For the fall of the Moorish dynasty in Spain, the Mohammedans were to a certain extent recompensed by the conquest of the great Christian city and territory of Byzantium ; and from that time dates a new variety of Saracenic architecture which had its origin in Constan tinople. On the capture of Constantinople, Santa Sophia was con verted by the conquerors into their chief mosque, and made their architectural modeL The older Saracenic style indeed continued to be the basis of the new, but it was modified throughout by the Byzantine influence. The dome became a more and more prominent feature ; ornamentation was applied with more economy, more grouped and massed, more simplified and less diffused. But the old Eastern exu berance found vent in various ways, while the taste and energy which served at once to direct and control it, became less and less apparent, and the style steadily deteriorated, though as long as vitality lasted, it exhibited gleams of a rich quaint fancy. The first mosque erected in Constantinople was built by Dlahomet II., the conqueror of the city; and a large mosque is still shown as his ; but very little remains of the original fabric. More, perfect is the great mosque erected about the middle of the 16th century by Suleiman the Magnificent. Avowedly an imitation of Santa Sophia, it is yet larger, richer, and to an archi tectural eye, superior in form, the dome especially being higher and better proportioned. The great mosque, called At-Ieidan, erected
by Achmet in the first half of the 17th century, is remarkable among other things for its array of cupolas and its minarets. No less than thirty small domes surround the outer court, each bay of the arcade being surmounted by one. The mosque proper has a well-proportioned great dome (80 feet in diameter), flanked by four smaller domes, while (as will be seen from the cut in the article MOSQUE), several other small domes occur in different parts of the building. In this, as in the other Constantinopolitan mosques, the columns which support the horse-shoe arches of the arcades are fastened together by iron tie-rods. The great dome of this mosque is borne on four immense piers, which are faced with marble. The minarets are of very graceful form and proportions. The various .ornatuental details are pure in character, whilst they, as well as the general form of the building, show almost entire freedom from Byzantine taste. But this was the last great effort of Turkish architecture. European artificers soon after this began to be employed, and European fashions to bo imitated, and the native style became proportionally debased.