People

Every place in Turkey has people behind it: a ruler who paid for it, an architect who solved its dome, a writer who described it. These pages tell their stories so that the buildings make sense.

Mimar Sinan is the central figure. He was chief architect of the Ottoman Empire for almost fifty years and served three sultans. His buildings still shape the skyline of Istanbul, from the Süleymaniye to the Şehzade Mosque, and he lies in a small tomb beside his greatest work in the city.

Other people appear in our place pages. Emperor Justinian built Hagia Sophia after a riot in the Hippodrome. Suleiman the Magnificent commissioned the Süleymaniye, while his grand vizier Rüstem Pasha paid for a tiled mosque above the market. The traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote the story of a man who flew from Galata Tower.

We label legends as legends and give sources for dates. For the wider history, the UNESCO description of historic Istanbul is a good, reliable starting point.