Bayezid II Mosque Complex (Külliye) in Amasya: History, Architecture and Restorations

Completed on the bank of the Yeşilırmak in 1486, the külliye, with its mosque, madrasa, imaret, tomb and timekeeper's house, is the largest building group surviving from Amasya's age of princes.

The Sultan Bayezid II Complex rises in the middle of a broad plane-tree grove on the southern bank of the Yeşilırmak, and it is the largest group of buildings that remains from Amasya's age of princes. At its centre stands a mosque with two minarets, with a madrasa to the west and a public kitchen to the east; a prince's tomb lies to the southeast, and a small timekeeper's house (muvakkithane), added in the nineteenth century, stands to the northwest. According to the endowment deed, the complex also included a primary school and a bridge over the Kızılırmak. These buildings no longer stand, and neither do the storehouse, stable and kitchen units that have vanished from the courtyard, but together they show that the complex was conceived as a small settlement that baked its own bread, fed its own horses and distributed its own water.

The information about the complex does not agree at every point. Accounts differ on the starting date, the name of the calligrapher, the identity of the architect, the function of the side chambers and the manner of death of the prince buried in the tomb. Where the sources disagree, the views have been set side by side and no verdict has been passed.

Foundation and History

Bayezid II was sent to the sanjak governorship of Amasya in 1454 at the age of seven, and he spent most of his princely years in this city. When he ascended the throne in 1481 he wished to leave a lasting work in Amasya. The complex is that gratitude toward the city of his governorship set in stone; some accounts also describe the building as thanksgiving for the sultanate having fallen to him. Hüseyin Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi traces this account to İdris-i Bitlisî (d. 1520), the author of the Heşt Behişt, and notes that the same information is repeated in Âlî's Künhü'l-ahbâr and in Nişancızâde Mehmed's Mir'âtü'l-kâinât. According to this account, the sultan entrusted the construction to Şehzade Ahmed (Prince Ahmed). Ahmed, then sanjak governor of Amasya, remained in the post for about thirty years and was the longest-serving prince the city ever had.

Once the complex opened, the Sultan Bayezid Mosque became the city's Friday mosque. Until then that duty had fallen to the old mosque known as the Fethiye, said to have been converted from a Nestorian monastery. On the choice of site, Füsun Aytekin, following Ferruh Toruk, writes that the land mattered to the religious and social life of the town both in the pagan period and in the thirteenth century, that it was known as a musalla (open-air prayer ground) in Seljuk times, and that the choice may therefore not have been accidental. This reading is an inference and rests on no document. Eyice, for his part, writes that there is no clue at all to support the claim that the complex rose on the site of a Church of the Virgin Mary, about which nothing is known beyond the fact that it stood on the river bank.

The Starting Date

The date of completion is certain. According to the three-part thuluth inscription over the main portal of the mosque and on its two side walls, the building was finished in Rajab 891, that is, July 1486. The starting date is disputed. Hüsameddin writes that construction began in Rajab 886, that is, September 1481, immediately after Bayezid's accession, and Semavi Eyice's article in the TDV encyclopedia repeats this date. Some studies give the span 1482-1486, some publications say 1485-1486, and another entry on Bayezid II places the complex between 1481 and 1486. It has been suggested that the foundations of the complex, finished in July 1486, were laid in 1481, but a start a few years later also appears in the sources. The difference may depend on whether only the mosque or all the units are meant; the sources do not make this distinction explicit.

The Calligrapher of the Inscription

The three-line marble inscription above the crown portal is attributed in most sources to the calligrapher Ali b. Mezid. A tourism encyclopedia, however, ties the portal inscription to Şeyh Hamdullah. The two names do not agree; the one that stands out and is cited more often is Ali b. Mezid.

The Endowment Deed and the Primary School

The endowment deed of the complex was written in the middle of Jumada al-ula 901, that is, January 1496 (Directorate General of Foundations Archive, register 2113). According to the deed, the complex comprises the following units: the mosque (called "imaret-i amire" in the deed), the imaret (public soup kitchen), the madrasa, a primary school (sıbyan mektebi) and a bridge. The bridge is at Osmancık, in the province of Çorum, over the Kızılırmak; the TDV entry on Bayezid II likewise records that the sultan had a bridge built over the Kızılırmak at Osmancık. Abdulkadir Dündar draws attention to a detail: in the deed the word "imaret" chiefly describes the mosque, not the building we today call the soup kitchen. In early Ottoman inscriptions the term was also used for mosques with hospice rooms (tabhane) and for entire complexes, and Dündar cites the buildings of Hüdavendigâr in Bursa, Nilüfer Hatun in İznik, Yıldırım Bayezid in Edirne and Gedik Ahmed Pasha in Afyon as examples of this usage.

