section_path: History/Ottoman Empire
section_name: Ottoman Empire
paragraph_text: Ottoman Empire
  
  In 1331, Orhan captured the city from the Byzantines and for a short period the town became the capital of the expanding Ottoman emirate. Many of its public buildings were destroyed, and the materials were used by the Ottomans in erecting their mosques and other edifices. The large church of Hagia Sophia in the centre of the town was converted into a mosque and became known as the Orhan Mosque. A madrasa and baths were built nearby. In 1334 Orhan built a mosque and an imaret (soup kitchen) just outside the Yenişehir gate (Yenişehir Kapısı) on the south side of the town. With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the town lost a great degree of its importance, but later became a major centre with the creation of a local faïence pottery industry in the 17th century. Thereafter, it slowly faded away as it lost population. In 1779, the Italian archaeologist Domenico Sestini wrote that it was nothing but an abandoned town with no life, no noise and no movement.