Lonely Planet İstanbul Guide

To the right after you exit the main building is a recently restored rococo style şadırvan (ablutions fountain) dating from 1740. Next to it is a small sibyan maktab (primary school) also dating from 1740. The small structure next to the gate is the muvakkithane (place where prayer hours were determined), built in 1853. The first of Aya Sofya’s minarets was added by order of Mehmet the Conqueror. Sinan designed the other three between 1574 and 1576. After exiting the museum grounds, walk east (left) and turn left again on Babıhümayun Caddesi to visit the Aya Sofya Tombs.

THE BUTTRESSES

The original building form designed by Aya Sofya’s architects, Anthemios of Tralles and Isidoros of Miletus, has been compromised by the addition of 24 buttresses, added to reinforce the building and its enormous dome. Some date from Byzantine times, others from the Ottoman period; seven buttresses are on the eastern side of the building, four on the southern, four on the northern and five on the western. The remaining four support the structure as weight towers.

The last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI, prayed in Aya Sofya just before midnight on 28 May 1453. Hours later he was killed while defending the city walls from the attack being staged by the army of Mehmet II. The city fell to the Ottomans on the 29th, and Mehmet’s first act of victory was to make his way to Aya Sofya and declare that it should immediately be converted to a mosque.