Istanbul

Libraries and Museums

The city has exceptional museums. Among them is the Ayasofya (Saint Sophia) Museum. The ancient basilica was built by Constantine the Great (c. 274–337) and reconstructed by Justinian (c. 482–527) in the sixth century. Architecturally, it is considered one of the most important buildings in the world. Its decorations include fine Byzantine mosaics. The Kariye Museum, built as a church in the eleventh century, is decorated with fourteenth-century frescoes and mosaics on a gold background. The Archaeological Museum has a rich collection of antiquities, including the Alexander Sarcophagus. It has displays on the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hatti, and Hittite civilizations. The Cinili Kosk (The Museum of Turkish Ceramics) was built in the fifteenth century and contains Iznik tiles from the sixteenth century, as well as examples of Seljuk and Ottoman tiles and ceramics. The Ibrahim Palace Museum (The Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art) was built as a private residence in 1524. The museum has many Turkish and Persian miniatures, Seljuk tiles, and antique carpets. The Museum of Fine Arts has paintings and sculptures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among others are the Museum of Turkish Carpets, the Mosaic Museum, and the City Museum, which covers the Ottoman period to the present. The city has many public and private libraries, including the Köprülü Library (1677), which has books more than 1,000 years old.