The primary school mentioned in the deed no longer exists. According to the wording of the deed, the school stood near the imaret, on the eastern side of the valley, and children were to learn the Qur'an there; this description leaves it outside the main courtyard enclosed by the perimeter walls. Hüsameddin records that it was built in 890/1485 and converted into a primary school of the modern type (İbtidâî Mektebi) in 1300/1883. The building was demolished within the last century without leaving a trace.

The Question of the Architect

There is no document on the architect of the complex; the sources offer only varying descriptions. The name Mimar Hayreddin is common, but the TDV entry on Mimar Hayreddin notes that the earliest source linking Bayezid II's buildings to him is a very late historian (Tayyârzâde Atâ Bey, nineteenth century) and that no document supports the claim. Some publications describe the building as "built for Mimar Şemseddin Ahmed". A master's thesis (Sühan Bayraktar) states that the architect was also Hayreddin, chief architect of Bayezid II's reign. The names Hayreddin and Şemseddin Ahmed appear in the sources, but no document confirms either.

Plan and Courtyard of the Complex

According to Eyice, the complex stands in the middle of an outer courtyard of about 160 x 120 metres. At the centre of the courtyard is the mosque, with the madrasa on its right (to the west, looking toward the qibla) and the kitchen-imaret on its left (to the east). Like Bayezid II's complex at Edirne, the one at Amasya is skirted by a watercourse, the Yeşilırmak. In keeping with the settlement thinking of the period, the functional units are lined up on axes perpendicular to the river and parallel to one another. According to Dündar, the complexes of the early Ottoman period were laid out loosely and without a definite axial order, whereas in the complexes from the conquest of Constantinople to the age of Sinan the mosque fixes the central axis and the other buildings are arranged along secondary axes; the Amasya complex is among the examples of this orderly layout. One detail that sets the mosque apart from the Bayezid II mosques of Istanbul and Edirne is the absence of an arcaded inner courtyard; instead the buildings stand within a broad walled garden planted with trees.

The Document in the Topkapı Palace Archive

In 1997 Dündar identified in the archive of the Topkapı Palace Museum (D. 10232) a three-page document describing the complex, and he published it in 2003. The document is written in vocalized naskh script; who wrote it and for what purpose is unknown, and it bears no date. The archive card places it at the end of the fifteenth century. Dündar supports this dating with two arguments: the five-armed crown watermark of the paper matches comparable examples from the last quarter of the fifteenth century, and the document makes no mention of the Tomb of Şehzade Osman, built in 1513. The text appears to have been written after the complex was finished and describes the buildings in their original state. It speaks neither of the primary school, which lay outside, nor of the other Bayezid buildings in Amasya; Dündar attributes this to the information relating only to the courtyard enclosed by the perimeter walls.

According to the part of the document dealing with the courtyard, the perimeter wall measures 1200 zira (cubits), and the top of the wall on the river side is paved with dressed stone for sitting. The courtyard has two gates beside the river, one toward the city, one toward the Gök Madrasa and one behind the kitchen for carrying in provisions and fodder; Aytekin writes that the courtyard had six gates, while Dündar reads the document as five and notes that the one on the south side of the mosque has been lost. In front of the imaret a pavement of dressed stone, four zira wide and 350 zira long, runs from one gate to the other. A cypress was planted level with each pillar of the mosque's portico and four cypresses on each side of the great ablution fountain (şadırvan); there are also chinaberry trees, poplars along the river bank, and a hundred and thirty grafted trees in the garden on the qibla side. The fronts and backs of the madrasa, the imaret and the kitchen are so well aligned that, were a cord stretched along them, it would not be a finger's breadth out either way; this is how the document describes the arrangement. The surroundings were closely guarded so that no horse would enter the courtyard.

The greenery of the courtyard is also part of the design. The plane trees on either side of the fountain are said to have been planted during the building of the mosque and to have given shade for more than 500 years; another study merely guesses that the old plane trees level with the two minarets are of the same age as the complex. There is no document on their age; the document itself mentions cypress, poplar and chinaberry, not plane.

A note is due on the courtyard measurements in the document. The length of the imaret courtyard is given as 350 and its width as 250 zira, and the perimeter of 1200 zira agrees with these two figures. At 0.758 metres to the zira these figures come to roughly 265 x 190 metres; the 160 x 120 metres given by Eyice is considerably smaller. No source was found that explains the difference; the comparison is merely a calculation made by converting the figures.

The Mosque

The mosque is a distinguished example of the tradition of mosques with side chambers or zaviye (dervish hospice) functions, and it descends from the Bursa type of inverted-T plan. The sanctuary consists of two successive square domed spaces, with transitions made by squinches, and of wings with three domes each on the sides.

Plan and Domes

The first dome is smaller than the other and about 13 metres in diameter; the second, covering the qibla section, is about 15 metres across. The great arch that separates them is 2.37 metres wide. According to Dündar, the measure of "three zira" in the document is close to this figure, whereas Albert Gabriel gave 1.41 metres for the same arch. The octagonal drums of the domes each have 16 windows, and the interiors of the domes and the window arches are decorated with painted work (kalem işi).

