Selimiye Mosque

The Selimiye Mosque dominates Edirne's skyline from every approach to the city, its four slender minarets — the tallest of any Ottoman mosque — rising above the flat Thracian plain. It was completed in 1575 for Sultan Selim II, and the architect Mimar Sinan, then in his eighties, considered it the greatest achievement of his long career. The claim stands up. The central dome is 31.5 metres in diameter, wider than that of Hagia Sophia, and it floats above an almost entirely open interior thanks to Sinan's ingenious eight-pillar structural solution. The effect when you enter is one of suspended weightlessness: the massive dome seems to hover without visible support.

The decoration matches the ambition. Iznik tiles cover the lower walls in intricate blue and white floral patterns, and the calligraphic medallions are among the finest of the period. The külliye surrounding the mosque — a complex including a madrasa, a covered bazaar, and a library — frames the building without diminishing it. UNESCO inscribed the Selimiye on the World Heritage List in 2011. It is open to visitors outside prayer times; remove shoes and dress modestly. No admission charge.

things to do sight architecture
A story
Sinan was in his eighties when he completed the Selimiye, and he declared it his greatest work — a remarkable statement from the man who had also built the Süleymaniye in Istanbul. He had spent decades wrestling with the engineering problem of placing a dome wider than Hagia Sophia's on a structure with an unobstructed interior. At Selimiye he solved it: the dome sits on eight pillars set back into the walls, leaving the floor nearly column-free. He knew what he had done. In his memoir he wrote that the Selimiye demonstrated he had surpassed the ancient masters.