After the
conquest of Constantinople the Sultan gave priority to official construction projects such as Yedikule and his first seraglio, Saray-i Atik. Yedikule, Fortress of Seven Towers, was erected as the official treasury fort of the Empire around the year 1457 (Özgüven 1996: 95–99). Witnesses described the building as one of the palaces of the Sultan. Each tower of the Yedikule functioned as the storage of precious goods, documents, armoury, coins, and golden and silver ingots. Sultan knew well from his ancestors that protection of the fort was one of the high-priority matters of state (Clavijo 1970: 187–188).). Yedikule Fortress was frequently used as a state prison, and ambassadors of states currently at war with the
Ottoman Porte were usually imprisoned within its walls. The fortress also housed prisoners who were victims of palace intrigue and infighting, as well as political opponents of the imperial court. Among Yedikule's most notable prisoners was the young Sultan
Osman II, who was imprisoned and executed there by the
Janissaries in 1622. The last
Emperor of Trebizond David Megas Komnenos, King
Simon I of Kartli, and a number of leading Ottoman
pashas were also among those executed there. In 1768, the
Russian ambassador Aleksei Mikhailovich Obreskov, and the entire Russian embassy's staff was imprisoned here, marking the Ottomans’ declaration of war on Russia. During the
Napoleonic Wars, the fortress was the prison of many French prisoners, including the writer and diplomat
François Pouqueville, who was detained there for more than two years (1799 to 1801) and who gave an extensive description of the fortress in his ''Voyage en Morée, à Constantinople, en Albanie, et dans plusieurs autres parties de l'Empire Othoman, pendant les années 1798, 1799, 1800 et 1801''. The last prisoner was held in the Yedikule as late as 1837. The outer gate was re-opened in 1838, and the fort's towers functioned as gunpowder magazines for a while thereafter, until the whole facility was turned over to become a museum in 1895. An open-air theater has been built in more recent years, and is used for cultural festivals. Like its
namesake in
Jerusalem, a Muslim cemetery now lies in front of the Golden Gate. ==Notable prisoners==