Oh wait - duh, it's a mosque now isn't it! Gold domes are an
   architectural style from the East. The Eastern Orthodox (Greek
   Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc) Christians were the first to
   use the gold and silver domes as far as I know (cupolas) and
   mosques that came later used the same architectural style as
   they started growing as a religion in the same area as the
   Eastern Orthodox. The fall of ...the Eastern Roman Empire
   (something we don't learn in school) was in 1463 or something
   like that, when Constaninople (now Istanbul) was taken over by
   the Turkish empire. But thankfully, some of the scholars had
   already moved to Italy before then and started up secret schools
   which taught folks in the West (which was still going through
   the Middle Ages - there were no middle ages in the East) --
   which brought knowledge of the Greek philosophers and ar... "