on the exhaustive plates and text of Salzenberg.[235] M. Texier had
in 1834 made some drawings at Constantinople, which are now preserved
in the library of the Royal Institute of Architects; and several
coincidences seem to point to Salzenberg’s having had the use of
Texier’s ground plan. In any case Texier was the first to make correct
plans including the upper floor, also the atrium, baptistery, and the
circular building at the north-east. As Salzenberg made full use of the
unique opportunity afforded by the scaffolding, when the building was
given over to the workmen, we have thought it wise to give a condensed
paraphrase of his account where it is descriptive of the structure,
even at the risk of some repetition. Our remarks in other places
where they may overlap are the result of our own observation, from
different points of view. The rest of this chapter is an abridgment of
Salzenberg’s text and descriptive of his plates, and we add nothing
unless in notes or square brackets.
_Design._--The exterior walls of the atrium, with several entrances,
were built of brick, but the inner sides had marble columns between
square brick piers, two columns to one pier. These carried semicircular
arches. The atrium walks, as remains showed, were barrel-vaulted, and
the vaults were formerly covered with mosaic. The parts for which there
was evidence remaining are shown in darker hatching in Salzenberg’s
plate vi. The outer wall on the north side, with several arched
openings; and traces of the western boundary still existed.
The long vestibule in front of the narthex has groined vaulting, and
large windows in its west wall; there are some Turkish additions to
this part. A door from each lateral cloister, and two others from the
open atrium, led into it. On either side of the two doors from the
court are strong projecting piers, connected above by a wide arch,
forming a porch-like shelter over the doors. These four piers rise
above the roof of the vestibule.[236]
Double tiers of buttress arches spring from each of these piers to the
west wall of the church. A close examination of the wall and piers
led to the conviction that they are not contemporary with the church,
but were built later, though partly of old material.[237] The upper
cornices for instance differ. [Modifications here can be explained by
removal of Bell Tower, see p. 194.] The piers were probably erected by
Byzantine builders, to strengthen the western vault.
Five doors lead to the narthex, the windows of which are above the roof
of the outer vestibule. The walls are covered with marble, and the
vaulting with mosaic; while the walls and ceiling of the exonarthex,
are quite plain. Two other doors enter the narthex at its north and
south ends, and nine lead from it into the church; the large central
entrance being the Royal Door.
The walls of the church form approximately a square, the length of
which in the interior, exclusive of the apse, is 241 feet, and the
breadth 224.[238]
The dome measures 100 feet across from the edge of the cornice, but
above the cornice the vaulted space is 104 feet across; it is 179 feet
from the floor to the vertex. The dome rises above the square area on
four huge arches, with a large semidome to the east and another to the
west, each of which embraces three smaller spans. The lateral openings
which thus pierce the east and western semidomes are covered by
_conchs_, but the middle opening in each case has a cylindrical vault,
that to the east being prolonged into the eastern apse.
At the corners of the central square of the nave rise four large piers,
which are joined by arches to four buttress piers in the northern and
southern walls behind them. The arched openings connect the three parts
into which the aisles are divided by the piers. On either side of each
of the central openings from the eastern and western hemicycles rise
other piers, which are pierced by narrow arched passages, running from
north to south. The piers, eight altogether, carry the whole vaulting
of the nave, as well as a part of that of the side aisles. Between the
middle division of each aisle and the nave are four large columns with
five arches on the ground floor, and on the first floor six smaller
columns with seven arches. Above again is a wall with windows, filling
up the great arches on the north and south sides under the dome. Each
exedra has, on the ground floor, two large columns with three arches,
and, on the floor above, six small columns with seven arches.
The vault of each division of the aisles is supported on four columns.
Those next the east and west walls of the church, eight in all, are
square, the others are round. The divisions of the galleries follow
those of the aisles underneath. The four main piers however were
pierced by additional arched openings [now filled up] between the
galleries and the nave. The part over the narthex opens to the nave by
three arches, on coupled columns. Above is the immense semicircular
window which fills up the central barrel vault at the western end.
All the openings towards the nave in the upper aisles have marble
parapets. The vaulting of the lower aisles rests on forty round columns
and eight square ones, and in the galleries on sixty round columns, not
including the coupled columns at the west; this makes in all a hundred
round columns. Possibly the eight square pillars in the aisles were
employed, so that this number should not be exceeded.
In the walls are numerous large windows, and the dome is pierced by
forty just above the cornice; thus light streams into the church from
every quarter. Much of the dome, including the central circle of mosaic
at the crown, can be seen from the Royal Door.
The greater number of the buildings which formerly surrounded the
church are either destroyed, or so altered by Turkish minarets and
buttresses that it is difficult to conjecture their original form.[239]
On the north and south of the narthex are long porches of Byzantine
workmanship, with cylindrical vaults. In the northern one is a flight
of fourteen steps leading down from outside to the narthex. The
southern porch is called by Von Hammer the Vestibule of the Warriors.
It is mentioned by Nicetas as the place where the Archangel Michael
was represented in mosaic. It was through this porch that the emperor
passed to the church, and here some of the bodyguard would remain. The
vaulting still bears the remains of mosaics which are now covered up.
On the east sides of both the northern and southern porches are
accesses to the gynaeceum, formed of a series of inclined planes. The
entrance to the northern one is from the porch, but the southern stair
is reached from a narrow passage between it and the baptistery. To the
west of the northern and southern porches, in the angles between them
and the outside walls of the atrium, are the two minarets built by
Murad III.
On the first-floor level, above the southern porch and part of the
adjacent staircase, is a series of chambers,[240] of which the purpose
is not known. The walls of the two larger chambers are covered with
marble, and their ceilings with mosaic.
Only one stairway is now extant at the east. The minaret built by
Mahomed II., which helps to buttress the south-east corner of the
church, occupies the position of a second. Salzenberg’s Plate xiv.
shows the stairway restored, but in Plate xiii. the northern one is
removed to explain the arrangement of the part of the building to the
south of it. On entering at the door of this north-eastern stairway
one can either mount the ascending planes which wind round a well for
light, or go to the left through a small lobby into the church. On the
right steps ascend to the round building adjacent. The light ‘well’
once ascended the whole height of the staircase, which seems to have
been formerly still higher, as the eastern wall of the church, which is
here prolonged northwards, rises about four feet above the present roof
of the stairway, and shows the remains of a window. These stairways may
have been built by Andronicus Palaeologus in the fourteenth century,
when he erected the buttress masses which are called pyramids by
Nicephorus Gregoras. All these stairways however were additions to the
building, probably built when the dome abutments were strengthened.
The original staircases to the gynaeceum were in the four piers by
the northern and southern walls of the church, and the steps from the
gynaeceum to the base of the dome still remain.[241]
In the eastern buttress pier on the south side is a portion of one of
the original staircases, leading _downwards_ from the gynaeceum, though
beneath on the ground floor there is now a vaulted passage.[242] In the
western buttress pier on the south side, at the ground-floor level,
is a vaulted passage adorned with mosaic, and a door leading to an
external addition. In the similar position on the gynaeceum level, the
staircase, which formerly led higher, has been destroyed, to make a way
to the upper floor of this same late annex.
The south-east porch may have been used by the emperors on non-festal
days, as it was close to the southern aisle where they sat. Three
columns are now placed on each side of this porch; the two outer ones
are of porphyry, and have capitals with a design of a basket and
doves.[243] These capitals are fine Byzantine work, although the arch
above may be Turkish. Here seven steps descend into the church. The
other porch on the north of the east end was destroyed at the last
restoration to make an entrance for the Sultan. Remains of a series
of chambers can still be traced on the east side between the porches:
their roofs must have been below the lower windows of the eastern
wall. The chambers are now built up; but their original plan may be
conjectured from the lead saddle-roofs, which have gutters that conduct
the rainwater through the outer wall. Two doors from the porches, and
two doors from the church--all four now blocked up--show the previous
communication with this row of chambers, which probably contained the
priests’ vestments, and the vessels for the altar.