The document gives the dimensions of the mosque as follows: 42 zira in length inside, 21 zira for the east-west width of the space in front of the mihrab, and 33 zira for the width of the rear space. Dündar converts these to about 31.8, 15.9 and 25 metres respectively. The present interior measurement given by İ. Aydın Yüksel, 30.53 x 29.97 metres, agrees in general with the document, except for a difference of about five metres in the east-west dimension of the rear section. The wall thickness is three zira according to the document, that is, about 2.27 metres. The document also records that 153 chains were hung for lamps, forming three circles in each dome.

Windows, Doors and Woodwork

The wooden window shutters are counted among the fine examples of fifteenth-century kündekâri (interlocking joinery) work. Eyice writes that the wooden door and window leaves of the mosque are of very superior workmanship, that the leaves of the main door are fitted together in a geometric pattern, that their brass bands and studs survive, that the same patterns are applied to all the lower-row window shutters, and that most have inscribed panels in carved wood in their upper parts. The leaves of the side entrances are lost.

The document counts twenty-one rectangular windows with stained glass and ten windows with wooden shutters; today the stained-glass windows number twenty-six (sixteen in the space in front of the mihrab, two beneath the rear dome and four in each side wing) and the windows with wooden shutters have risen to twenty. According to the document the mosque had one large and two small doors with wooden leaves, and two of the small doors opened onto benches fitted with iron outer doors bearing twelve round rosettes. Of these three doors, only the large one opening from the portico on the north into the rear space survives today. That the benches in front of the doors are called "suffe" in the document is, according to Dündar, a detail that sheds light on the origin of the sofa, the common space onto which the rooms of the Anatolian Turkish house open.

Portico and Crown Portal

The portico on the north is covered by five arches and five domes resting on marble columns. The capitals of the pointed arches, carried by six round marble columns, are carved with muqarnas. According to the document the portico measured 50 x 9 zira (about 37.9 x 6.8 metres); Yüksel gives the present measurement as 38.85 x 7.26 metres. Blue-and-white tile panels stand above the windows; in the tympana of the four marble-framed windows that open from the main space onto the portico, tile inscriptions in white thuluth script on a dark blue ground are surrounded by painted ornament.

The document describes the ornament of this section in some detail: muqarnas in the domes, a band of hexagonal interlace circling the arch tympana with jade set into it, rumi leaves in the spandrels, a circle inlaid with red stone, and the Sura of Victory (al-Fath) written in mirrored script and extending from one minaret to the other. None of this is visible today, because the portico collapsed completely in the earthquake of 1939 and was rebuilt in the repairs of 1952-1971. The present arches are of red, white and grey marble; jade is seen only in the engaged colonnettes of the main portal. Eyice writes that the portico arches were repaired very poorly in the latest restoration.

The crown portal with its muqarnas has an ostentatious look, as in Bayezid's other mosques. Within three frames it has the muqarnas crest of the niche and an entrance arch of two-coloured marble, and the inscription is placed between the members of this arch. In the document the pendants at the ends of the muqarnas are called "chandeliers", and three of them are said to be large and eighteen small. These pendants are still in place.

The Minarets

At the two corners of the mosque rise single-balcony minarets whose entrances are from the portico. The shaft of the eastern minaret is vertically fluted, while the western one is decorated with zigzag stonework. Eyice describes the western minaret as inlaid in red and adorned with zigzag lines ending in lily motifs, and he regards this decoration as a feature seen on no other minaret; he describes the fluted minaret's shaft as one of red and white bars in keeping with the old Turkish minaret tradition. The balcony corbels are of muqarnas. The document's wording is "one a tower, one hexagonal"; Dündar matches the fluted one to the minaret in the northeast and the hexagonal one to that in the northwest.

Mihrab, Minbar and Galleries

The interior is sparing in ornament. The mihrab is modest and carved with muqarnas; the minbar is of white marble and very plain, bearing only a small rosette on each side of the staircase balustrade and a larger rosette on each of the triangular side panels. According to the document the mihrab was of white marble, while the minbar was worked in a plain technique called "kilvekâri" and had a door of white marble; this door no longer exists. Yüksel writes that on the western panel of the minbar there is a ten-sided geometric stone rosette 0.64 metres in diameter, and that on the sides of the balustrade there are black-and-white marble rosettes 0.30 metres in diameter.

On the inner side of the main portal there is a narrow gallery (mahfil) resting on consoles; it is reached by spiral staircases inside the piers on either side of the door. The muezzin's gallery, which rests on slender black columns, is also plain: it is carried on five eight-cornered black marble columns, has a wooden balustrade and stands about 2.5 metres above the floor. The document does not mention this gallery, and Yüksel suggests that it was added later.

