Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II commissions the second…

Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II commissions the second large imperial mosque complex to be erected in Istanbul after the conquest.

The Fatih Mosque, the earliest complex, is subsequently destroyed by the earthquake of 1509.

That the architect was a nephew of the Greek architect of the Fatih Mosque (Atik Sinan or Christodoulos), is known from a grant of Bayazid II.

This grant confirms the endowment by Mehmed II of the Greek orthodox Church of St. Mary of the Mongols, the only church in Istanbul never converted into a mosque, to the mother of Christodoulos (the Bayezid II Mosque's architect's grandmother) in acknowledgment of the two architects' work.

Little else is known about the architect other than that he also built a caravansary in Bursa; however, the polished style of the mosque itself indicates experience with earlier Ottoman and western architectural techniques.

Jews enjoy a period of cultural flourishing under the reign of Bayezid II.