Amongst the buildings that surrounded the church must be mentioned
the skeuophylakium, in which was kept the sacred furniture. Here were
placed biers for the state funerals: conspicuous amongst them was
one quite covered with gold, the gift of Studios and Stephanos. This
probably was the isolated round building at the north-east of the
church, reached by the steps previously mentioned. It now has two
floors of wood; for security there were no windows, but only twelve
niches in the wall, in one of which is the door. This building now
serves as a storehouse for the army kitchen (imareh) adjacent, and
is much injured. Windows have been made in the walls, and the door
altered.[244] The baptistery [south-west building] is square outside,
but octagonal with four niches within. It is vaulted by a dome without
ribs. On the east side is an apse, and on the west a porch. The
Anonymous says that the baptistery was formerly called the Chapel of
S. John, and that it was built by Justinian. [Entrance to this is now
obtained by a door, which has been pierced in its north-eastern angle.
The western wall has a semicircular-headed opening, of the same size as
the niches, leading to a narthex or vestibule to which there is now no
access from the outside.]
In addition to the western entrance, a door on the north, now blocked
up, led through an open porch into a small court. The large cylindrical
arch of this porch had a screen at its northern side, the columns and
door-frame[245] of which are still extant, but the marble lattice is
destroyed. Through an arch in the east wall of this porch the addition
which was made outside the south-west buttress pier could be reached,
where there was a passage into the church. Salzenberg’s plan[246] of
this addition is taken at the level of a landing reached by a staircase
from the passage through the south-west buttress pier. This landing
seems at one time to have been connected with a chamber above the
north porch of the baptistery, and from thence with the stairway at
the south-west angle of the church. Leading upwards from this landing
is the original staircase to the gynaeceum, and at this level there is
a small chapel vaulted with a cupola.[247] The vault is adorned with
mosaic; figures of angels stand in the four pendentives. Originally the
chapel was not lighted; but at the last “restoration” a hole was made
in the roof, which was filled with glass; a passage from this chapel to
the gynaeceum is probably Turkish. The chapel is supposed by the Greeks
to be the one into which the officiating priest disappeared at the
capture by the Turks.
The Turks turned the baptistery into a storeroom for the oil used in
lighting the church, but on the sudden death of the Sultan Mustapha
I. it was converted into a turbeh. Almost the whole of the church is
raised above vaulted cisterns. An opening in the south aisle[248] gives
access to the water, and there is another opening in the north-west
exedra. The depth of the water prevented a close inspection.
Of the two additions made in Byzantine times to the centre of the north
and south walls on the outside, and intended to buttress the aisles,
the southern one has been further lengthened by the Turks. To preserve
the use of the door and window in the wall of the church, each addition
was pierced by a passage. Remains of stairways and side passages have
also been found here.[249] Other remains of buildings existed on the
north and south sides of the church, but they were too insufficient to
base any conclusions on them.
_Materials._--The principal materials employed are brick, and a kind of
peperino stone. The latter is used in those parts of the building which
have to stand great pressure, such as the four large piers in the nave,
the piers to east and west, and the extra projections from the buttress
piers in the side aisles and gynaeceum. In addition a horizontal course
two feet deep runs round the whole building four feet from the floor.
The outside walls of the original building, like the vaulting, were
entirely of brick, but in the later additions they are formed of
alternate layers of brick and stone, and some of the later buttress
masses are almost entirely of stone.
The bricks are as a rule about fourteen inches long and two inches
thick; some vaulting bricks brought from the ruins by the porch on the
east measured fourteen inches square and two inches thick; on one side
of them were scratched lines probably made by the three fingers of the
maker, and on the other was an oblong label inclosing an inscription
(1); another had a different inscription (2); and a third, not from
this vault, but of the same size, was also inscribed (3).
[Illustration]
[(1) Reads Constantius or Constantine. (2) May be rendered “the
church which is being erected,” by reading a participle of ἐγείρω for
the second and third letter. (3) This is also given in the _Revue
Archéologique_, 1876, with some slight differences in second and third
lines; it is there said to have been found between SS. Sophia and
Irene. It probably reads, “Lord, help Philemon: Indiction 7.” The two
first vowels of Philemon have changed places, and the contraction form
after “ΙΝΔ” is also turned the wrong way.]
At the base of the dome the bricks are 27 × 9 inches, and two inches
thick. Some appear to be twenty-seven inches square; but at the apex
of the dome, by the hole intended for the lamp-chain, the thickness
is twenty-four inches. There was no trace of the light bricks made in
Rhodes which the Anonymous mentions; although in the pendentives a
light substance, whitish, with impressions of plants in it, was used in
irregular masses. The mortar has a red colour, and was evidently mixed
with crushed brick; the joints are from one to two inches thick.
The marble of Proconnesus, which somewhat resembles the architectural
marble of Carrara, is employed for the cornices, capitals, and bases of
the columns, and for the windows.
In Salzenberg’s plans the materials are expressed by different depths
of tint; the darkest being marble, slightly lighter is stone, and a
still lighter brickwork; the additional buildings are represented in
the lightest tones, and the Turkish buildings with strokes and dots.
_Construction._--The outside walls average a height of seventy feet:
those on the north and south have a thickness of three and a half
feet, that on the east is four and a half feet, and that on the west
between the nave and narthex five feet. Where the arches rest on the
walls there are piers which project about two feet: thus the west wall,
for instance, has in parts a thickness of seven feet. As a general
rule, the interior vaults of wide span continue through the walls, and
appear as arches on the outside face. The window and door openings are
semicircular. The marble finishings were inserted after the completion
of the walls.
The dome at first sight seems to rest upon four arches each of 100
feet span; it is, however, only on the east and west that these arches
are open. From north to south the main piers are 106 feet apart, and
their breadth in this direction is fifteen feet eight inches; but on
either side of the nave there are projections, narrowing the opening to
100 feet, and giving the open arches abutments of eighteen feet eight
inches.
Behind each of these main piers again, at a distance of twenty-nine and
a half feet from them, stands one of the buttress or staircase piers,
which, including the outside wall, is seventeen feet four inches by
twenty-four and a half feet in area. Round arches, which appear below
the vaults, transmit the thrust of the great arches from the main piers
to these buttressing piers. Above these each of the immense buttress
masses which stand right across the aisles, and rise to within eighteen
feet of the springing of the dome, bear upon two relieving arches of
different radii, so as not to load the vaulting beneath.[250]
The cylindrical arches, which, at the ground-floor aisles and the
gynaeceum, connect the great piers with the outer buttress piers, are
each reinforced by two extra arches, standing on stone additions to
the main piers, from which they project five feet.[251] These arches,
though thus strengthened, are almost all out of shape; those by the two
northern main piers have been pushed out nearly fifteen inches.
A drawing given in Salzenberg’s text shows the south arch which
supports the dome with the mosaics removed. The piers from east to west
are seventy-two feet apart, and accordingly the span of the arch is
seventy-two feet, its soffite being fifteen feet eight inches. The arch
is five feet deep, formed of two unconnected rings, and on each side
the lower part is laid in horizontal courses so that the portion with
radiating joints is only three quarters of the whole arch. The window
wall which fills the arch opening is four feet thick, and is bonded
with the horizontal courses, but a movement of the arches has caused a
fissure, which is shown in the diagram. These window walls on the south
and north sides have cracked in several places. The upper part of the
window wall on the north side is only twenty-nine inches thick. The
windows have been reduced and strengthened by inserting stone jambs.
On the north and south side are also two large arches, which project on
the inside three feet from the window wall and rest on the main piers,
having the same height and span as the arches on the east and west.
They complete the square form under the cornice of the dome, and give
the idea that the dome is carried on four arches of 100 feet span:
whereas in reality, as has just been shown, the real supporting arches
on the north and south side are concealed in the window wall, and are
not suggested in any way in the interior decoration, being only visible
on the outside.[252]
The four principal piers are very carefully built of shaped stones, the
joints, according to Procopius, being run with lead, but the Silentiary
mentions a cement as being used here.
The height from the floor to the springing of the great arches is
seventy-three feet.
