History
History
Commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent and completed in 1557, the Süleymaniye is the masterwork of Mimar Sinan, the greatest Ottoman architect. Set on Istanbul's third hill, it dominates the Golden Horn with its 53-metre-high dome and complete complex: schools, hospital, baths, public kitchens and caravanserai.
Here Sinan achieved a perfect balance of mass and light, and legendary acoustics. The mausoleums of Suleiman and his wife Hürrem (Roxelana) stand in the garden; Sinan himself rests in a modest tomb at the corner of the enclosure.
Anecdotes & highlights
- A special room collected soot from the oil lamps: it was used to make calligraphers' ink.
- Ostrich eggs were hung from the chandeliers, believed to keep away spiders and thus cobwebs.
- Sinan, then in his seventies, considered the Süleymaniye his "journeyman" work : the Selimiye in Edirne being his true masterpiece.
