Girolamo Dandini, S J, Professor of Theology at Perugia, visited Nicosia:
There are at Nicosia four kinds of churches, each of which I examined by itself. The Turkish mosques are the most important, both for their number and for the beauty and size of the buildings. I was not allowed to enter them, but I could see through its iron gates that the mosque which was once the church of S. Sophia was the finest and most stately. It is a large and spacious structure with many columns such as you would see in most of our churches. No altars, statues or paintings of any kind: the walls are simply whitewashed. By the door stands a fine fountain, which was not there in the time of the Christians.