The arches of seventy-two feet span have abutments of twenty-four and
a half feet, which are increased above the vaults of the gynaeceum to
twenty-nine feet.
The great arches under the springing of the dome are about four bricks,
or five feet, thick. The depth at the top, including the cornice of
the dome, is about six feet and three quarters. The centre of the
arches is two and a half feet above the springing, so that they are
more than semicircular. In the internal angles formed by them are
the four pendentives. The cornice has a projection of about two feet
nine inches. The lead mentioned by the Silentiary may be found in the
interstices of its stones.
The dome springs from the cornice on forty piers, about three feet five
inches broad on the inside, and about eight and a half feet deep in
the direction of the radius. They are connected by arches which form
windows four feet nine inches wide. On the outside the piers project
beyond the arches, and may perhaps at one time have been connected with
other arches, forming a drum for the dome: within they form part of the
ribs of the dome.
In the interior the ribs project at the springing six inches from the
surface of the dome, which is there twenty-nine inches thick, but their
projection gradually diminishes, till they are lost in the great
circle of thirty-seven and a half feet diameter in the centre. In the
interior from rib across to rib is 104 feet, so that all round on the
cornice is the passage two feet nine inches wide, which, according to
Paulus, was used by the lamp-lighter. The dome rises forty-six feet
nine inches above this gangway, so that it is considerably less than a
semicircle in section. The original dome, according to Agathias, must
have been even flatter. Theophanes states the increase in height to
have been twenty feet, and Zonaras twenty-five.[253]
The dome has now many swellings and depressions which are not visible
from the ground. At the same time we see how immovable domed vaulting
is, if only its supports remain uninjured.
At the east and west ends of the nave the two cylindrical vaults are
each forty-seven feet across. They rest on the four lesser piers, and
have an abutment of fifteen and a half feet. The four exedras are each
forty-one feet across. All the conchs and semidomes have drums outside,
which are pierced by the windows. The conchs which cover the exedras
have strong arches, where they intersect the semidomes. The weight
of the exedra conchs is chiefly supported by the columns; the upper
columns of the south-east exedra, at the time of the last restoration,
were much inclined, and had to be brought back to the vertical, by
propping the arches, cutting away the old bases, and inserting new
pieces--the columns being surrounded and supported by wooden cradling.
The thickness of the western barrel vault is four feet; the eastern
apse is about three feet thick. The western semidome received an
additional thickness at the restoration.
_Vaulting of the Aisles._--The three principal divisions of each
aisle are covered by domical vaults. The vault arches rest partly on
columns; and the spaces between these columns and the outside wall are
also vaulted. The middle division of the north and south aisles has
two domical vaults, separated by a barrel vault that opens towards
the nave arches, and to the window in the outside wall. The arches
have iron ties four inches thick, which stretch from the outer wall
to the columns of the nave, and grip them tightly. The four columns
in the aisles which carry the vault are much lower than those between
the aisles and nave, and for this reason the narrow vaulted space,
which joins the aisle vault to the nave arcade, is formed by a stilted
quadrant.
This arrangement only applies to the lower aisles: above is a stilted
cylindrical vault, running lengthways between the main gynaeceum
vaults, and the arcade towards the nave.[254] Here, besides the iron
ties, there are wooden beams.
The large arches in the aisles are twenty-nine and a half feet from
column to column. The domical vaulting of the aisles is very flat--a
combination of cross groining and a dome. For, though it starts with
angles at the four corners, it gradually merges into a dome at the
apex. The vaulting bricks are arranged in horizontal circles.[255]
A diagonal band of mosaic starts from each corner, and merges into
a central circle.[256] In the gynaeceum the vaulting is higher and
consists of spherical domes, the radii being half the diagonals of the
spaces covered. The mosaic decoration here again follows the form.[257]
_Narthex._--The narthex is covered with vaults, similar to those of
the lower aisles of the nave. Each vaulted space is separated from
the next by a segmental arch, six and a half feet wide with a span of
twenty-six and a half feet, which abuts on the west wall of the nave,
and the piers of the outer wall. The vault spaces vary from sixteen and
a half feet in the middle to thirteen and a half feet towards the ends.
The piers of the outer wall are connected together by arches above the
window openings, and the spaces below the windows are filled up with
thin ‘screen’ walls. The upper floor of the narthex is covered with a
semicircular vault, intersected by the window arches between the piers
of the outer wall. These piers are the continuation of those beneath,
and have a width of six feet, and a depth of seven. They had to bear
the thrust of the barrel vault of twenty-six and a half feet span:
the buttresses previously mentioned, springing from the piers of the
propylaeum, were subsequently added to strengthen them.
In the exonarthex there are cross groins with arches between. The
arches have a span of fourteen and a half feet and an abutment of
seven feet. This seems to be of a later construction than the rest of
the vaulting, and not improbably, as well as the piers, belongs to a
reconstruction of this porch, undertaken to strengthen the west wall of
the narthex.
All the arches of the nave which stand on columns have iron ties; and
to the three large openings of the gynaeceum at the west end of the
nave there are wooden binders as well. In the lower rows of windows
beneath the dome on both the north and south sides of the nave iron
ties can be seen, which seem to stretch across the whole width of the
large arches which support the dome.
_Roofs._--All the exterior vaults are covered with lead about a quarter
of an inch thick, which rests on a layer of wooden battens placed
immediately upon the brick vaults. There are several passages and
staircases for access to the roofs. Access to the exterior of the side
aisles and narthex is gained by the staircases in the buttress piers:
the stairs are supported on brick arches. In the north-east pier the
stair space is only four feet eight inches by six feet seven inches,
and in this are placed the flights of stairs two feet eight inches
wide, with a space of fifteen inches between.[258] At the top of each
flight spaces are hollowed out in the wall, which serve as landings
from one flight to another.
These stairs ascend above the roofs of the side aisles to the upper
part of the buttress piers, from which open passages, with breast-walls
on either side, lead above the buttress piers to the angles at the
base of the dome. There were two flights of steps leading to the
platform of the dome: one of these on the south-east, which Salzenberg
shows dotted in Plate viii., is still quite preserved, though injured
at the upper end; remains too can still be traced of the north-west
stair. A door now built up, on the north side of the south-east stair,
and remains of vaulting in the north-west stair, seem to show that
other passages must have existed.
The roof of the cylindrical vaulting at the west end of the nave is
reached by means of stairs in the small round towers, which flank it
on the outside.[259] These turrets can also be reached from the roof
of the narthex. Another passage runs along under the narthex roof at
the west (Salz., Plate ix.), which has an opening close to the upper
surface of the vaulting, and from thence any part above the nave can
be reached. Probably this was formerly used for the lighting of the
church. To reach the cornice at the foot of the dome there was an
opening in the wall under one of the dome windows.
_Decorative Work._--All the constructional forms were shown boldly on
the outside without any adornment; the west front of the narthex next
to the atrium was alone covered with slabs of Proconnesian marble,
some of which are still preserved, but the upper wall surfaces were
perfectly plain.
In the interior the whole of the walls are plated with rare variegated
marbles, and the vaults are covered with glass mosaic. Two chief
masses of colour in the nave are separated horizontally by a cornice,
and another cornice forms the springing for the vaulting. There are
also cornices at the foot of the dome, and around the walls of the
aisles. All these are of carved white marble in simple profiles. The
lower range of arch spandrils between the piers of the nave is formed
of slabs of white marble completely covered with carving: the upper
spandrils above the gynaeceum arches have sectile work of coloured
marbles. The carving is sharply cut, but conforms very closely to the
general surfaces; according to the old descriptions it was gilt, and
remains of colour still extant show some of the leaf-ornament coloured
with a dark red.[260]
_Columns._--Amongst the columns are beautiful examples of the dark
green Thessalian marble, now called _verde antico_. Of this are formed
all the round columns in the nave and ground-floor aisles, with the
exception of the eight in the four exedras, which are of dark Theban
porphyry. It could not have been always possible to find a sufficient
number of columns of the same height and diameter, and the transport of
them must have been frequently accompanied by injuries of one kind or
another. There are differences between similarly situated columns, and
in many cases mended fractures appear on the surface of the marble. In
no cases are antique capitals placed on these columns. All the capitals
and bases are of Proconnesian marble, and were wrought by Byzantine
chisels.
