With the Selimiye mosque right next door, the Bedesten is one of Nicosia's most beautiful medieval monuments. Formerly the Church of St. Nicholas, transformed into a "closed market"(bedesten in Turkish), the building was renovated in 2009 and hosts exhibitions and conferences throughout the year. But it has had a chequered history. The first Byzantine basilica was built here in the ^6th century. And it was under the Lusignans, at the end of the ^12th century, that the Catholic church of Saint-Nicolas was built. It was first entrusted to the English monks of the Order of St. Thomas of Canterbury, close to the kings of France. It was then taken over by Greek Orthodox monks, who renamed it Panagia Odigitria ("Virgin who shows the way"). Enlarged during the ^14th and ^15th centuries, the building became the seat of the Orthodox bishopric of Nicosia during the Venetian period (^16th century). In 1573, the Ottomans transformed the church into a bedesten, a market closed at night to secure silks and luxury goods. The name stuck. However, the site changed function several times, serving as a butchers' market and a wheat warehouse. The commercial heart of Cyprus for three and a half centuries, the Bedesten was closed in 1935, after the creation of the new market next door.

Green man. Today, this 30 m-long building has retained the appearance of the church as it was in the ^16th century, borrowing from Gothic and Byzantine styles as well as from the French, Venetian and Spanish Renaissance. However, some parts have been lost: most of the original pavement and roofing, as well as most of the conventual buildings of the former monastery. As the church was not converted into a mosque, many of its features have been preserved: the Byzantine dome above the choir, the imposing dog-shaped gargoyles and the portals on the north facade, which reveal both Latin and Eastern influences. On the main portal, for example, the tympanum features a representation of St. Nicholas (whose face was hammered off during the Ottoman era), surrounded by the coats of arms of six Venetian families. The four pointed-arch voussoirs decorated with plant motifs rest on eight sculpted capitals, seven of which feature faces adorned with foliage. These are representations of the "green man", a symbol of pagan origin evoking the power of nature. This motif is quite common on medieval buildings in Great Britain and, to a lesser extent, in France. But this is a unique case for an (ancient) Orthodox church.