Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City (61 page)

AT
İ
K VAL
İ
DE COMPLEX

The great külliye of Atik Valide Camii was built by Sinan in 1583 for Nurbanu Sultan, wife of Selim II and mother of Murat III. This is the most splendid and extensive of all Sinan’s constructions in Istanbul with the sole exception of the Süleymaniye. In addition to the mosque itself, the külliye consists of a medrese, a hospital, an imaret, a tabhane a dar-ül hadis, a dar-ül kura, a mektep, a kervansaray, a hamam and a hânkah, or dervish hospice; all these buildings are still in existence, though some have not been restored and are not open to the public.

We enter the precinct by an alley beside the graveyard behind the mosque and find ourselves in one of the most beautiful of all the mosque courtyards, a grandly proportioned cloister with domed porticoes supported on marble columns; in the centre are the
ş
ad
ı
rvan and many ancient plane trees and cypresses. The mosque is entered through an elaborate double porch, the outer one with a penthouse roof, the inner domed and with handsome tiled inscriptions over the windows. Inside one finds a wide rectangular room with a central dome supported by a hexagonal arrangement of pillars and columns; to north and south are side aisles each with two domed bays; the aisles were added at a later date and although on a close examination the arrangement leads to certain anomalies, the general impression is very attractive. There are galleries round three sides of the room and the wooden ceilings under some of them preserve that rich painting typical of the period: floral and arabesque designs in black, red and gold. The mihrab is in a square projecting apse entirely revetted in magnificent tiles of the best Iznik period; note also the window-frames of deep red conglomerate marble with shutters richly inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The mihrab and mimber are fine works in carved marble.

The medrese of the complex stands at a lower level than the mosque and is entered by a staircase in the west wall of the courtyard. Its own courtyard is almost as pretty as that of the mosque itself and is oddly irregular, having five domed bays to the south but only three to the north. The dershane is in the centre of the west side in the axis of the mosque though at an obtuse angle to it, and it projects over the street below which passes under it through an archway. If one leaves the medrese by the gate in the south side, one can walk round the building and pass under this picturesque arch. At the next corner beyond it stands the large hânkah, or dervish hospice, also highly irregular in plan but quite as attractive as the other buildings. These various irregularities are partly due to the alignment of pre-existing streets and the varying level of the terrain, but were perhaps courted by Sinan to give variety and liveliness to his design, for he could quite easily have avoided them if he had chosen.

The mektep is across the street to the south of the mosque. Across the street to the west of the mosque are the imaret, tabhane, dar-ül hadis, dar-ül kurra and kervansaray, none of which are open to the public. The hamam, which has been restored and is once again in use, is two blocks west of the medrese and on the same street. One hopes that all of the buildings of that Atik Valide külliye will be restored and opened to the public, for it is certainly one of the half-dozen most impressive monuments of Ottoman architecture not only in the city but anywhere in the country.

Ç
İ
N
İ
L
İ
CAM
İ
İ

The street to the east of Atik Valide leads after a walk of about one kilometre to Çinili Camii, a small complex by another Valide Sultan, Kösem, mother of Murat IV and the mad Ibrahim, built at the beginning of the latter’s reign in 1640. The mosque, in a pretty garden filled with flowers and trees, is small and simple: a square room covered by a dome, but it has both on the façade and in the interior a revetment of tiles (hence its name,
çinili =
tiled) just after the best period, but still quite fine, chiefly pale blue and turquoise on a white ground. The mimber of white marble has its carving very prettily picked out in gold, red and green, and its conical roof is tiled. The porch of the mosque is a baroque addition, as is the minaret, of which the
ş
erefe has a corbel of very pretty folded-back acanthus leaves, such as we have seen nowhere else. In the precinct is a very fine
ş
ad
ı
rvan with a huge witch’s cap for a roof, and a tiny medrese triangular in shape sloping headlong down hill. Just outside the precinct is a handsome mektep, and not far off a large hamam also belongs to the foundation.

The street outside the mosque, Çavu
ş
Dere Caddesi, winds downhill and in about a mile leads one back to Iskele Meydan
ı
.

There are many interesting and pleasant excursions to be made in the environs of Üsküdar, for, as Evliya Çelebi informs us: “Üsküdar is surrounded on all sides with delightful walks.” These places can easily be reached by bus or taxi from the Iskele Meydan
ı
, or, if one is feeling really energetic, one could stroll to them through the town none of them is at any great distance.

CEMETERY OF KARACA AHMET

One walk for which Üsküdar is famous is that to the vast Turkish cemetery of Karaca Ahmet which covers the hills to the southwest towards Kad
ı
köy. This rivals in extent and picturesqueness the cemeteries outside the walls of Stamboul and in Eyüp. Acre after acre is thick with cypress trees and with serried but topsy-turvy ranks of tombstones; here and there an old suterazi or water-control tower rivals the trees in height and gauntness. Many of the older tombstones are beautifully designed and carved, usually bearing elaborate obituary inscriptions, some of which are quite poetic and touching and others even irreverent and amusing. The stones are topped with representations of the headdresses of the deceased, from which we learn their sex and station. The tombstones of the men are surmounted with large stone turbans, whose variety exhibit the full range of the Ottoman civil, military and religious hierarchies; here and there we see the turban of a pa
ş
a, a dervish, a sipahi or a eunuch. Those of the women are decorated with floral designs in low relief and are crowned with archaic oriental hats or draped with simple shawls, feminine even though in stone. One could stroll for hours in this serene suburb of the dead.

