The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II - Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire (16 page)

The Harem is a labyrinth of several hundred rooms, few of them very large, on half a dozen levels, of passages, staircases, courtyards and gardens. The site is at the western edge of the acropolis of ancient Byzantium and the hill falls steeply down to the plain below; thus almost the whole of the Harem had to be built on tall substructures to bring it to the level of the rest of the palace. The complex of buildings that for brevity is commonly referred to as the Harem includes also the Selamlık - that is to say, the private rooms for the sultan himself and the semi-public ones where he occasionally entertained the high officials of the court and government; there is no clear dividing line between the two.

According to Promontorio, writing in 1475, Mehmet had 400 women in his harem, of whom 150 lived with him in Topkapı Sarayı, while the rest remained in Eski Saray, which he calls the ‘second seraglio for damsels’. He says that the women in the harem of Topkapı Sarayı slept on individual beds three or four to a room. Twenty servants were assigned to each room, and the harem was guarded by twenty-five black eunuchs, headed by the chief black eunuch, whose title was
kızlar ağası
, or ağa of the girls. Few of the women in Mehmet’s harem were his concubines and bore him children, the rest being attendants and servants.

The earliest extant buildings of the Topkapı Sarayı Harem date from a century after the reign of Mehmet II. Mehmet reserved an apartment for himself in both palaces, an arrangement that was continued by his successors up to the time of Süleyman, who early in his reign, under the influence of his favourite wife Roxelana, moved his harem from the Old Palace to Topkapı Sarayı. Süleyman’s harem was very modest, as was that of his son and successor Selim II (r. 1566-74), and it seems certain that no extensive building projects in the Inner Palace were undertaken by either of those sultans, and any structures they might have erected were destroyed by a great fire in 1574. At all events, the fact is that the oldest rooms still extant in the Harem that can be dated with certainty belong to the reign of Murat III (r. 1574-95), son and successor of Selim II, and were built by the great Ottoman architect Sinan.

At the south end of the west wall of the Second Court is another door called Meyyit Kapısı, the Gate of the Dead, because the bodies of those who died in the Saray were taken out by it for burial. The gateway leads down to the area of the Has Ahır, or Privy Stables, which are on the lower slope of the hill. These stables, which were built by Mehmet II, were used only for the twenty to thirty of the choicest horses for the personal use of the sultan and his favourite pages. There was a much larger palace stable for several hundred horses just outside the walls of the Saray on the Marmara shore, the name of which is still preserved in that of one of the gates in the Byzantine sea walls, Ahır Kapısı, the Stable Gate.

The entire east side of the Second Court is taken up by the palace kitchens, whose long line of ten pairs of domes and chimneys is one of the most distinctive features of the skyline of the Saray as seen from the Marmara. A long, narrow courtyard or open passageway runs the entire length of the area. On the east or outer side of this open the kitchens, while across from them on the west side of the corridor are the storerooms for food and utensils, rooms for the various categories of cooks, and two small mosques.

The kitchens consist of a long series of ten spacious rooms with lofty domes on the Marmara side, and equally lofty conical chimneys on the side of the courtyard. The original kitchens were built here by Mehmet II, of which there remain from his time the two southernmost ones, while the other eight were built by Beyazit II. The huge chimneys were built in 1575 for Murat III by Sinan, who restored the whole complex, which had been badly damaged by the fire of 1574.

The entryway to the Third Court is called Bab-üs Saadet, the Gate of Felicity. The name comes from the fact that it gave entrance to Enderun, the Inner Palace, also known as Dar-üs Saadet, the House of Felicity. The gateway is described by an anonymous European traveller: ‘When you go to the Seraglio you have to enter by a gate which is very richly gilded, and is called the Gate of Felicity. Sometimes you see over it, stuck upon the point of a pike, the head of a grand vezir, or some other personage, who has been decapitated in the morning, at the caprice of the Grand Signior.’