The greater part of the capitals are similar in design, though their
size varies in proportion to the height of the columns which support
them. Salzenberg, in Figs, 1 and 3 of his Plate xv., shows one of the
capitals of the great order. The leaf-work on them--partly acanthus
and partly palm--is very deeply undercut, and lies almost clear of the
ground underneath. In the middle of front and back are monograms.
Under the capitals are bronze rings eleven and half inches high; each
is composed of three members, with a wrought lock on the side towards
the nave, on which is repeated the monogram of each capital. At the
foot of the columns above the bases are similar rings nine inches high.
These rings occur on all the old columns, with the exception of the
two dual columns of the west gallery. They seem to be let into the
shaft, and, according to the description of the Silentiary, they were
gilded. In addition to these rings, there are on other columns--as,
for instance, the porphyry columns of the exedras--simple rings,
rectangular in section, in positions where cracks and injuries appear;
there being three or four such rings on a column at different heights.
It is possible that some of these are of Turkish origin.
The bases as a rule have much the same form as the Attic base; the
porphyry columns of the exedras have pedestals[261] below them, because
the shafts were not long enough.
Each of the great verde antique shafts has a height of twenty-five and
a half feet, and the bronze base-ring has an inside diameter of three
feet seven inches. The capital is three feet ten inches high, and the
upper part five feet eight inches wide, the whole height, including
base and capital, being thirty-three and a half feet.
The porphyry columns of the western exedras have a total height of
thirty-one feet; the shafts are twenty-two feet and three-quarters
long, and the diameter at the bottom is three feet one inch. The
capital is four feet high, and the abacus above measures towards the
nave four feet nine inches, and towards the aisles four feet eleven
inches. In the direction of the thickness of the arch the side of the
abacus measures five feet, the variation being due to the circular plan
of exedras.
The columns of the upper storey, which separate the gynaeceum and
the nave, also of verde antique, stand nearer to one another and are
smaller than those below. The total height of those in the middle
division is twenty-two feet five inches; those in the exedras are
twenty-one feet, with a diameter at the bottom of two and a quarter
feet. The capitals are three and a half feet high, and the bases,
including a six-inch bronze ring, two feet one inch.[262]
The parapet is three feet ten inches high, and of white marble.[263]
It stands between the columns, and like them is set on a stylobate one
foot six inches high, above the lower cornice. It should be noticed how
the wide vaulting of the aisles is contrived, so as not to interfere
with the view through the arched openings of the lower range of columns.
The columns in the interior of the ground-floor aisles are about
twenty-four feet seven inches high. These capitals are similar to those
already described. Those in the interior of the gynaeceum, with shafts
of Proconnesian marble, have capitals of quite another form.[264] They
are very similar to others in the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus;
the twin columns in the gynaeceum at the west end of the nave have
similar capitals; the columns being verde antique. In these capitals,
however, the volutes are not arranged diagonally, but show “cushions”
at the side.
The capitals in the atrium resembled those of the twin columns; though
the cushion was shorter and the top had less projection, and it was
crowned with a flat egg and tongue moulding. The capitals and shafts
were of white marble. The beautiful square capitals of the eight square
white marble pillars in the aisles are shown in Salzenberg’s Plate xvi.
The arches of the great order have an elaborate leaf-ornament round
them, continuing above the capitals in a horizontal line, resembling in
fact an architrave. [In the centre above each capital is a cross, and
at the crown of the arch is a four or six-armed cross.] The spandrils
are filled with acanthus-ornament, and in the centre of each is a disc
of coloured marble-surrounded by a carved circle in the white marble.
The ornament of the intrados of the arches consists of five divisions
in the width: these are covered with a continuous pattern, seven slabs
casing the intrados of the arch. [The five bands are only carved
alternately, the centre and lateral ones being plain.] See our Fig. 50.
The respond on the main pier at each end of this arcade is a kind
of pilaster strip,[265] surmounted by a capital in low relief, and
surrounded by a notched border.
The two cornices running round the nave, which serve as galleries
for the lamplighters, have an extremely simple profile. The
slanting under-surface, divided horizontally by a row of beads, has
acanthus-leaves in the upper part forming a cymatium, and in the lower
modillions carved with ivy and acanthus, and between them, panels with
different leaf-ornaments. Beneath the aisle cornice is a frieze of
marble mosaic. The base mouldings or skirtings are worked out of thin
slabs.[266]
Salzenberg’s Plate xx. contains a collection of architectural details,
which seem to belong to different periods; Figs. 1, 2, 3 represent
one of the white marble capitals which adorn the two porphyry columns
of the south-east porch. The arch above them is Turkish, and hence it
may be questioned if this was their original position: they seem more
intended for an ornamental structure than to support a load, and they
may perhaps have belonged to a ciborium above the holy table. The two
marble capitals (Figs. 4 and 5), only three inches thick, were found
in the chamber in the north-east buttress mass, above the gynaeceum
roof, together with broken pieces from a window. They may originally
have belonged to the upper part of the building, such as the window
wall under the north arch of the dome.[267] The workmanship is very
different from that in the rest of the church, and is more closely
allied with ancient treatment. Perhaps they are fragments from the
earlier church which found a fresh application in Justinian’s building.
The parapet pillars between the twin columns of the western gynaeceum,
with tall pedestals, are each formed in one piece of verde antique.
Their capitals resemble those of the windows,[268] with the exception
that the former are rounded underneath instead of being square.
The wood ties which span different arches are adorned on the sides and
beneath with carvings.[269]
_Windows and Doors._--The lighting of the church is most brilliant;
wherever space or construction permitted, windows of considerable size
were opened, so that light floods the whole church. At the foot of the
dome the light streams in through forty windows, and each of the seven
apses has five openings. The eastern sun sends its first rays through
the six windows in the apse, and the setting sun shines through the
great west lunette. There are twenty-four windows in the two great
tympana, besides large windows in the aisles.
The windows in the conchs of the exedras are now closed up, the grouped
windows in the great tympana on the north and south are diminished to
insignificant openings, and the large arched openings at the sides
or the end divisions of the aisles seem even in Byzantine times to
have been reduced in size; at least the remains of piers, shown in
Salzenberg’s Plate xiii., indicate that there was originally an opening
with pilasters, similar to those at the eastern end of the side
aisles.[270]
It is said that Justinian gave instructions that combustible materials
should be avoided. If so, these instructions were followed even to the
windows and doors, for the lattice-work of the former is of marble, and
the panels of the latter are of bronze, or rather they are covered with
bronze.
Salzenberg[271] gives the inside elevation and section of a window on
the south side of the gynaeceum, with details on a larger scale. The
opening in the wall is brick-arched, and the framework consists of
upright posts, with a thin horizontal architrave dividing the window
into two parts. Between these posts were fitted the breast-wall and
lattice-work. The posts are narrow towards the outside, and the ends of
the architrave rest on thin pieces against the jambs.
The ‘breast-wall’ at the bottom of the opening and the ‘lattice-work’
are formed of marble, three inches thick. The openings pierced in
the slabs are about seven or eight inches high, filled with panes of
glass. Between the panes the marble has a width of three and a half
inches, slightly splayed on the inside. A second row of slabs fills the
lower part of the windows pierced with openings, surrounded by wider
margins.[272]
The great semicircular west window is divided vertically by two columns
with plain capitals and bases; the horizontal division from column
to column is similar to the crowning member of the breast-wall of
the other windows. The lower part is filled with marble slabs, which
conceal the roof of the western gynaeceum. Each panel is ornamented
with a cross upon a circle, and within the latter is a monogram.
The small windows are simply filled with marble lattice for the glass.
Inside the apse windows of the east end are other windows having
coloured glazing; but these are evidently Turkish.
Marble door jambs were placed in the openings left in the walls,
just as the posts were inserted in the windows; the middle, or Royal
Door, from the narthex to the nave, is of bronze. All the frames were
moulded, and above are fixed door-hooks, like bent forefingers; these
held rings and leather fastenings, from which were suspended the
customary door-hangings.
