TOPKAPI SARAYI

"Never hath a more delightful residence been erected by the art of man"

Today, as we always do, we suggest you have a tea or coffee in our coffee shop while reading about Topkapi Palace, home of the Grand Sultans. You may then take a short morning or early afternoon walk for only 250 meters to reach that magnificient Palace. Please bear in mind that those Grand Sultans did not have the comfort of the bed in your room :)

Topkapı Sarayı the Great Palace of the Osmanlı Sultans, is the most extensive and fascinating monument of Ottoman civil architecture in exictence. In addition to its architectural and historical interest, it contains, as a museum, superb and unrivalled collections of porcelains, armour, fabrics, jewels, illuminated manuscripts, calligraphy, and many objects of art formerly belonging to the sultans. A cursory visit requires several hours; to know it thoroughly many weeks would hardly suffice.

When Mehmet the Conqueror, known to the Turks as Fatih Sultan Mehmet, captured Constantinople in 1453, he found the former palaces of the Byzantine Emperors in such ruins as to be uninhabitable. He therefore selected a large overgrown area on the Third Hill as the site of his palace, the district where now stand the central buildings of the University of Istanbul and the great complex of the Suleymaniye. Here he erected an extensive palace which later came to be known as Eski Saray, or the Old Palace. For only a few years later, in 1459 , he decided to build a new palace at the northern end of the First Hill; the area once occupied by the ancient acropolis of Byzantium. To do so he cut off the point of the Constantinopolitan triangle by building a masive defence-wall, guarded by towers, which extended from the Byzantine sea-walls along the Golden Horn to those along the Marmara. (The Palace eventually took its name from the main sea-gate in these defence-walls; this was Topkapı, the Cannon Gate, so-called because it bristled with armaments. This twin-towered gateway formerly stood at Saray Point, but it was destroyed in the nineteenth century.) The area thus enclosed must be approximately identical with the ancient city of Byzantium before its successive enlargements, Fatih Mehmet constructed his palace on the high ground, or acropolis; on the slopes of the hill and along the seashore he laid out extensive parks and gardens. He could not have chosen a more magnificent site in the city. As Evliya Çelebi remarked of it more than three centuries ago:"Never hath a more delightful residence been erected by the art of man"

Of the Palace as we know it today, almost the entire plan, with the exception of the Harem and the so-called Fourth Court, was laid out and built by Fatih between 1459 and 1465. The Harem in its present state belongs largely to the time of Murat III (r.1574-95) with extensive reconstructions and additions chiefly under Mehmet IV (r.1648-87) and Osman III (r.1754-7); while the isolated pavillions of the Fourth Court date from various periods. On there occasions, in 1574, 1665 and 1856, very serious fires devastated large sections of the Palace, so that while the three main courts have preserved essentially the arrengement given them by Fatih, many of the buildings have either disappeared (as most of those in the First Court) or been reconstructed and redecorated in later periods.

The Palace of Topkapı must not be thought of merely as the private residence of the Sultan and his court, for it was much more than that. It was the seat of the supreme excutive and judicial council of the Empire, the Divan, and it housed the largest and most select of the training schools for the imperial civil service the Palace School. The verious divisions of the Saray correspond pretty clearly with these various functions. The first court , which was open to the public, was the service area for the palace. It contained a hospital, a bakery, an arsenal the mint and outer treasury, and a large number of storage places and dormitories for guards and domestics of the Outer Service, those whose duties did not ordinarily bring them into private, residential areas of the Palace. The Second Court was the seat of the Divan, devoted to the public administration of the Empire; İt could be entered by anyone who had business to transact with the Council. Beyond this court to right and left were certain other service areas: the kitchens and privy stables. The Third Court, strictly reserved for officials of the Court and Government, was largely given over to various divisions of the Palace School, but also contained some of the chambers of the selamlık, or reception rooms of the Sultan, The Harem, specifically the women's quarter of the Palace, had additional rooms of the selamlık, men's quarter of the palace, and the Sultan's private apartments, as well as quarters for the Black Eunuchs. The Fourth Court was a large enclosed garden on various levels with occasional pleasure domes. The total number of people permanently resident in the Saray was between 4.000 and 5.000.