The Third Gate itself dates back to the time of Mehmet II, though it was rebuilt in later times. The gate is preceded by a great canopy supported on four columns with a small dome above. Promontorio refers to it as a ‘magnificent and excellent portico roofed with lead’, and he says that under it Mehmet sat on a ‘dazzling and high throne’. Under this canopy the sultans upon their accession and at
bayrams
received the homage of their officials, seated upon a golden throne studded with emeralds. A miniature in the Topkapı Sarayı museum shows Sultan Mehmet enthroned in front of the Third Gate in the company of the grand vezir Mahmut Pasha and the Crimean scholar Mevlana Seyyid Ahmet, with his sword-bearer standing in front of them.

Just beyond the inner threshold of the Bab-üs Saadet stands the Arz Odası, or Chamber of Petitions. The Throne Room occupies a small building with a very heavy and widely overhanging roof supported on a colonnade of antique marble columns. The foundations of the building date from the time of the Conqueror, though most of the superstructure is due to a rebuilding by his great-grandson Süleyman. The earliest mention of the chamber is by Angiolello, who describes its situation as it would have been in the time of Mehmet II: ‘At the other end of [the second] court is another double portal, and as one enters it there is a loggia covered with lead, and here sits the Grand Turk when he gives audience; next comes the third court, which is as long and large as the other two.’

Although in the Third Court, the Chamber of Petitions belongs by function and use rather to the Second, for it was here that the last act of the ceremonies connected with the meetings of the Divan was played out. Here, at the end of each session of the council, the grand vezir and the other high functionaries waited on the sultan and reported to him upon the business transacted and the decisions taken, which could not be considered final until they had received the royal assent. Here also the ambassadors of foreign powers were presented at their arrival and leave-taking, but even among all the pomp and panoply on such an occasion an all but complete silence reigned. This is quaintly described by a nobleman named Marc’Antonio Piga-Ferrata, in the suite of an Italian embassy in 1567: ‘From both sides of the loggia [outside the Throne Room], all being quiet and in the most profound silence, alone are heard certain little birds sweetly singing and playfully flying about in that verdure which gives shade thereabouts, so that it seems indeed they alone have sole licence to make a noise there.’

The Third Court was largely given over to the Palace School, which was founded by Mehmet II. The purpose of the school was to train the most promising of the sultan’s slaves, most of whom were Christian youths who had been converted to Islam, some of them captives and others taken up in the
devşirme
, or levy of young men for the janissaries. Many of the grand vezirs and other pashas in the Ottoman Empire from the time of Mehmet II and his successors up to the early seventeenth century were former Christians who were graduates of the Palace School.

The six halls (
oda
) of the Palace School were arrayed around the periphery of the Third Court along with other buildings. Unfortunately, this court has undergone far greater changes than the Second Court, chiefly as a result of fires, so that, although four of the six halls still exist in something like their old outlines, the details have been so greatly altered that it takes some imagination to picture them as they once were. Two of the halls were introductory schools. The other four were vocational schools: the Hall of the Expeditionary Force, the Hall of the Treasury, the Hall of the Commissariat and the Hall of the Royal Bedchamber. The latter was the highest-ranking of the six halls, and is described in the
Kanunname
, the
Code of Laws of Mehmet II
:

There has been formed a Hall of the Royal Bedchamber which has thirty-two pages and four officers. The first of these is the Sword-Bearer, the Second is Master of the Horse, the third is Master of the Wardrobe, and the fourth is Master of the Turban The Sword-Bearer has charge of the Discipline of the Novices, and he has also been appointed Head GateKeeper of the Palace… The First Officer of the Royal Bedchamber has been given charge of all the royal pages.

The
Kanunname
also mentions the Hass Oda, or Privy Chamber, a complex of domed chambers in the north-west corner of the Third Court. The complex dates from the reign of Mehmet II, with remodelling by his grandson Selim I. This was Sultan Mehmet’s private apartment, commanding a view of the Golden Horn and Galata from its porticoes and gardens. The earliest description of this complex, known today as the Pavilion of the Holy Mantle, is by Angiolello:

On the left side of the [third] court is the palace where the Grand Turk resides; most of that palace is vaulted in construction and has many chambers and summer and winter rooms. The part that looks toward Pera has a portico which is above the large garden, from which rise many cypresses that reach [the height of] the balconies of this portico, and that portico is built on two columns and is completely vaulted, and in the middle is a fountain that flows into a beautiful basin worked in marble with profiles and colonettes of porphyry and serpentine; and in this basin are many sorts of fish, and the Grand Turk takes great pleasure from watching them.

