Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City by Hilary Sumner-Boyd & John Freely

Author:Hilary Sumner-Boyd & John Freely [Sumner-Boyd, Hilary & Freely, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, Maps & Road Atlases, Middle East, General, Reference
ISBN: 9780857730053
Google: CZL3AgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00746TVQ2
Publisher: Tauris Parke Paperbacks
Published: 2009-11-28T16:00:00+00:00

Opposite Fatih’s tabhane is the türbe complex built in 1817–18 for Nakşidil Valide Sultan, wife of Abdül Hamit I and mother of Mahmut II. The legend goes that this lady was Aimèe Dubuc de Rivery, cousin of the Empress Josephine, captured by Algerian pirates and presented to the Sultan by the Bey of Algiers. This legend also holds that it was her influence on her son and others in the Saray which brought about the pro-French policy of the Sublime Porte in the early years of the nineteenth century, and even that she was one of the instigators of the reform movement. A romantic tale has been made of this story by Leslie Blanch in her Wilder Shores of Love; unfortunately, there seems to be little or no foundation for the legend. However this may be, Nakşidil’s türbe is a very charming one in its baroque-Empire way, forming a pleasant contrast to the austerity of the classic structures of the Fatih külliye. At the corner stands the enormous türbe, which has 14 sides; of its two rows of windows the upper ones are oval, a unique and pretty feature. The 14 faces are divided from each other by slender (too slender) columns which bear, on top of their capitals at the first cornice level, tall flame-like acanthus leaves carved almost in the round, giving a fine bravura effect – altogether a very original and entertaining building. The wall stretching along the street opposite the tabhane contains a gate and a grand sebil in the same flamboyant style as the türbe. The gate leads into an attractive courtyard from which one enters the türbe, whose interior decoration is rather elegant and restrained. Diagonally opposite at the far end of the court is another türbe, round and severely plain. In this türbe are interred Gülüstü Valide Sultan, mother of Mehmet VI Vahidettin, the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, together with other members of the family of Abdül Mecit. Outside, the wall along the street running north ends in a building at the next corner which was once a sibyan mektebi and is now used as a sewing school. Both wall and mektep building, constructed of brick and stone, seem to belong to an older tradition than the türbe of Nakşidil, but the recurrence here and there of the flame-like acanthus motif shows that they are part of the same complex.

Retracing our steps and passing Nakşidil’s türbe, we walk along Aslanhane Sokağı, the Street of the Lion-House, and soon find ourselves back once again on the main avenue, Fevzi Paşa Caddesi. We continue on across the avenue, taking the street which runs down the hill past the west side of the medrese of Feyzullah Efendi; from here we will stroll through the neighbourhood to the south and west of Fatih Camii.

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