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Spina

We already referred to you about the hippodrome which is close to our hotel.And now we want to give you information about monuments in spina which is in the middle of the Hippodrome.

The first of the monuments of the spina, beginning at the northern end, is the Egyptian Obelisk. This was originally commissioned by the Pharaoh Thutmose III (1549-1503 B.C.), who erected it at Deir el Bahri opposite Thebes in Upper Egypt to commemorate one of his campaigns in Syria and his crossing of the Euphrates River. As can be seen, the shaft of the Obelisk, which is now nearly 20 metres high, has been broken off; according to Sir Flinders Petrie, it was originally 30 metres in height  and weighed about 800 tonnes. The Obelisk was brought to Constantinople some time during the fourth century A.D., perhaps by Constantine the Great, but, though a mere fragment, it colud not be raised and lay for some years on the seashore. It was finally erected on its present  site by Theodosius the Great in 390. The Obelisk is mounted on four brazen blocks which rest on a marble basis with sculptured reliefs. These represent the Emperor and his family in the imperial box in the Hippodrome; on the South side he is watching the races depicted in the lower block;on the east he is crowning the victors; on the North he is assisting in the erection of the obelisk itself, the method of which is represented in the lower block; and on the west he is receiving homage from vanquished enemies. Inscription in Grek and Latin on the base praise Theodosius and his Prefect Proclus for erecting the Obelisk ; the Latin inscription tell us that 30 days were required to the job, while the one in Greek says that it took 32.(Were the Greek and Latin scribes not on speaking terms?) The total height of the monumement including the base about 26 metres and the bottom of it represents approximately the original level of the race-course, some 4.5 metres below the present surface of the ground.

The seconf of the three monuments on the spina is the Serpent Column. The three intertwined bronze serpents which from the column were the base of a trophy that once stood in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. This trophy was dedicated to Apollo as a token of gratitude by the 31 Greek cities which defated the Persians in the battle of Platea (479 B.C.); according to tradition the bronze serpents were cast from the shields of the fallen Persian warriors. The names of the 31 cities are inscribed on the coils of the serpents near the bottom. The column was brought from Delphy by Constantine the Great; it seems to have stood at first in the courtyard of Haghia Sophia and to have been moved to the Hippodrome only at a later date. There are several stories about what became of the missing serpent heads, but the most likely one is that they were chopped off by a member of the Polish Embassy  one night in April of the year 1700. The upper part of one of the serpent heads was found in 1847 and is now, as we have seen , on exhibit at the Arceological Museum. Like the serpents themselves , it is a very beautiful and finished piece of bronze sculpture, as is to be expected of a Greek work of that period.

The third of the ancient monuments on the spina is roughly built pillar of Stone 32 metres high which stands near the southern end of the At Meydanı. The sixteenth-century French traveller, Gyllius, called it the Colossus, but most modern writers refer to it, incorrectly, as the Column of Constantine Porphryogenitus. Both names stem from the Greek inscription on its base, where it is recorded that the pillar is compared to the Colossus OF Rhodes, and where it is recorded that the pillar was restored and sheathed in bronze by the Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (r.912-959). But the inscription also says that the pillar was decayed by time, so that it must date vto an earlier period, perhaps to that of Theodosius the Great or Constantine the Great. It seems to have been a favourite pastimein the Turkish period to climb this column as an acrobatic feat – at least if one can judge by a Turkish miniature which shows a man at the vtop of it, another in the act of climbing the obelisk, and a monkey on a pole higher than both! And Gyllius tells a rather grim story of having, himself,seen two young men climb the pillar one after the other; the first came down safely but the second lost his nevre, jumped, and was, of course, instantly killed.

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When you walk out of the street where our Hotel is located,you will find one of the magnificent work of arts in history, Haghia Sofia on the Blue Mosque Square. Just like the light of the stars on a cloudless night which comes us from thousands of years ago, Haghia Sofia offers us a scene from 1600 years ago too. Now we advise you to visit our cafe and refresh your knowledge on Haghia Sophia going to the square, as this work of art occupies an important place for both Christian and Islamic sphere.