The chambers that form the east side of the Third Court are part of the so-called treasury-bath complex, dating from the original palace erected by Mehmet II. The southernmost of these chambers is the Privy Bath, which later was rebuilt as the Hall of the Expeditionary Force. The Privy Bath is described in detail by Menavino:

This bath is always kept ready, so that if the Grand Turk or one of his gentlemen wants to bathe himself, he can as soon as he wants. Ten salaried men stand there ready to serve everyone… In this bath there is also a pool paved with marble, large as a room, that is filled with tepid water and so deep that the water comes up to one’s neck. In it the youngsters swimming, now on, now under the water, entertain themselves, and when tired they can run to the cool-water pool and [then] having bathed in their fashion, they dress and give something to the servants as a courtesy, and leave.

The rest of the complex extends around the north-east corner of the Third Court, with three domed chambers opening onto an Ionic portico on the east side, another on the north side, and an open marble loggia at the corner. The three chambers on the east side, which have underground vaults, formed the Inner Treasury mentioned by Angiolello and several other sources in the time of the Conqueror and his immediate successors. According to the nineteenth-century Turkish historian Tayyarzade Ata, this complex was originally known as Fatih Köşkü, or the Conqueror’s Pavilion, and it served as Sultan Mehmet’s apartment until the completion of the Privy Chamber on the other side of the court a few years later. When Mehmet moved into the Privy Chamber he converted the Fatih Köşkü into a treasury for his gold and silver coins and other precious belongings.

The marble loggia, with its charming fountain and its great arched openings facing north-east and south-east, commands a stunning view of the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara, with the Princes Islands floating in the sea off the Asian coast of the Marmara, the peak of Mount Olympus of Bithynia (Uludağ) rising in the distance on a clear day. As Evliya Çelebi wrote of Topkapı Sarayı, which he called the Abode of Felicity: ‘Never hath a more delightful edifice been erected by the art of man; for…it is rather a town situated on the border of two seas than a palace.’

8

A Renaissance Court in Istanbul

After describing the new palace of Topkapı Sarayı, Kritoboulos goes on to tell of how Sultan Mehmet spent his time there in the summer and autumn of 1465, embellishing his new capital and gathering around himself a circle of scholars who would make Istanbul a cultural centre, just as Constantinople had been in Byzantine times.

He himself spent the summer in Byzantium; but, as his custom was, he did not neglect his efforts for the City, that is, for its populace, giving diligent care to buildings and improvements. He also occupied himself with philosophy, such as that of the Arabs and Persians and Greeks, especially that translated into Arabic. He associated daily with the leaders and teachers among these, and had not a few of them around him and conversed with them. He held philosophical discussions with them about the principles of philosophy, particularly those of the Peripatetics and Stoics…

During the summer of 1465 Sultan Mehmet devoted himself to the study of geography. This interest had been stimulated by his discovery of a manuscript of the
Geographia
of the Greek scientist Claudius Ptolemaios of Alexandria, better known as Ptolemy, written in the mid-second century AD. According to Kritoboulos, Mehmet was particularly interested in the maps in this manuscript, which described the whole of the Greek
oecumenos
, or inhabited world, extending from the Pillars of Hercules (the straits of Gibraltar) to India and China.

He [Mehmet] also ran across, somewhere, the charts of Ptolemy, in which he set forth scientifically and philosophically the entire description and outline of the earth. But he wanted to have these, scattered as they were in the various parts of the work, and for that reason hard to understand, brought together into one united whole as a single picture or representation, and thus made clearer or more comprehensible, so as to be more easily understood by the mind, and grasped and well apprehended, for this lesson seemed to him very necessary and most important.