The Question of the Hospice Rooms

The side chambers occupy a distinct place in the plan of the complex. Eyice, observing that these sections have two doors connecting them to the outside and that the qibla space is separated from the first domed section by a step, takes the view that they were in fact hospice rooms (tabhane), and the presence of tabhanes in Bayezid's two other great complexes supports this possibility. Eyice also writes that the plan of the imaret has no place suited to a tabhane for lodging guests, so the tabhanes must be sought in the domed spaces on the two sides of the mosque; he proposes that if traces of flues are found in the vaults the question will be settled definitively, since hospice rooms always have hearths.

The document published by Dündar supports this view as well: for the mosque it speaks of "four tabhanes" and "two suffes" between them. The interior dimensions of the tabhanes are 8 x 8 zira (about 6.06 metres) and those of the suffes 9 x 9 zira (about 6.82 metres). According to the document, the section containing the mihrab and minbar is the mosque, the section behind it is an intermediate space resembling a courtyard, the spaces in the middle of the east and west wings are suffes, and the rooms to the south and north of them are tabhanes. The document does not say whether the tabhanes open onto the intermediate spaces or are closed off from them; on the other hand, some tourism publications say that the building has no hospice rooms. The function of the side chambers is therefore not reported in the same way in the sources.

Decoration Described in the Document but Not Visible Today

According to the document, in the centre of the front dome there was a large medallion (şemse) bearing, in müsenna (mirrored) script, the verse "Inna awwala baytin wudi'a..." (Al-i Imran 96), and in the rear dome a medallion inscribed "Innama ya'muru masajidallah..." (Tawba 18). The transition elements of the front dome were of muqarnas and carved work, while those of the rear dome were plain and decorated with painted medallion motifs. On the walls beneath the front dome four more large medallions are mentioned, and two beneath the rear one. In the portico there were three large and eighteen small chandeliers. The mosque and the madrasa were covered in lead; the kitchen, pantry, bakery, stable and schoolmaster's quarters were not covered, because lead was expensive.

These decorations are not visible today. According to Dündar, the repairs made after the earthquakes of 1939 and 1943 and the Foundations repair of 1952-1971 removed the painted decoration and inscriptions mentioned in the document, and only the domes, their skirts and the transition elements were given new ornament. Photographs taken before 1952 show that the mosque had painted decoration very different from what is seen today.

The Madrasa

West of the mosque, adjoining the courtyard wall, stands a U-plan building. The madrasa, also known as the Sultaniye, must have been built at about the same time as the mosque. Directly opposite the entrance is the lecture hall and mosque (dershane-mescit), square in plan and covered by a dome on an octagonal drum. Colonnaded, vaulted porticoes enclose the courtyard, which has an ablution fountain in its centre, on three sides; behind the porticoes are rows of domed cells with hearths.

The document describes the madrasa as follows: the lecture hall is fourteen zira long and fourteen wide (about 10.6 metres) and twenty-one zira high; there are seventeen cells, each five zira by five, and a "mu'id suffe" (a bench for the teaching assistant) of the same size; the fronts of the cells are linked by benches; there is a fountain in the middle; there is a latrine of three compartments with one spout of running water, and an ablution room; and the cells and the lecture hall together are covered by twenty domes. The sources differ slightly on the number of cells: Eyice and some tourism publications speak of eighteen cells, while the document counts seventeen. Dündar explains the difference by the room set apart as latrine and ablution room not being counted as a cell, and he thinks this room is the one at the northwest end of the madrasa that is still used for the same purpose today, larger than the others and having a window opening onto the portico.

For the porticoes the document speaks of sixteen monolithic stone columns; fourteen survive today. Dündar points out that the arches at the northern end of the porticoes now rest on the wall, that the courses of joints do not continue between the courtyard wall and the portico walls, and that this wall does not appear in Gabriel's plan made before the last repair; he concludes that the wall closing the courtyard on the north is not original and that the arches formerly rested on engaged columns. The present lecture hall and mosque measures 7.90 x 7.83 metres and is considerably smaller than the measurement in the document, while the dimensions of the rooms are quite close to today's.

According to Hüsameddin, the professorship of the madrasa was given to the muftis of Amasya, and its first teacher was the famous Şeyhülislâm Zenbilli Ali Efendi; the same author also gives the names of the principal professors down to the end of the nineteenth century. The madrasa was damaged in the earthquakes of 1591 and 1668-69, a considerable part of it was destroyed in those of 1939 and 1943, and it was restored by the Foundations repairs that continued from the 1950s until 1971. Today it serves as the Amasya Provincial Public Library.

The Imaret

The L-plan building east of the mosque is the soup kitchen (imaret) of the complex. Its rectangular spaces are vaulted, and on the sides facing the courtyard it has pointed-arched, small-domed porticoes resting on columns. The building was used for a long time as a military depot and may have been altered; Eyice therefore writes that it cannot be understood what need some of the sections served. The document in the Topkapı Palace archive largely removes this uncertainty: the imaret is not referred to there under a single name; it is listed as five separate units whose functions are clearly stated. In Dündar's reading, the dimensions and functions of these units are as follows.

