceilings. Later, chiefly in the reign of Justinian, an innovation was made by introducing a dome. Two ancient examples in Istanbul survive intact: Haghia Eirene and Haghia Sophia. The nave of the former is covered at the east by a large dome, at the west by a smaller, slightly elliptical domical vault; otherwise it is a very typical basilica. In Haghia Sophia the enormous central dome is supported to east and west by two semidomes of equal diameter and there are other modifications which to a superficial view conceal its essentially basilical plan.

The other type of classical building sometimes used for churches was of a centralized plan, round or polygonal. In Istanbul there remain the very scanty ruins of a few such buildings of a very early period, but the most famous and beautiful is somewhat later in date, the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus built by Justinian in 527. In form it is an octagon inscribed in a rectangle with a projecting apse and a large central dome. Between the eight piers which support the dome, there are pairs of columns on the ground floor and gallery level, thus making continuous ambulatories except in front of the apse. SS. Sergius and Bacchus closely resembles the contemporary church of St. Vitale at Ravenna.

The 250 years after Justinian (roughly 600 to 850) were a period of decline and confusion, unfavourable to the arts. When architecture began to revive in the ninth century, a new type of church building came into vogue, generally known as the cross-domed church. In this type a central dome is surrounded in the axes of the building by four long barrel vaults resting on four strong corner piers, thus forming an internal cross; on three sides are aisles and galleries, so that the exterior is rectangular. At the east end the wide central apse is flanked by two smaller side apses; thenceforward three apses became habitual, demanded by the developed ritual; and at the west there is the usual narthex. In Istanbul the clearest and grandest example of this type is the church of St. Theodosia (Gül Camii), probably dating from the eleventh century.

Another type, often considered as a mere development of the plan of the cross-domed church, though it may have had an independent origin, has been called by several names, but we shall identify it as the four-column church because its most striking internal feature is the four columns which here take the place of the corner piers of the earlier type as supports for the dome. These churches are all small and tall, more or less square on the exterior, but preserving the cruciform plan within. There are no galleries, except sometimes over the narthex, but the four corners of the cross are occupied by bays domed or with domical vaults on high drums; these, together with the central dome, form a quincunx, by which name this type is sometimes known. The four-column church first appears in Istanbul in the ninth or tenth century and thereafter became almost standard; its small size was suitable to the declining revenues of the shrinking Empire, while its interior form provided ample areas for mosaic and fresco decoration. In Istanbul no less than eight examples survive, of which perhaps the most typical are the two churches which form parts of the complex building of St. Saviour Pantocrator (Zeyrek Camii).