The lintel of the bronze door-frame bears a relief. This represents an
arch, supported by columns above a throne with the book of the Gospel
and the descent of the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove. On it are the
words of S. John, ‘The Lord said, I am the door of the sheep; through
me if any man enter, he shall enter and shall go out, and shall find
pasture.’ The simple bronze door-plating now remaining does not seem to
be original. [See p. 265.]
Salzenberg,[273] as an example of the marble frames, gives the east
door of north aisle. Like all Byzantine door-frames, the head does
not cut across the jamb, but mitres. This perhaps made it easier for
fixing within the openings left in the walls. Salzenberg[274] also
represents the arched opening, which stands between the Baptistery and
the small court on the south side of the church.[275] There are two
tiers of columns, with a thin architrave band between them. The door
stands between the lower columns; to avoid concealing them the frame is
made as small as possible, as the plan shows. A similar arrangement is
found in the earlier church of S. John Studius.[276]
The bronze door-plating on the exterior of the south porch entrance is
extremely interesting.[277] A wooden foundation four or five inches
thick is covered with ornamental bronze casings. The borders to the
panels are beautifully modelled, and must be ancient. The other outer
margins, with knobs and rosettes, and the four panels, which are
decorated with monograms, belong to the Byzantine school. In the more
ancient parts the metal is one-eighth to one-fourth inch in thickness,
in the latter it is three-eighths to half an inch. Antique doors must
have been enlarged and fitted with new panel plates.
_Marble Plating._--Broad horizontal bands run round the nave at
different heights, and the spaces between them are filled with single
panels and vertical sheathing. All the bands and panels have notched
fillets, 1½″ wide, of white marble as borders. The more important
panels have sculptured white marble frames, eleven inches wide with a
“pater noster” and notched-fillet borders on either side.
The spandrils of the upper arches and the bands beneath the topmost
cornices are incrusted with designs of leaves, flowers, fruits, and
birds formed of different kinds of marble.
The marble casing to the walls of the nave is arranged as follows.[278]
Above the skirting is a [3′.10″] band of verde antique, then the
notched fillet, then a [1′.5½″] yellow band [oriental alabaster]; above
this is a vertical sheeting [7′.10″] formed of Pavonazzetto marble,
alternating with a yellowish brown marble; then another horizontal band
of yellow.
Above this stretches a series of panels round the whole nave--a panel
of _rosso_, with two vertical slabs of a dark marble like _porto
venere_ on either side, each surrounded by the sculptured frames. The
space from the top of this series to the lowest cornice is adorned with
two bands of yellow [alabaster], and between them is sheathing similar
to that below.
The upper division of the nave starts above the cornice with horizontal
bands of white and verde antique; above which are vertical panels of
porphyry, set in a frame of yellow [alabaster], with slabs of the
russet marble on either side. [Then follows another horizontal band of
oriental alabaster, and above it a range of vertical slabs of verde
antique alternating with Synnadan.]
Beyond this again, and immediately below the upper cornice, is the band
made up of different marbles[279] [_opus sectile_]. A dark brown marble
forms the groundwork, the tendril ornament is white, and the rest is of
red, like rosso antico, and of green serpentine. Similar work incrusts
the spandrils of the gynaeceum arcade. The centre of each is a disc of
green marble, and the whole spandril is edged by a three-inch strip of
pale red. Above the centre of each arch in this spandril decoration are
discs containing crosses, from the arms of which hang seals.[280] The
soffites of the arches are covered with glass mosaic. The aisles are
lined with marbles similarly arranged to those in the nave.
The walls of the bema are covered with panels of inlaid marble.[281]
These panels in pairs are separated by a plain slab of porphyry. By the
side of the arched opening into the gynaeceum is a panel of porphyry
with a pattern in slight relief, and surrounded with yellow alabaster.
The arched opening into the gynaeceum is closed with a parapet of white
marble, with a carved framework above, formerly fitted, as holes show,
with a metal lattice.
The lower division of the bema walls is decorated by two rows of
panels, divided by a horizontal band of verde antique. Salzenberg’s
Plate xxii., Fig. 6, shows the frieze directly below the bema cornice,
and the top of a porphyry pilaster-strip with a capital of white
marble; a similar pilaster fills the narrow space on each side of the
apse.
The walls of the apse are shown on Salzenberg’s Plate xxi. The frieze
beneath the cornice is given in Plate xxii., Fig. 8. The porphyry
ground has an inlaid pattern which slightly projects: the serpentine
in the frieze, Fig. 6, also projects from its rosso ground. The lower
portion of the apse, formerly occupied by the seats of the priests,
is now plated with a white gray marble. This is probably Turkish. The
height of this probably gives the height of the iconostasis, as there
is no sign of any change in the decoration above.
The marble is fixed to the wall with a dark brown resin. In the
opus sectile, pieces of coloured marble about a quarter of an inch
thick were cut to the forms of the design, and then laid with their
polished faces downward at the bottom of a mould; on this was poured a
three-quarter inch backing of resin mixed with bits of stone and brick.
When set, the slabs so formed were attached to the wall with cement.
The large marble slabs are one to two inches thick, and, besides the
cement, are fastened to the walls by iron [? bronze] clamps. The
pavements of ground floor and gynaeceum are of white marble with dark
gray stripes. [Proconnesian.] In the south-east angle of the square
area under the dome is a square of marble mosaic, of which details
are given in Salzenberg’s Plate xxii., Figs. 9-15. It is formed of a
circular centrepiece of a gray brown granite, ten feet two inches in
diameter, round which are arranged coloured marble discs of various
sizes, set in a mosaic of marbles, with a little glass mosaic in the
angles.
In the centre of the west end of the gynaeceum is a square [of about
twenty-four feet] in the pavement laid with slabs of “gray cipollino”
[Proconnesian], having a border of verde antique, with a patterned
edging[282] of giallo and rosso on one side, and giallo and serpentine
on the other. [Between this and the parapet is a circular slab of verde
antique four feet seven inches in diameter.]
CHAPTER IX
THE ANCIENT PRECINCTS AND EXTERNAL PARTS OF THE CHURCH
_Palace._--Before entering on particulars of the exterior of the
church, it will be well to have a clearer view of the edifices in its
immediate neighbourhood as they appeared in the time of Justinian.
The group of buildings of which the Augusteum was the centre was
profoundly modified by the fire of the Nika Sedition, and by the
building energy of the emperor. The researches of Labarte and Paspates
have been almost entirely confined to the elucidation of the palace as
it existed in the tenth century.
A restoration of the relative position of the several parts of the
palace, unless by the discovery of remains positive evidence is
obtained, is certainly impossible; the attempt of Labarte was worth
making, but Paspates, in bringing forward another scheme, seems only to
have succeeded in showing how conjectural the whole matter is, although
he speaks of certain scraps of walls as belonging to this or that part
of the palace with as much confidence as if he had found them labelled.
His work carries internal evidence of the greatest inexactness and
confusion, and has proved most misleading, although his citations are
valuable.
It should not be assumed that wherever a palace is mentioned by the
historians the “Great Palace” is the one referred to, and it must
be remembered that the palace described in the _Ceremonies_ was the
result of gradual growth: indeed, what is required is a chronological
analysis of its history. We have seen in the first chapter that
according to the _Paschal Chronicle_ Constantine built a palace by the
hippodrome, and the _Notitia_ mentions the palaces of Placidia and
Marina in the same neighbourhood. According to Procopius the palace
was almost rebuilt by Justinian, but he only specifically mentions the
Chalké.
Remains of a palace now on the sea-wall, exactly to the south of the
curve of the hippodrome, are thought to be portions of the palace
“Hormisdas” which Justinian occupied before he came to the throne (B,
on Plan, Fig. 2). Close to the sea-wall farther to the west was the
double church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus and SS. Peter and Paul, of
which the first survives as Little Sancta Sophia (A, on Fig. 2). These
were early works of Justinian, and his monogram and that of Theodora
appear on the capitals of S. Sergius.