Mut'imehane (refectory): 14 x 14 zira (about 10.6 m); in front of it there was a fountain where the students could wash their hands and drink water after eating. Today it is a vaulted space of about 10 x 9 metres with a square pier in its centre; it is entered through a flat-arched door from the portico on the north and is connected to the kitchen on its east by a service window.
Matbah (kitchen): 18 x 14 zira; two piers in the middle and three domes on one side; two "guest hearths" and water flowing from a separate spout for each cauldron. In the space, which today measures 10.87 x 17.25 metres, the southern half is covered by three domes with open crowns and lanterns, and the northern half by a vault.
Kiler (pantry): 16 x 16 zira; inside it a cupboard section of five compartments (two for rice, three for other needs). Today it measures 8.85 x 10.22 metres, and its walls have thirty-four cupboard niches in two tiers.
Fırın (bakery): 16 x 14 zira; inside it a storeroom of two compartments and, at its hearth, a spout that fed water to the cauldron. The hearth that survives is on the west wall, the space is divided in two by an arch across the middle, and the cupboard niche in the document no longer exists.
Ahır (stable): 24 x 16 zira; in front of its door there was a fountain for watering the guests' horses, and the fountain's water sufficed for the neighbourhood as well. No trace of the fountain remains today. The space today measures 16.50 x 11.30 metres and is covered by a barrel vault supported by two round arches; the door on the north is of a height and width through which a horse could enter with ease.

From the information given by Hüsameddin it can be understood that the bakery and stable sections in the document were used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a hospice (tabhane, a guest house) and a military arms depot. The upper covering and portico of the stable collapsed in the earthquake of 1939, latrines were probably built in its place in the 1940s, and in the repairs of 1952-1971 these latrines were removed and the present portico was built. The kitchen-imaret and tabhane, formerly very dilapidated, were afterwards repaired and turned into a dormitory.

According to the document, in front of the five units extended a portico with eleven stone columns and twelve domes; the portico still has eleven columns today, but ten domes. Dündar attributes this difference to changes made in the repairs or to the number of domes having been written one too many. Behind the kitchen there were a house for firewood (it took four thousand loads of wood), a house for repair materials, a storehouse taking 300 müd of barley and another taking 150 müd of wheat. None of these has survived. A separate article on the income of the foundation and the economic order of the imaret is available on the site, so no detail is gone into here.

Since 2010 the great hall of the imaret has housed the Miniature Amasya (Maket Amasya) Museum. The museum is a model of the historic city prepared with inspiration from a photograph taken in 1914; its construction began in 2008 under the Amasya Governorship and was completed in about two years.

Buildings Lost from the Courtyard

The document lists a few more buildings besides these, of which no trace remains today. The tabhane of the schoolmaster's quarters (muallimhane) measures 10 x 10 zira (about 7.58 m) and has an outer sofa of 10 x 8 zira; the document gives no other information about the muallimhane and does not state its place in the courtyard. Dündar thinks it may be the building that Hüsameddin describes, for the late nineteenth century, as standing in front of the stable, facing west, assigned to calligraphers as a "Dârü't-ta'lîm" (the room of the Islah-ı Medâris Commission).

At the foot of the great ablution fountain there was a latrine of four compartments, each with a spout of running water; the direction of the water's flow and Gabriel's plan indicate that it was in the northeast of the courtyard. The fountain in front of the mut'imehane has also disappeared.

The Tomb of Şehzade Osman

Southeast of the mosque, level with the qibla wall, stands a square, single-domed tomb. It is built of cut stone with three courses of brick bonding, and has a wooden entrance canopy in front. Above its door there was an inscription, now lost, which by chronogram gave the year 919 (1513). According to Dündar, one of the grounds for thinking that the Topkapı document belongs to the end of the fifteenth century is that the document makes no mention of this tomb.

The tomb is attributed to Şehzade Osman, son of Şehzade Ahmed. There is a contradiction in the sources: Eyice writes that Osman was put to death in 1513 by Selim I (Selim the Grim), while local publications call him a "son who died at a young age". Eyice also notes that there is no sarcophagus in the tomb today, whereas Uzunçarşılı speaks of a marble sarcophagus here. Some guides, on the other hand, write that the tomb holds a single-sarcophagus grave.

The Ablution Fountain and Its Wall Paintings

The ablution fountain (şadırvan) in the north courtyard of the mosque rests on pointed arches carried by 12 wooden columns; outside it is covered by a pointed pyramidal cone clad in lead, inside by a bağdadi (lath-and-plaster) dome. Eyice writes that the core of the fountain is old but that it was renewed in later periods. According to the document, at the end of the fifteenth century there was on this spot a fountain described as "ali", that is, great, whose basin was eight zira across and the bowl in its centre two and a half; according to Dündar, the basin and bowl of the present fountain are original, while its cover belongs to the second half of the nineteenth century.