The present edifice of Haghia Sophia is the third of that name to stand upon this site. The first church of Haghia Sophia was dedicated on 15 February in the year A.D.360, during the reign of Constantius, son and successor of Constantine the Great. This church was destroyed by fire on 20 June 404, during a riot by mobs protesting the exile of Patriarch Jonh Chrysostom by the Empress Eudoxia , wife of the Emperor Arcadius. Reconstruction of the church did not begin until the reign of Theodosius II, who succeeded his father Arcadius in the year 408. The second church of Haghia Sophia was completed in 415 and was dedicated by Theodosius on 10 october of that year. The church of Theodosius eventually suffered the same fate as its predecessor, for it was burned down during the Nika Revolt on 15 January 532.

The cronicler Prokopius, commenting on the destruction of Haghia Sophia in the Nika Revolt , observed that “God allowed the mob commit this sacrilege , knowing how great the beauty of this church would be when restored” Procopius tell us that Justinian immediately set out to rebuild the church on an even grander scale than before. According to Procopius :”The Emperor built regardless of expense , gathering together skilled workmen from every land” Justinian appointed as head architect Anthemius of Tralles, one of the most distinguished mathematicians and physicists of the age, and as his assistant named Isidorus of Miletus, the greatest geometer of late antiquity. Isidorus had been the director of ancient and illustrious Academy in the Athens before it was closed by Justinian in the year 529,Isidorus who has placed in the year 532, is thus a link between the worlds of ancient Greece and medieval Byzantium. Just as the Academy of Plato had been one of the outstanding institutions of classical Greek culture, so would the resurrected Haghia Sophia be the symbol of triumphant Christianity, Byzantine-style.


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Do you know that horse themes in our hotel have a history? To learn about that history, we advise you take a short walk to the Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmet Camii) Square  which is only 20 meters far from our hotel. When you arrive  at the Blue Mosque Square, you will see the German Fountain and the Rectorship Building of Marmara University. Between these two buildings, there was a hippodrome. And now our horses' history begins. We believe that you will enjoy your walk more after you read the following text:

The Square in front of Sultan Ahmet Camii is located on this site of the ancient Hippodrome. It has often been remarked that just as Haghia Sophia was the centre of the religious life of Constantinople, so the Hippodrome was the centre of its civil activities. The interests and passion of the populace were about equally divided between theological controversy and the chariot races of the Hippodrome. Frequently, indeed, the two became involved together, since the Blues and the Greens, the rival circus factions, would generally adopt different sides in religious disputes, which constantly served as convenient mask for political and economic struggles. Thus on many occasions, riots and insurrections began in the Hippodrome, the most famous being the Nika rebellion in January 532. This revolt ended when Justinian’s general. Belisarius, trapped the rebels in the Hippodrome and there slaughtered 30.000 of them. There is ancient tradition that partisans were buried where they fell and that their bones still inhabit the site.

The Hippodrome was an immense structure begun in 203 by the Emperor Septimus Severus; later Constantine the Great extended and remolled it. It was 480 meters in lenght and 117.5 meters wide; it could seat , according to one estimate, about 30.000 spectators. The central line, or spina, of the course was marked by obelisks and columns, three of which are still the outstanding monuments of the At Meydanı. The Royal enclosure, the Kathisma, was probably situated midway along the eastern side of the arena. The straight northern end of the arena, where the spectators and chariots entered through vaulted passageways, was located about where is now fountain of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The semi-circular southern end, or sphendone,is today concealed far beyond the buildings at the South end of the square. The great vaulted substructures at this end of Hippodrome are visible from the streets below the At Meydanı on the Marmara slope of the first Hill. At the trop top bof the outer wall there ran all around the structure an arcade of columns with an epistyle in the classical manner. Many of these were stil standing nearly a century after the Turkish Conquest, but in 1550 they were pulled down and used for building material.


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