S. Theodosia.
Dome over the Staircase to the Galleries.
S. Theodosia.
The Narthex, looking north
To face page 172.
Details of the tiled floor and of several carved fragments are given in Fig. [76.]
For some time after the conquest the building was used as a naval store. [283] It was converted into a mosque in the reign of Sultan Selim II. (1566-74) by a wealthy courtier, Hassan Pasha, and was known as Hassan Pasha Mesjedi. [284] Its title, the mosque of the Rose, doubtless refers to its beauty, just as another mosque is, for a similar reason, styled Laleli Jamissi, the mosque of the Tulip.
Before leaving the church we may consider the claims of the tradition that the chamber in the south-eastern dome pier contains the tomb of the last Byzantine emperor. The tradition was first announced to the general public by the Patriarch Constantius in a letter which he addressed in 1852 to Mr. Scarlatus Byzantius, his fellow-student in all pertaining to the antiquities and history of Constantinople. [285] According to the patriarch, the tradition was accepted by the Turkish ecclesiastical authorities of the city, and was current among the old men of the Greek community resident in the quarter of Phanar; he himself knew the tradition even in his boyhood. Furthermore, distinguished European visitors who inquired for Byzantine imperial tombs were directed by Turkish officials to the church of S. Theodosia, as the resting-place of the emperor who died with the Empire; and the inscription over the door of the chamber referred to that champion of the Greek cause. Strangely enough, the patriarch said nothing about this tradition when treating of the church of S. Theodosia in his book on Ancient and Modern Constantinople, published in 1844. In that work, indeed, he assigns the tomb in question to some martyr who suffered during the iconoclastic period. [286] This strange silence he explains in his letter written in 1852 as due to prudence; he had reason then to 'put the seal of Alexander upon his lips.'
