Rum Mehmet Pasha Mosque, Üsküdar

Rum Mehmet Pasha Camii is the third of Istanbul's three veziral mosques from the Conqueror's time, near the shore at the Bosphorus's southern end in Üsküdar; it was built in 1471 by Rum Mehmet Pasha, a Greek convert who became grand vezir — and whom Fatih executed in 1472 ¹.

It is the most Byzantine-looking of the city's early mosques: most notably the high cylindrical drum under the dome, the exterior cornice following the curve of the round-arched windows, and the square dome base broken by the projecting dome arches ¹. Inside, a central dome on smooth pendentives with a southern semidome, and side chambers completely cut off from the centre; behind stands the founder's gaunt türbe — of whom the historian Joseph von Hammer wrote that 'he left in Ottoman history no other memories than those of his crimes' ².

• Source read: Freely, A History of Ottoman Architecture (2011), pp. 143–144 (Rum Mehmet Pasha Camii).
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