Procopius tells us that the church of S. Sergius was “close to the
king’s palace which was formerly called by the name of Hormisdas. This
was once his own private house,” and when he became emperor “he joined
it to the other imperial apartments.” The Great Palace was higher up
the slope, against the hippodrome and Augusteum, to which its gates
opened.
It was long after Justinian that the great palace reached its maximum
development; the Chrysotriclinum was erected by his successor Justin
II. The houses of Marina and Placidia were still in use at the end of
the sixth century, although this is mentioned by neither Labarte nor
Paspates. The wedding of the daughter of Phocas was celebrated in the
former,[283] and “the Royal palace of Placidia” is referred to by John
of Ephesus. The writer tells us that Tiberius II., the successor of
Justin II., made large additions to the palace. Before he reigned alone
the wife and daughters of Tiberius occupied the house of Hormisdas,
“as it was situated just below the palace, and he would go down and
spend the evening with them and return early in the morning to the
palace.”[284]
Justinian II. also added to the palace, and in the ninth century
Theophilus built the Triconcha. Basil the Macedonian still further
increased the assemblage of buildings.
It is clear that in the time of Justinian there were at least four more
or less separate palaces grouped together--the Great Palace, Hormisdas,
and those of Marina and Placidia.
_Hippodrome._--The information in regard to the hippodrome brought
together in the works before mentioned, and by Gyllius, cannot be
recapitulated here.[285] As the ground fell away steeply towards the
south, that end had to be raised high on vaults, and this retaining
wall, perhaps forty feet high, forming a semicircular curve, still
exists.[286] On either side rose the tiers of the marble seats. At the
north end was the royal stand, called Kathisma, from which the emperors
watched the games; this was raised above arched chambers, where the
chariots for the arena were kept. The south-west end was called
_Sphendone_--The Curve. A rough draft of Constantinople, made early
in the fifteenth century for Bondelmontius, reproduced by Mordtmann,
shows columns standing on the retaining wall around this curved end. A
clear representation of this semicircle of columns is also given in the
_Nuremberg Chronicle_. Banduri reproduces from Panvinius, who wrote in
the middle of the sixteenth century, a drawing of the hippodrome which
seems to have been made with considerable care. Beneath it is written,
“The ruins of the circus or hippodrome of Constantinople as they were
a hundred years before the capture of the city by the Turks.”[287]
But that it should have been in a ruinous state at this time is not
borne out by the accounts of writers like Clavijo and Bondelmontius,
who described it in the generation before the Fall: on the contrary,
we should suppose this to be one of the draughts for the Venice
view of the city published about 1570, with which it agrees in many
respects.[288] This bird’s-eye view shows the monuments on the Spina,
the Grand Stand and its “Podium” of vaults, and also the high external
retaining wall of the curve, above which the columns again appear, but
set back from its face, so as to leave a passage outside the columns,
the outer wall being finished with a battlement. It is true that in
the engraving it is rendered as if these columns were attached to a
wall, or rather as if a wall were built between the columns, for they
appear both inside and out; but this interpretation cannot be given
to a description of this colonnade by Gyllius.[289] “In the front of
the hippodrome facing the Propontis there was a range of seventeen
pillars of white marble standing when I first came to Constantinople,
going round that part of the hippodrome which lies between south and
west.” They stood on a low wall, about two feet six inches high towards
the hippodrome, but outside it was fifty feet to the ground. They
were of the Corinthian order, three feet five inches in diameter and
twenty-eight feet high, standing eleven feet apart on pedestals; above
them was an architrave to which rings were fixed for curtains. “Above
was another range of pillars, which were remaining some time after the
taking of the city by the Turks.” These last were only reported to
Gyllius; and if we accept such a second tier we may suppose that it
ranged with a colonnade surmounting the containing wall of the terraces
of seats. Paspates makes from this account a wonderful and impossible
arrangement; he supposes the first-mentioned columns to have been
continued along the external sides of the hippodrome, he further rears
the second range on them, and this he thinks upheld the immense mass of
the rising seats. “If we suppose,” he says, “the height of those in the
upper row to have been twenty-one feet, we have about fifty-six feet
as the height of the wall on which the seats for the spectators were
built.”
These columns probably formed an open screen through which the
spectators might see the sparkling waters of the Propontis, set with
the blue jewels of Prince’s Islands and the white peaks of Olympus
rising far away to the left--one of the most beautiful scenes in the
world. This addition of a natural spectacle behind the scene was
frequently obtained in ancient theatres: the best known is that at
Taormina. Clavijo[290] speaks of the hippodrome as being “surrounded
by white marble pillars,” but he adds “thirty-seven in number.” The
anonymous Russian who wrote about the same time says “thirty columns
and their summits are united by an architrave.” See Fig. 2. An “open
hippodrome” and a “covered hippodrome” are mentioned by the Byzantine
writers. Labarte distinguishing them, placed the latter within the
palace. Byeljayev, however, conjectures that the covered hippodrome
was a part of the Great Hippodrome. Be this as it may, the “rings for
curtains” of Gyllius suggest that portions were sheltered by a Velarium.
Bondelmontius[291] writes thus of the hippodrome: “In it those cf noble
birth joust in the presence of the people, and there are combats and
tournaments. It is 690 bracchia long and 134 wide, and it is built
above vaults, in which a cistern of the best water covers the whole of
the space mentioned. At the head of the hippodrome are high pillars [of
Kathisma] where the emperor sits with his nobles, and on both sides in
its length are seats of marble arranged in steps where the people sit
and see all the games.” On the outside towards S. Sophia there was the
church of S. Stephen, “from the galleries of which the ladies watched
their chosen champions.” On the Spina he notices a fountain where the
wounded were laid, the two obelisks, and the three serpents “with open
mouths from which, it is said, on days of jousting water, wine, and
milk used to spout.” At the end of the Spina were four small marble
columns where the emperor sat on feast days.[292]
Besides the bronze serpentine column from Delphi, there still stands
in the hippodrome an Egyptian obelisk, set up by Theodosius I. on a
pedestal sculptured with a representation of the emperor viewing the
games from the Kathisma, and a record of the methods used in erecting
the obelisk by means of ropes and winches. Nicetas in his life of S.
Ignatius says that a brazen pine-apple surmounted this obelisk. A
third monument is a large built-up obelisk of stone, pitted all over
where pins which attached bronze plates were inserted. An inscription
often quoted, records that Constantine, father of Romanus, repaired it
and added to its beauty. The casing of bronze was probably covered with
reliefs and ornament, as was the case with the pillar in the Augusteum,
and the anemodulium, which was set up by Theodosius in the Forum
Tauri. This last was an obelisk entirely cased with bronze, “having
reliefs[293] of cattle, sheep and skipping lambs; peasants labouring or
playing on their pipes, and birds; there was also represented the sea,
and sea-gods, and cupids playing at ball. On the point was a statue of
a woman which turned to the slightest breath of the wind.”
Among the statues in the hippodrome mentioned by Nicetas as having been
destroyed was the colossal bronze Hercules, and a sundial which was in
the form of an eagle with wide expanded wings trampling on a serpent.
The twelve hours were marked out beneath its wings, six on either side,
and the sun shining through a hole in each wing marked the hour or the
day. Near the eastern goal was a row of statues of charioteers, driving
their chariots and turning the goal. Besides these there were many
other statues of persons and animals; an elephant with a proboscis that
moved is mentioned, but it is not clear however that this last was in
the hippodrome.
