Sinan / Classical
Nişancı Mehmed Pasha Mosque
1584–1589 · Fatih / Karagümrük
Octagonal eight-pier baldaquin with four squinches and four half-domes — Sinan's most structurally complex late experiment; the second-largest non-dynastic dome in Istanbul (14.2 m); and a building whose architect is genuinely disputed, as Sinan died one year before its completion.
- Dome
- 14.2 m
- Minarets
- 1
- Built
- 1584–1589
- Architect
- Mimar Sinan
- Patron
- Nişancı Mehmed Pasha
- District
- Fatih / Karagümrük
History
The mosque was commissioned by Nişancı Mehmed Pasha, an Ottoman official who rose through the imperial chancery to become chancellor (nişancı — keeper of the imperial cipher, or tuğra) in 1567, the title from which he and the mosque take their name. He subsequently served as governor of Aleppo (~1574–76) and as vizier under Sultan Murad III from 1580. According to the inscription at the entrance, the mosque was built from 1584 to 1589. Mimar Sinan died in 1588 during the construction period; Godfrey Goodwin held that one of Sinan's assistants completed it — Davud Agha or Mehmed Agha, both later chief imperial architects.
Architecture
The prayer hall is covered by a single large dome of 14.2 m diameter, supported by an octagonal baldaquin of eight pillars. The dome is buttressed by eight half-domes: four larger, deeper ones on the sides and four smaller ones in the corners. The floor plan has a distinctive stepped profile on the qibla side, where the support pillars are integrated directly into the outer walls rather than standing free. The patron's tomb still stands on the northeast side of the courtyard; most of the rest of the complex (two madrasas and a tekke) has been lost. The attribution is debated: the mosque is missing from the Tezkiretü'l-Ebniye and the Tezkiretü'l-Bünyan yet named in the Tuhfetü'l-mi'mârîn, and Evliya Çelebi took it for Sinan's work. On grounds of style and dating, Aptullah Kuran and Doğan Kuban assign it to Davud Ağa: Sinan died in 1588 and the work was finished in 1589. Necipoğlu allows that the design was begun under Sinan and carried through by his successor.
In Sinan's evolution
Very late career / posthumous (1584–89, completed 1589, one year after Sinan's death in 1588). The octagonal baldaquin represents the structural frontier of Sinan's experimentation — beyond the hexagonal system of his middle period. Attribution to Sinan himself is contested: Kuban and Kuran argue for Davud Agha as the executing architect. If Sinan, this is among his final designed works; if Davud Agha, it represents the next generation's continuation of Sinan's structural vocabulary.
Sinan Tree →Facts
- The dome diameter of 14.2 m makes this the second-largest dome for a non-dynastic (non-royal) mosque in Istanbul, after Rüstem Pasha Mosque (~15.2 m). en.wikipedia.org
Photographs