The painter of the dome, according to Ayşe Nermin Uz Taşkesen, was a folk painter named Zileli Emin; the paintings carry no signature and the attribution is made from stylistic features. The date of Sha'ban 1289 in the Hijri calendar, read between the arms of the six-armed star at the centre of the dome, shows that the paintings were made in October 1872; this is three years before the same artist's work on the fountain of the Kara Mustafa Pasha Mosque at Merzifon (1875), and in the dome at Merzifon the artist's name is written. Zileli Emin is also known to have worked in the Gümüşlü Mosque at Amasya, in the Sofular and Paşa mosques at Merzifon, in the buildings of Şeyh Ethem and Şeyh Nasreddin at Zile, and in some mansions at Tokat.

The paintings were restored in 2006. The original plaster of the dome is in two layers: below, a pink Khorasan mortar with brick dust, and above it a thin white plaster one or two centimetres thick. The paintings had been made with earth pigments, that is, iron-oxide red, oxide yellow, chromium-oxide green, ultramarine blue, black and grey. Because the fountain stands on the river bank in a damp place, the paints and plaster had flaked here and there; the plaster material was analysed at METU, mortar was injected into the voids between the wooden bağdadi laths and the plaster, sections whose traces and old photographs were known were completed with the approval of the conservation board, and sections where no trace was found were left as they were.

At the centre of the dome a sixteen-segment wheel composition surrounds the six-armed star. In the inscription cartouches at the skirt of the dome, the six large medallions bear a hadith meaning "Hasten to prayer, for its time may pass; hasten to repentance, before death comes", and the small oval medallions bear verse 24 of the Sura of Ra'd. The painted band presents a view carried from Istanbul to Amasya: the Golden Horn with a steamship, a sailing boat and two bridges carried on pontoons; according to Uz Taşkesen these bridges are the old Galata Bridge and the first Unkapanı Bridge, and the tower with a red flag nearby is most probably the Galata Tower. Then follows a panorama of the historic peninsula, with the Beyazıt Tower rising between the Süleymaniye, Beyazıt and Hagia Sophia mosques. Beside a fruit tree there is a throne with a crowned dial showing eight o'clock at its head and a rose within; Uz Taşkesen interprets this as an allusion to Bayezid II, the eighth sultan of the Ottoman dynasty. This interpretation is a conjecture and is not supported by any inscription.

The rest of the band lines up scenes of daily life: a bouquet of flowers in a ewer, a palanquin carriage, a birdhouse in a tree, water wheels, farm implements, date palms and lemon trees, an inkwell and pen case with a writing drawer, a fortress and a gun carriage, and a train newly arrived in Anatolia, with its locomotive and two carriages. The water wheels reflect the irrigation system that in the second half of the nineteenth century fed Amasya's vineyards and gardens, its silk factory and its flour mills, a sight foreign travellers also wrote about. Objects once taken for forks and knives proved during restoration to be farm implements such as rakes, shovels, pitchforks, scythes and winnowing forks. For the canopied tomb the possibility of the tomb of Seyyid Ahmed Rifâî has been put forward; no definite explanation has been given for all of the depictions.

The Timekeeper's House (Muvakkithane)

Northwest of the mosque and north of the madrasa stands a single-room, nearly square rectangular building. This is where the times of prayer were determined by the sun and by instruments. According to the five-line verse inscription in ta'liq script over the entrance door, it was built in Hijri 1256 (1840) by Kapancızâde (in Aytekin's spelling Kaptancızâde) Hacı Hüseyin Zeki Efendi. Some sources say 1842; Hüsameddin gives the date 1258, and Gabriel and Aslanapa also write 1258 (1842). On a second inscription on the building the date 1255 is read. All these dates cluster around 1840. Hacı Hüseyin Zeki Efendi had a library and a fountain built along with the timekeeper's house, and he endowed his property for it.

Eyice describes the building as in the "Tanzimat style", and Günsel Renda as in the "Empire style". The entrance, reached by three steps, has a large Bursa arch on two wooden columns; on the front and sides of the hipped-roof building, triangular pediments sit on the body with S-profile eaves, and in the medallion of the front pediment "Maşallah" is written twice. According to Renda, a columned portico and a square plan were also used in Ottoman tombs and library buildings, but most of those were covered with a dome; facades with columns and triangular pediments are widespread in masonry public buildings of the reign of Mahmud II.