Sigurd, King of Norway, saw the games given here in 1111; there was
a spectacle in which people appeared as if riding in the air, some
sort of fireworks, also music with playing of organs, harps, and other
instruments.[294] Benjamin of Tudela (1161) says, “lions, bears, and
leopards were shown, and all nations of the world were represented,
together with surprising feats of jugglery.” The hippodrome was used
for spectacles after the change of masters. An Italian MS. of 1582
in the British Museum describes the ambassadors and princes sitting
on staging, with a large stand for the band in the “piazza” of the
hippodrome; the Sultan and his son sat on an inclosed and covered
throne.[295]
_Augusteum._--“In front of the palace,” says Procopius, “there is a
forum surrounded with columns. The Byzantines call this forum the
Augusteum. On the eastern side stands the Senate-house.” Other writers
speak of it as the Agora of the Milion, or simply as the Milion,
from the building which adjoined it. Zonaras seems to call it the
Proaulion of the Great Church. Round its sides were peristyles, and the
buildings mentioned in the first chapter, most of which were rebuilt by
Justinian. It was laid with a marble floor of long slabs, a portion of
which was discovered many feet below the present level, together with
the inscribed base of the silver statue of Eudoxia, when Fossati built
the new government offices in 1848.
“Outside the palace the public baths of Zeuxippus and the great
porticoes and all the buildings on either hand as far as the Forum
of Constantine are the work of the emperor Justinian.”[296] Large
pillars have frequently been found which appear to have formed part
of colonnades in the Augusteum. Gyllius saw seven large Corinthian
columns, forty-six feet high over all and “twenty foot ten digits
apart.” On the shaft of one was cut the name of Constantine, with the
signal of the cross he saw in the heavens, and the inscription ΕΝ ΤΟΥΤΩ
ΝΙΚΑ. These, he seems to suggest, may have belonged to the Milion. On
this is built up a characteristic piece of restoration by Paspates,
who sees in the seven columns, standing over twenty feet apart, and
obviously in a straight line, “a square building resting on seven
columns,” to which he adds an upper range of pillars supporting a domed
chamber. Bondelmontius, who is also cited for these columns, says
there were six, and _all in a row_. They were almost certainly a part
of the nine columns seen by Clavijo[297] before the Fall, when he was
told that “a great palace used to stand on the top of them, where the
patriarch and his clergy held their meetings.”
This great square, surrounded by colonnades, contained so many statues
and other works of art that Labarte well calls it an open air museum.
To the north, opposite the south-west corner of the church, was the
colossal bronze equestrian statue of Justinian surmounting a pillar,
which, according to Procopius, stood on seven stages of steps and was
covered with bronze reliefs. The king looked to the east, and carried
the orb of the earth surmounted by a cross in his hand. The pillar
had originally been erected by Arcadius to support a silver statue of
Theodosius his father. The statue of Justinian, which replaced that
of Theodosius, was destroyed by lightning in 1492.[298] The fragments
were seen by Gyllius, and, from measurements which he gives, it seems
to have been from twice to three times natural size. Bondelmontius says
the pillar was seventy cubits high. A very good drawing of the statue,
now amongst the MSS. of the Serai library, made about the year 1340, is
reproduced by Mordtmann. This pillar and its statue is often called the
Augusteum, and it probably gave its name to the place in which it stood.
_The Milion._--It is probable that the city milestone existed before
Constantine, who may have built the structure over it. According to
Du Cange[299] the Augusteum, with which it was so closely associated,
was often called by its name; so that Codinus tells us that the church
of S. Phocas was built “in the Milion.” It appears to have formed the
western boundary and gate of this forum, or at least of its inner
part, if divided, and to have been connected with a colonnade running
north and south as well as with the _Mese_. It is spoken of as a
colonnade (_embolos_), as vaulted (_kamara_ and _phournikon_), or as
having many arches (_apsides_). Cedrenus and other writers speak of
statues in the apsis or kamara of the Milion. It can hardly be doubted
that it had four large arches facing different ways. A structure of
this kind remains at Lattaquieh, which is about ten metres square and
was surmounted by a dome. De Vogüé[300] compares it with ruins of a
similar erection found at Palmyra, the Mesomphalion of Nicaea, and the
Umbilicus of Antioch described by Dion Chrysostom, and others. This
last stood at the centre of the two great colonnaded streets that ran
east to west and north to south through the city.
The principal reference to the Milion is the description by
Nicetas[301] of the struggle with the insurgent troops in the reign of
Alexius Manuel. “As many buildings as adjoined the Great Church and
commanded the Augusteum were seized by the rebels, who scaled the large
_apsis_ which stands over the Milion, and also fortified the church
of S. Alexius, which is joined to the Augusteum. But the imperial
troops made a sally from the great palace and established themselves
in the church of S. John called Diippus; and the agora was full of men
who were injured by those on the _apsis_ of the Milion, and on the
church of S. Alexius. But fresh troops from the palace filled all the
thoroughfares and passages leading to S. Sophia. The rebels, coming out
of the temple and passing by the Augusteum, became engaged with the
others in the narrow ways, and the conflict remained uncertain, until
the imperial troops drove back from the streets those who had come out
of S. Sophia and shut them within the Augusteum. The imperial troops
broke open the gates of the Augusteum, and the rebels were forced from
the top of the Milion by the troops mounting the _apsides_, while the
rest of them, being worsted in the Augusteum, gave way; but a shower
of missiles was kept up from the part called Macron, overlooking the
Augusteum, and the neighbouring chamber of Thomais. They took refuge
in the pronaos of the church, where is the Archangel Michael in mosaic
standing with drawn sword as if on guard. The imperial troops, because
of the narrowness, were unable to follow them with advantage, nor
did the insurgents dare to trust themselves out again. The patriarch
descended into the _proskenion_ or _protekdikeion_ of the church, and
then harangued them to prevent further sacrilege.”
In the _Ceremonies_ we twice read of the emperor passing through the
nave of S. Sophia and its Royal Gate, then across the narthex, and, by
the _louter_ (fountain), reaching the steps of the _athyr_ (atrium).
“Then he passes through the Milion, and along the Mese and reaches
the Forum, where is the Chapel of S. Constantine.” Labarte, wrongly
explaining this as the Forum Augusteum, instead of that of Constantine,
makes the _louter_ the baptistery, and the _athyr_ its porch. Other
processions from the Palace to the Church through the Milion have been
given by Labarte.
The colonnades adjoining the Milion are mentioned in the account of a
fire which attacked a part of the Great Church in the reign of Isaac
Angelus. “The parts by the apsis of the Milion, and the Macron, and
the place called the Synods were burnt. The porticoes of Domninus were
reduced to ashes, as well as the two covered ways starting on both
sides of the Milion one of which reaches to the Philadelphion.”[302]
The Philadelphion was towards Constantine’s forum, and the other way
probably led from the Milion north and south to the church and the
palace gate.
We learn from Agatho the Deacon[303] that in the porticoes (_stoai_)
of the Milion were represented the seven Œcumenical Synods of
Constantinople; this is probably what is meant by Nicetas, where he
speaks of “The Synods” as quoted above (see, however, Mordtmann, p.
68). The seven synods is one of the iconographic schemes given by the
_Byzantine Manual_, and they are represented in the mosaics at the
Nativity Church at Bethlehem.
_Horologium._--In close connection both with the Milion and the church
was the court of “the time-measure”--a sundial or water-clock. At the
triumphal entry of Basil “they passed along the Mese up to the Milion,
and entered through the embolos of the Milion into the Horologium, and,
having put off their crowns in the metatorium within the Beautiful
Gate, they entered the narthex.”[304] The Horologium is constantly
spoken of as being near the baptistery, and was certainly on the south
side of the church.
_Baptistery._--In our first chapter we have given reasons for
supposing that the round building at the north-east formed part of
the earlier church and became the baptistery of Justinian’s building.
Buzantios considered that the former was the baptistery “perhaps
also used as a sacristy.” A knowledge of an earlier baptistery would
seem to be implied in the way the south-west building is spoken of
by Porphyrogenitus and later writers as the “Great Baptistery by the
Horologium.”
According to Codinus and the Anonymous the Great Baptistery was built
before the church, and Salzenberg thought the style was earlier
than that of the church. Is it possible that this was built as an
independent church and only ultimately became the baptistery? It
appears from the account of the Russian pilgrim Anthony that in the
twelfth century its dome was painted with the baptism of Christ in
Jordan, a scheme which agrees with the two baptisteries at Ravenna.
