Researchers
Sinan
Mimar Sinan, chief architect of the Ottoman state in the sixteenth century: a janissary soldier of Cappadocian origin who became Istanbul''s greatest builder for fifty years. He designed more than three hundred works: the Suleymaniye mosque in Istanbul in 1557, the Selimiye in Edirne in 1575 he counted his masterpiece, and bridges, bathhouses and schools across Anatolia. He joined Byzantine craft to Islamic art in dome, courtyard and portico, and made Istanbul the city of minarets. He died in 1588, buried near the Suleymaniye that stays his greatest work. Out of his teaching came engineers who carried his name across the Balkans, Syria and Egypt, until his style became the whole Ottoman mosque's measure. Asked about his great works he said the Suleymaniye was the work of competence and the Selimiye of perfection — for he saw his whole life as one architecture advancing toward an ideal dome.