BARRACKS AND MOSQUE OF SEL
İ
M III

At no great distance from the cemetery are the gargantuan barracks of Selim III. The barracks, a huge rectangle with very characteristic towers at the corners, are now chiefly famous as the scene of Florence Nightingale’s ministrations during the Crimean War. They were originally erected in wood by Selim III to house the new troops he hoped would quell and take the place of the Janissaries. Later they were partly rebuilt in stone by Mahmut II after he had in fact liquidated that rebellious corps; and later still the rest was done in stone by Abdül Mecit. They are still used by the military; the general public can visit the little museum in the tower where Florence Nightingale lived when she was running the hospital.

Opposite the main entrance to the barracks is the mosque that Selim III built for his new corps of soldiers. Built in A.H. 1209 (A.D. 1803–4), it is the last and one of the handsomest of the pure baroque mosques. Not only are its proportions and details most attractive, but it is placed in an exceptionally lovely garden with three of the finest plane trees in the city. The interior as usual is a little stark, though of impressive proportions. The western gallery, the mihrab and the mimber are all of highly polished (too highly polished) grey marble and give the place a certain charm. A short distance to the south of the Selimiye barracks we find the British Crimean cemetery.

ÇAMLICA

In describing the excursions in the neighbourhood of Üsküdar, Evliya tells us that “the most celebrated walk of all is that of Great Caml
ı
ca, where a kiosk was built by the present monarch (Mehmet IV), the chronograph of which was composed by me, poor Evliya.” The Great Çaml
ı
ca stands about four kilometres east of Iskele Meydan
ı
and can be reached by the main highway leaving Üsküdar in that direction. It is the taller of the twin peaks of Mount Bulgurlu, the highest point in the vicinity of Istanbul (267 metres above sea level). There is no trace of the imperial kiosk mentioned by poor Evliya, its place being taken by a large teahouse and café in the midst of the pine grove which gives the peak its name
(cam =
pine). From here there is an absolutely magnificent view, which makes it well worth the climb. In the morning when the sun is still easterly one has a clear panoramic view of the whole city: the Bosphorus almost as far as the Black Sea, the Marmara with the Princes’ Islands, and behind that the great snow-covered peak of Ulu Da
ğ
, the Bithynian Olympos. Towards evening the sun sets almost directly behind Stamboul and its domes and minarets are silhouetted against the flaming western sky.

KIZ KULES
İ

One of the most familiar sights in Istanbul is perhaps the one least visited. This is K
ı
z Kulesi, the Maidens Tower, which stands on a tiny islet a few hundred metres off Üsküdar. Its Turkish name is derived from the legend concerning a princess who was confined there by her father to protect her from the fate foretold by a dire prophecy: that she would die from the bite of a serpent. Needless to say, the princess was eventually bitten by the serpent, smuggled out to the islet in a basket of grapes. In English the place is usually called Leander’s Tower, in the mistaken notion that Leander drowned there in his attempt to swim the strait to see his lover Hero, which legendary tragedy actually occurred near Abydos in the Dardanelles. According to Nicetas Choniates, the Emperor Manuel I Comnenus in the twelfth century built a small fortress here to which he attached one end of the chain with which he closed the strait, the other end being attached to the Tower of Mangana below the acropolis. Since then it has been used as a lighthouse, semaphore station, quarantine, customs control point and home for retired naval officers. The present building dates from the eighteenth century. It has recently been rebuilt and now houses a restaurant and café.

THE PRINCES’ ISLANDS

The most famous of all the beauty spots in the vicinity of Istanbul are the Princes’ Islands, the little suburban archipelago just off the Asian coast of the Marmara. The isles are about an hour’s sail by ferry from the Galata Bridge, though in spirit they seem at a far greater remove than that, so different are they from the rest of the city in atmosphere and appearance.

During Byzantine times the islands were inhabited only by fishermen and by the monks and nuns in the monasteries and convents that had been founded there, most of which at one time or another housed emperors, empresses and patriarchs who had been exiled to the islands. It is only since the latter half of the nineteenth century that the Princes’ Islands have become fashionable as resorts and places to bathe and picnic. Before that they were sparsely inhabited and rarely visited. But their picturesqueness and their rather grim historical associations appealed to the romantic imagination of the nineteenth century. This aspect of the islands is well preserved in a purple passage at the beginning of Gustave Schlumberger’s charming book
Les Isles des Princes:

Unfortunately, the souvenirs of the past so poetically evoked by Schlumberger must be supplied by the imagination – or by that scholar’s fascinating essay – for the islands preserve almost no relics of antiquity: the convent cells bedewed with tears have vanished without a trace or survive only in a crumbling wall, a half-buried cistern. The beauties of nature, however, remain, though they are fast being encroached upon by summer villas and camping sites, especially in Prinkipo; but the smaller islands and the more outlying parts of that one are still as lovely as Schlumberger describes them.