Admiring the entrance to the courtyard of the Süleymaniye Mosque. This mosque is a landmark on the skyline of Istanbul and one of the most famous works of the Ottoman's most famous architect, Sinan.
Suleyman was Sinan's main patron, though Sinan served as imperial architect for over 50 years. Michelangelo was a contemporary, though Sincan probably had greater prominence in his time. Sinan had a large staff at his command and many of the structures attributed to him were designed by assistants -- likely the mosque in central Sofia is one of these works.
Curiously, Sinan's body was exhumed in the 1930s and examined in a ("successful") effort to establish that Sinan was Turkish, rather than of some lesser race.
