Sultan Bayezid II Complex, Edirne

The vast Beyazidiye külliye on the west bank of the Tunca was built for Beyazit II in 1484–8 by the architect Hayrettin; besides the great mosque it included a hospital, an insane asylum, a medical school, a hospice, an imaret, a bakery and food depots ¹.

The mosque's avlu measures 50 by 40 metres, ringed by an arcade of 22 cupolas on 19 antique marble columns with stalactite capitals; at its centre a circular şadırvan once carried a canopy on eight columns of which only the bases remain ². The square prayer hall has exceptionally high exterior walls under a dome of just over 20 metres, with 24 windows in the drum and 44 more in the tympana walls; the two minarets stand nearly 20 metres out from the building, framing the massive domed square ³.

West of the mosque the darüşşifa included a timarhane for the insane and a tıp medresesi; the hospital is a hexagon of twelve domed bays around a hexagonal court and şadırvan under a dome over 14 metres wide crowned by a lantern ⁴. Beyazit's vakfiye records a staff of 167, of whom 21 served the hospital — chief physician, two assistants, two surgeons, two oculists, a pharmacist — plus 18 medical students ⁴. Evliya Çelebi reports music was played under the hospital's great dome three times a week as 'a cure for the sick, medicine for the afflicted, spiritual nourishment for the mad, and a remedy for the melancholy' ⁴.

• Source read: Freely, A History of Ottoman Architecture (2011), pp. 85–88 (The Beyazidiye).
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