The interior has two windows each in the south and north walls and one in the east wall. In the west wall opposite the entrance there is a niche with baroque decoration and small cupboards on either side; in the period when the building was a library these held books, and in the period when it was a timekeeper's house they held timekeeping instruments. Renda considers that, with the spread of European-made clocks in the nineteenth century, the building both announced the times of the call to prayer and took on the work of setting and repairing clocks. At the skirt of the ceiling a painted band about 30 centimetres wide runs all the way round (one thesis gives it as 70 centimetres): houses among trees, a mosque, a tomb, a tent, a bridge, a fortress, meadow landscapes and pavilions. The niche in the west wall has a garden with a pool framed by a curtain motif. In the medallions with baroque cartouches above the windows are written the names of the four caliphs, of Hasan and of Hüseyin; on the south wall is read the verse of the Sura of Al-i Imran describing Zechariah's entry into the mihrab.

In the centre of the band on the south wall the complex itself is depicted: a five-bay portico, two minarets and two towers beside the dome. The timekeeper's house and the fountain do not appear in the picture; Aytekin interprets this as an indication that the timekeeper's house was still being built. In the band on the east wall, at the centre, a mosque with high walls and a broad dome is seen, and it is thought to be the Gümüşlü Mosque at Amasya; to its right is a fortress that may have been inspired by Amasya Castle. For a columned building reached by a staircase Renda mentions the possibility of a namazgâh (open-air prayer place). According to Aytekin, these paintings neither break with the miniature tradition nor reject Western pictorial ideas; the buildings considered important are shown larger, and depth is sought through trees. Aytekin points to this building as the only example among Anatolian timekeepers' houses whose late-period wall paintings have survived to the present.

The master of the paintings is unknown. Arık reported that the painter was Mehmed Emin Kutsal; Renda corrects this, writing that Kutsal only repaired some of the paints and that the repair was carried out, under the supervision of Muammer Ülker, then serving at the Amasya Museum, in fidelity to the original colours. Aytekin, on grounds of stylistic difference, holds that the paintings of the timekeeper's house are not by Zileli Emin either, but the work of a folk artist well acquainted with the metropolitan style, and he dates the decoration to the middle of the nineteenth century. The building has been used at times as a library and at times as a prayer room; today it is the mosque attendant's room.

The building was repaired by the Foundations in 1960-61, and in the restoration of 2016-2019 the Tokat Regional Directorate of Foundations worked on it. In his examinations of 2022 and 2023 Aytekin compared the present condition with Renda's article of 1976 and the photographs in later theses; he writes that the vases of flowers and the flower basket had been plastered over, that many of the trees and hills had been altered, that the dome finials in the east band had been erased, that the sky had been repainted, and that the rifle and sword in the west had been reduced to the gun carriage alone. Aytekin does not consider these interventions correct under ICOMOS principles; this is an assessment by the author of the article, and the view of the institution that carried out the restoration is not found in the sources.

Later Additions

Over the centuries the complex grew with new charitable works:

1782-83: Hacı Ali Ağa had taps and a water-heating place built on the river side of the mosque so that ablutions could be made with warm water in winter.
1813: Ayşe Hatun had a fountain (şadırvan) built (Dündar gives 1812 in a footnote).
1820-21: Hacı Osman Ağa had a sebil (public drinking fountain) built; Dündar writes that this was a snow sebil west of the mosque and that its founder was Kâtipzâde Hacı Osman Ağa, one of the halberdiers of the imperial household.
1840: Kapancızâde Hacı Hüseyin Zeki Efendi added the timekeeper's house and library together with a fountain.
1909-1911: By the will of the Yamuk Osmanzâde family, a library was built at the foot of the courtyard wall and a new fountain for specially brought water. Dündar also records that in 1911 Mehmed Hamdi Efendi had a fountain built in front of the wall west of the Primary School.

Earthquakes, Floods and Repairs

Amasya is a city of earthquakes and floods, and the complex has lived through both many times. Dündar writes that the city's position in the earthquake belt has made it difficult for buildings to reach the present in their original form.

November 1590 (Muharram 999): An earthquake did great damage to the mosque; the dome and arches and, in part, the domes of the imaret were brought down and were repaired at once. Dündar's article gives the same earthquake as 1591.
1668-69: The domes collapsed, the two minarets were bent, and the domes of the imaret and tabhane fell. The trustee Merzifonî İbrahim Ağa made good all the damage within a year.
1939: The Erzincan earthquake brought down some arches and domes of the portico. The mosque remained closed to worship until 1952. The madrasa was also damaged in this earthquake.
1943: According to Dündar's footnote, a second great earthquake, centred at Çorum, damaged the buildings again.
1952-1971: Repairs by the Directorate General of Foundations; the portico was entirely renewed, latrines were built in place of the collapsed portico of the imaret stable, and these were later removed and the present portico built. Eyice writes that the repair of the 1960s "cannot be called successful" and notes that the arches were wrongly repaired.
1980: Flood of the Yeşilırmak; a deposit 70 cm high formed inside the mosque. Eyice writes that the complex, as with the one at Edirne, has at times been damaged by the river's floods and still is.
2016-2019: Restoration by the Tokat Regional Directorate of Foundations. While the work was under way, original photographs of the mosque from after 1939 came to light in the Foundations archive and the project was updated. The interventions on the timekeeper's house wall paintings were established only afterwards.

