Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/560

544 SARACENIC ARCIIITECTUIIE. Tart III. 200 ft. square, with a stone roof supported by only four great fluted piers, is a grand and imposing object, and has very narrowly missed producing the effect its builders were aiming at. The external effect is more pleasing than the internal ; the mode in which the smaller domes and semi-domes lead up to the centre produces a pyramidal effect that gives a very pleasing air of stability to the outline, and the six tall minarets go far to relieve what other- wise might be monot- onous. It is said that this is the only mosque in the Mos- lem world which has so many of these graceful adjuncts, except the mosque at Mecca, which has seven. The Suleima- nie and 8ta. Sophia have four; most of the others two, and some only one ; but, M'hatever their num- ber, the form of all is nearly identical Avith those of the Suleimanie (Wood- cut No. 979). They are gi-aceful, no doubt, but infinitely inferior to those of Cairo, or, indeed, of any country where this form of tower was long employed. We do not know whence the Turks first got this form, and it is very difiicult to understand why they persevered so long in adhering to it after so many other more beautiful forms had been introduced among their co-religionists in other countries. But so it is ; and everywhere its tall extinguisher roof is one of the first objects that warns the traveller that he has passed within the boundaries of the Turkish empire. Though very much smaller than those just described, that known as the Prince's Mosque is one of the most pleasing in Constantinople. Q AO.QJ OIOP oPa P 5} o: I # 9 i 3 S • S t> J.O oooofooo o^ I 980. Plan of Ahmediie Mosque. (By Texier.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 iu.