Mihrimah Sultan Mosque
The only daughter of Suleyman the Magnificent commissioned two mosques, both built by court architect Mimar Sinan. Much the larger is the mosque, completed in 1565, in the Edirnekapi district of Istanbul prominently situated on the sixth hill near the Theodosian wall. This image, however, shows the interior of the smaller mosque, completed in 1548, in Üsküdar. In contrast to the much simpler, rectangular interior of the Edirnekapi mosque, this smaller mosque employs pendentives and half-domes to buttress the central dome, with windows on the perimeter of its drum; this design feature follows that of the Hagia Sophia, though here there are three half-domes rather than just two. The interior features elaborate decorative elements: bi-colored voussoirs on the arches serve to emphasize the interplay of the mosque’s central dome and semi-domes, calligraphic emblems adorn the pendentives and dome crowns, and a uniform plan of blue and red designs throughout both elaborate and unify all of the interior’s architectural elements.