Turkey Guide
İstanbul
Topkapı Palace
Address: Sultanahmet
Opening time: Daily except Tues 9am–5pm
Price: There is no fee to enter the first courtyard. The entry fees for the Palace (12YTL) and the Imperial Treasury (10YTL) are paid at a ticket booth. You can pay a further 10YTL for a guided tour of the Harem.
The Topkapı Palace was both the symbolic and the political centre of the Ottoman Empire for nearly four centuries, until the removal of the imperial retinue to Dolmabahçe, by Sultan Abdülmecid I in 1853. It is a beautiful setting in which to wander and contemplate the majesty of the Ottoman sultanate, as well as the cruelty exemplified by institutions like the harem and "the Cage".
Originally known as Sarayı Cedid, or New Palace, Topkapı was built between 1459 and 1465 as the seat of government of the newly installed Ottoman regime. It was not at first a residence: Mehmet the Conqueror had already built what would become known as the Old Palace on the present site of İstanbul University and even after he himself moved, his harem stayed on at the old site.
In accordance with Islamic tradition, the palace consists of a collection of buildings arranged around a series of courtyards, similar to the Alhambra in Granada or a Moghul palace in India. Although this creates an initial impression of disorder, in fact the arrangement is meticulously logical. The first courtyard was the service area of the palace and open to all, while most of the second court and its attendant buildings were devoted to the Divan, or Council of State, and to those who had business with it. The pavilions of judges were located at the Orta Kapı (the entrance to the palace proper, between the first and second courtyards), in accordance with the tradition that justice should be dispensed at the gate of the palace.
The third courtyard was mainly given over to the palace school, an important imperial institution devoted to the training of civil servants, and it is only in the fourth courtyard that the serious business of state gives way to the more pleasurable aspects of life. Around the attractive gardens here are a number of pavilions erected by successive emperors in celebration of their victories. Here, the glorious views and sunsets could be enjoyed in privileged retreat from their three- to four-thousand-member retinue.
The various adjustments made to the structure and function of the buildings were indicative of the power shifts in the Ottoman Empire over the centuries. During the "Rule of the Harem" in the sixteenth century, for example, a passageway was opened between the Harem and the Divan, while in the eighteenth century, when the power of the sultan had declined, the offices of state were transferred away from the "Eye of the Sultan" (the window in the Divan through which a sultan could monitor proceedings) to the gateway that led to the palaces of the Grand Vezir known as the Sublime Port.