Sinan built this tomb in 1568 for Sokollu Mehmed Paşa, grand vizier to Selim II, on Camii Kebir Caddesi opposite the tomb of Siyavuş Paşa, with the pasha's medrese facing its door.
It is octagonal outside, faced in cut stone, under a low dome, with two tiers of windows: stained glass above, marble-framed openings below, and semicircular marble grilles set over them. On the street front, low down, there is a small fountain, and to its left a fountain inscription dated the same year as the tomb.
A portico of eight marble columns runs across both the tomb door and the medrese gate opposite, which is what makes the group read as one building rather than two.
The tomb is octagonal outside but sixteen-sided within. The dome is painted, and a frieze of the Throne Verse in white on deep blue tile runs around the room; the arches of the portico alternate pink and white marble. Sokollu built it for his descendants, and it holds nineteen graves, six of them wooden cenotaphs — the largest is thought to be his own.
Among those known to be buried here are his son Kasım Paşa, executed at Lüleburgaz, whose severed head was brought back to lie in his father's tomb, and two of his sons who died as small children, Pir Mehmed at three and Ahmed at four. Later generations of the family followed, among them the poet and calligrapher Bahir İsmail Bey, who died in 1751.
Sokollu himself was a Bosnian of the Şahinoğlu line, the son of Cemaleddin Sinan Bey, trained in the palace school. He was governor of Rumelia from 1546, married a daughter of Prince Selim, became grand vizier in 1565 and was killed by an assassin at the afternoon council in October 1579, having served three sultans as grand vizier — a record the municipality's page describes as without parallel.
When to go
- Climate
- Across İstanbul as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.8 °C in January to 24.7 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (99 mm) and lightest in July (22 mm). Long-term means for 1950-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
