In the courtyard of Ayasofya in İstanbul's Fatih district, the tomb of Selim II was the first mausoleum built there; it is a work of Mimar Sinan and, according to the inscription over its entrance, was completed in 1576-1577. Selim II did not build a large külliye of his own in İstanbul and chose instead to restore existing buildings. By the 1570s, written sources record, houses and rooms crowding around Ayasofya were damaging it; after an inspection in which the sultan himself took part, Sinan was given the task, and alongside repairs and additions to the mosque, work began on a tomb for the sultan on its south side. When Selim II died he was first buried in a tent set up on the spot, and the tomb was finished afterwards.
As in the tomb of his father, Kanuni Sultan Süleyman, Sinan gave this one a double-shelled roof. Outside it is square with chamfered corners; inside it forms an octagonal gallery. The outer dome rests on the walls on a tall drum, while the inner dome is carried by eight columns linked by pointed arches. The marble-faced walls end in a moulded cornice, and a roll moulding wraps around the building, a device Sinan would use again in his later mosques.
The tile panels in the three-bay portico in front of the entrance are among the finest examples of 16th-century İznik tilework. The panel on the left was removed by a Frenchman named Dorigny, on the pretext of completing its missing pieces, and carried off; a copy was put in its place, and the original is now in the Louvre.
Besides Selim II, the tomb holds his haseki Nurbânû Sultan, his daughters Gevherhan, İsmihan and Fatma Sultan, his sons Süleyman, Osman, Cihangir, Mustafa and Abdullah, and sons and daughters of Murad III. By repairing Ayasofya, adding minarets and placing his own tomb beside it, Selim II all but turned it into an imperial sultan's mosque, and the custom of burial in its graveyard continued with the tombs built for Murad III and Mehmed III.
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).
