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The Mihrimah Sultan Mosque is located on the summit of the Sixth Hill near the highest point of Istanbul and is a prominent city landmark. It the second and larger of two mosques named and commissioned by Mihrimah Sultan, the much loved only daughter of Suleiman the Magnificent. It was designed by Mimar Sinan and although there is no foundation inscription the evidence from surviving manuscripts suggests that building work started in 1563 and was completed by 1570.
On several occasions the mosque has been damaged by earthquakes. Although efforts were made to restore the mosque itself, its attendant buildings received less attention. The mosque was restored in 1956-57 but the dome was damaged again during the 1999 İzmit earthquake.
The mosque was built on a terrace overlooking the main street. A portico divided into individual cells forming a medrese (Islamic school) surrounds the mosque's large courtyard. In the center of the courtyard is a large ablutions fountain (sadirvan). Entry to the mosque is through an imposing porch of seven domed bays with marble and granite columns. The mosque itself is a cube topped by a half-sphere, with symmetrical multi-windowed tympana on each of the four sides. The dome is supported by four towers, one in each corner; its base is pierced by windows. The single minaret is tall and slender; during the 1894 earthquake it crashed through the roof of the mosque. It has since been fully restored.
The dome is 20 metres in diameter and 37 metres high. On the north and south sides, triple arcades supported by granite columns open onto side aisles with galleries above, each with three domed bays. Much of the surface area of the walls is made up of windows, making the mosque one of the lightest of any of Sinan's works. Some of the windows contain stained glass.
The interior stencil decorations are all modern. However, the mimbar in carved white marble is from the original construction.
As first built, the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque was the centre of a complex (külliye) which included a medrese, a double hamam, a tomb (türbe) and a row of shops (arasta) beneath the terrace, whose rents provided financial support for the complex. The hamam is still in use today.
Mihrimah Sultana herself is buried at the Süleymaniye Mosque, but a ruined türbe behind this mosque houses the graves of her son-in-law, the Grand Vizier Semiz Ali Pasha, her daughter Ayşe Hümaşah Sultan, her grandsons Mehmed Bey, Şehid Mustafa Pasha and Osman Bey and many other members of her family.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.