Visiting Information

The complex is in the centre of Amasya, on the bank of the Yeşilırmak, on Ziya Paşa Boulevard leading to the station, in the Hacı İlyas neighbourhood, and it lies on the edge of the Şehzadeler (Princes') Promenade. It can be reached on foot from the city centre. The mosque is open for worship; during prayer times and in matters of dress the guidance of the mosque officials should be followed. Because opening hours may change after the restoration, it is worth asking beforehand. The Miniature Amasya Museum is inside the imaret; since its hours and entrance fee change over time, current information should be obtained from the museum or from the official page of the Amasya Museum.

Among the places in the complex that merit a closer look are the two different minarets, the muqarnas of the crown portal, the wooden window shutters, the paintings of 1872 in the dome of the fountain, the inner band of the timekeeper's house and the vaulted spaces of the imaret. One building of the same years is the Mehmed Pasha Mosque (1486); to the west, in the direction the document calls the "Gök Madrasa side", stands the complex of Yörgüç Pasha dated 1431. The related articles on our site may be consulted.

Chronology

1454: Şehzade Bayezid, aged seven, is appointed sanjak governor of Amasya.

1481 (September): According to Hüseyin Hüsameddin, construction of the complex begins; the starting date is disputed.

1485: According to Hüsameddin, the primary school is built (890).

1486 (July): According to the inscription, the mosque is completed (Rajab 891).

1496 (January): The endowment deed of the complex is written.

1513: The date given by the inscription of the Tomb of Şehzade Osman.

1590 (November): Great earthquake.

1668-69: Great earthquake; the trustee İbrahim Ağa repairs the damage.

1840: Timekeeper's house and library, and a second fountain.

1872 (October): Date of the wall paintings in the dome of the fountain.

1883: The primary school becomes an İbtidâî Mektebi (Hüsameddin).

1939: Erzincan earthquake.

1952-1971: Repairs by the Directorate General of Foundations.

2006: Restoration of the fountain's wall paintings.

2010: The Miniature Amasya Museum opens in the imaret.

2016-2019: Restoration by the Tokat Regional Directorate of Foundations.

Sources

The following sources were used in this article:

Semavi Eyice, "Beyazıt II Camii ve Külliyesi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 6, Istanbul 1992 (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
Abdulkadir Dündar, "Bir Belgeye Göre Amasya II. Bayezid Külliyesi", Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, XLIV/2, 2003, pp. 131-172.
Füsun Aytekin, "Amasya II. Bayezid Külliyesi Muvakkithanesinin Duvar Resimlerinin Tarih ve Usta Sorunsalı ile Son Restorasyonu Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme", article published on akmb.gov.tr, pp. 150-179.
Ayşe Nermin Uz Taşkesen, "Amasya II. Beyazıt Camisi Şadırvanı Duvar Resimlerinin Restorasyonu ve İkonografik Çözümlemesi", Vakıflar Dergisi, 35, June 2011, pp. 177-189.
"Amasya'da Sancak Beyliği Yapan Şehzadeler Döneminde Amasya Şehri", Amasya Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, issue 5 (dergipark.org.tr).
Kültür Portalı, "İkinci Bayezid Külliyesi" (citing Muzaffer Doğanbaş, Amasya II. Bâyezid Külliyesi, Amasya Valiliği Yay., Ankara 2010), kulturportali.gov.tr. kulturportali.gov.tr
Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Sultan II. Bayezid Külliyesi", amasya.ktb.gov.tr.
Yusuf Ormankıran, "II. Beyazıt Camii ve Külliyesi", Online Türkiye Turizm Ansiklopedisi, 2020.
Amasya Governorship, "Valimiz Sultan II. Bayezid Külliyesi'nde Büyük Ölçüde Tamamlanan Restorasyon Çalışmalarını Yerinde İnceledi", amasya.gov.tr; Anadolu Agency, "Amasya'daki 531 yıllık külliye restore ediliyor".
TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, entries "Bayezid II" and "Hayreddin, Mimar".
Kültür Envanteri (kulturenvanteri.com): pages on the Bayezid II Madrasa, Imaret and Timekeeper's House; Miniature Amasya Museum (Wikipedia, Türkiye Turizm Ansiklopedisi).
Günsel Renda, "Amasya II. Bayezit Külliyesindeki Muvakkithane", Sanat Tarihi Yıllığı, VI (1974-75), pp. 181-206; İ. Aydın Yüksel, Osmanlı Mimarisinde II. Bayezid Yavuz Selim Devri, V, Istanbul 1983 (works cited through Dündar and Aytekin).