Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City (77 page)

For the following buildings which appear in the
Tezkere
we have not been able to find definite dates: Ahi Çelebi Camii and Bali Pa
ş
a Camii (repairs or construction only: probably very early work before he became Chief Architect, since after 1538 he would hardly have undertaken repairs to relatively unimportant buildings); Hüsrev Kethüda Hamam
ı
; Kap
ı
A
ğ
as
ı
Hamam
ı
(a ruin with no indication of date); Ni
ş
anc
ı
Mehmet Bey Medresesi (a complete ruin); Semiz Ali Pa
ş
a Medresesi (perhaps between 1561 and 1565 when Ali was Grand Vezir); Siyavu
ş
Pa
ş
a Türbesi (built for some children who predeceased him; he was buried there himself when he died in 1601);
Ş
ehzadeler Türbesi (a problematical building perhaps not by Sinan though it appears in the
Tezkere
).

In the above list there are about 120 buildings mentioned, practically all of which can safely be attributed to Sinan in whole or in part. Of these 24 are mosques, 27 medreses, 20 türbes, eight hamams, four imarets and three hospitals. This is a phenomenal amount of work for one man to have accomplished even in a career of more than 50 years, and even with the help of an
atellier
including many skilled architects. And one must add to it a large number of buildings which have perished entirely or been totally reconstructed, not to mention many others in various parts of the Ottoman domains, some of them of great grandeur and importance.

Endnote

1
. The present description of Kariye Camii is based almost entirely on the great publication of this work by Paul A. Underwood,
The Kariye Djami
, 4 vols; Bollingen Series 70; copyright 1966 by Princeton University Press; excerpts adapted by permission of Princeton University Press. Also on the Preliminary Reports in the
Dumbarton Oaks Papers
(1956–60). These have completely superseded all previous work on the church.

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