_St. Peter’s Chapel, &c._--To the east there were some detached
buildings, at least in later times. The Anonymous we have seen mentions
a chapel of St. Peter as near the skeuophylakium. Anthony speaks of
this chapel, in which St. Peter’s chains and the carpet of St. Nicholas
were preserved, as behind the altar. The anonymous Russian says a
chapel of St. Nicholas was behind the bema, and also speaks of a marble
basin covered with a lead roof, “where they baptise the emperors” as
being behind the altar, in a space set round with cypresses. Anna
Comnena also mentions “the chapel of the Hierarch Nicholas” as part
of the Great Church and a place of sanctuary.[305] The passage of St.
Nicholas is also referred to. It is possible that this chapel was
otherwise known as St. Peter’s, and either this or “the place where
they baptise the emperors” may be the present round building--the
ancient baptistery as we suppose. That St. Peter’s chapel was of some
importance and detached seems clear from the _Menologium_. On January
16 was celebrated the adoration of St. Peter’s chains. It is explained
that after Peter’s release, “the chains were found by some believers
and guarded from generation to generation until they were brought to
Constantinople by a pious emperor and placed in the church (ναὸς) of
St. Peter which is near St. Sophia.” We have given a picture of the
chains in Figure 8. A tradition of some of these buildings may be
preserved in an Italian MS. of 1611 in the British Museum. “The ancient
buildings round the church have been ruined by the Turks except a
small part of the close (_canonica_), where they have made dwellings;
there is also the sacristy and the place of the baptistery, which
had originally three vaulted ceilings, one above another. It was of
wonderful architecture and made with six angles. From the sacristy to
the base of the dome is an arquebus shot; between it and the Seraglio
lies a road.”
_Boundaries._--Probably the fullest and clearest account of the
approach to the church through the Augusteum is given by the Spanish
ambassador Clavijo, who was at Constantinople in 1405, at a time when
many of the buildings in the precincts had been destroyed. In a court
in the front of the church, he saw “nine very large columns of white
marble,” and he was told that before his time a palace had been here,
where the patriarch met the canons in chapter. “And in the same place
before the church stands a stone pillar of marvellous height, on the
top of which is a horse of copper as large as four horses put together;
on the horse was an armed knight with a great plume on his head like
a peacock’s tail. The horse has chains of iron round its body secured
to the column to prevent it from falling, or being moved by the wind.
The horse is very well made, and one fore and one hind leg is raised,
as if it were in the act of prancing. The knight, on its back, has his
right arm raised, with the hand open, while the reins are held with
the left hand. This marvellous horse is said to have been placed here
by the Emperor Justinian, who erected the column. At the entrance to
the church under an arch in front of a gate, is a place adorned with
four columns, and below is a little chapel very rich and beautiful.
And beyond this chapel is the gate to the church covered with bronze
very great and high; beyond again is a little court surrounded by high
galleries [horologium?]. Afterwards there was another gate of bronze
[the south porch]. Beyond this gate there is a ‘nave’ vast and high,
with a ceiling of wood [the exonarthex]. And on the left hand there is
a cloister very large, and beautiful [the atrium], with many stones of
jasper of infinite variety of colour. On the right hand under the said
nave-covered as I have said--and after the second gate, you arrive at
the body of the church, which has five doors, high and large, covered
with bronze, of which that in the middle is the greatest.”[306]
The present south porch we should suppose is the pronaos mentioned
by Nicetas as that where the Archangel Michael stood on guard. The
exonarthex is now vaulted, but not covered with mosaic; it is bare and
rough, and it seems possible that at one time there may have been a
ceiling of wood.
Stephen of Novgorod (1350) says that the first gate of the church was
by the column of Justinian; then there was a second, a third, fourth,
fifth and sixth and by the seventh you entered the great church. This
may be exaggeration, but Gyllius speaks of the south entrance formerly
being by six _valvae_ of brass, “now there are only three, ingeniously
worked,” so that there would appear to have been at least one more
double door in his time than the two now existing. If we consult the
careful drawings made by Grelot, which take us half way back to the
conquest, we shall see that the boundaries of the cypress garden on
the south side agree entirely with the present walls. The first of
the turbehs was built here about a hundred years after the conquest,
and we may almost safely assume that it was backed against the outer
wall, as at present. Now when we find Clavijo, some fifty years before
the conquest, in approaching the church from this side, speak of an
outer gateway and a court before the church was reached, we shall
almost certainly be justified in placing this outer gate on the present
boundary. The fountain in the south court we suppose occupies the site
of an ancient fountain. A comparison of Grelot’s plan (1680) with
Fossati’s (1850), will make clear the south boundaries of the church,
as they existed at the time of the conquest. The octagonal building
attached to the south side of the church shown in Fossati’s plan must
be Turkish, probably the library of the sultan mentioned by Pococke.
The palace of the patriarch, with the library of the Thomaites, we
would place on the ground between the south boundary and the church,
the gardens which belonged to it occupying the ground of one of the
courts. It had evidently been destroyed by the time of Clavijo’s visit,
and for what is known as to the buildings we must refer to Paspates.
The courts to the north of the church were probably occupied by the
cells of the clergy and the college called Didaskalion (see our page
49); Bondelmontius speaks of “the way of a thousand columns in pairs”
(the Mese) through which the emperor walked to S. Sophia “where the
houses of the 800 clergy were round the church.”[307]
_The Atrium._--The street lying at an angle to the west wall of the
entrance courtyard, rising steeply towards the hippodrome, is probably
ancient.
Some considerable remains of the atrium colonnade were in existence in
the present century, but they were finally destroyed in 1873.[308] The
present boundary of the western court appears to occupy the position
of the exterior west wall of the atrium. Outside it there is a level
roadway, beyond which the ground falls rapidly to the street. As the
church stands across a hill the ground had to be made up to a level,
and this, together with the position of the street, would account
for the court not having been square as was usually the case. As
excavations have shown that the pavement of the Hippodrome and the
Augusteum were eight or ten feet below the present level,[309] steps
would have been required to attain the level of the church at the west.
The _Ceremonies_ show that the royal processions entered and left the
church on the south side through the Augusteum, which served as a great
forecourt to the church on this side. Without doubt this was the
principal entrance. Clavijo and other visitors all appear to have
entered the church from the south. When Grelot’s western view was made
(before 1680) no west doors to the atrium existed, but it was entered
from the north and south only. In our plan we have therefore shown only
one door in the west wall of the atrium, possibly there was none (Fig.
3).
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--Original state of West Front as built by
Justinian.]
Outside the present south-west entrance of the court there remained
until 1869 a stone inscribed
✚ϹΑϹΘϹΕΝΘΑΔΕΚΑΤΟΙΚΙΜΗΔΕΙ....
Its form suggests that it was a step, or it may have been a lintel from
one of the doors into the atrium or the rim from a fountain.[310] The
words “The Holy God dwelleth here let no....” may be compared with the
inscriptions for fountains and gates given on pages 84 and 264.
This atrium court of S. Sophia was called by the Byzantine
authors _aule_, _mesaulion_, _aithria_, and by some late writer,
_garçonastasion_, which Du Cange explains as “the place where pages
wait.” The cloistered walk originally surrounded it and formed a
quadriporticus; although the eastern walk, the present exonarthex, is
inclosed and entirely different from the other colonnaded walks, the
atrium is often referred to as “Four-porticoed” (_Tetrastoon_). It
cannot therefore be doubted that the exonarthex with its great piers
replaced the original eastern walk, for the sake of greater abutment
to the church. This is equally clear from the building itself and the
description of the poet. (See Figs. 3, 24, 25, 29). The “Propylaeum”
often spoken of must either be this exonarthex, or the gateways in the
atrium.
The cloister walks were vaulted, and the walls covered with marble. One
of the capitals remained in the courtyard as lately as 1873, when it
was drawn by Canon Curtis; it resembled those in the gallery inside,
with deep sculptured dosseret and small volutes below. More than one
writer remarks on the great beauty of the marble shafts. They were
set in close order, and we may see from Salzenberg that, when we add
for their bases, they were some twenty-two feet high, and must have
made a fine portico to the west front. In 1852 two of the pillars
were represented on the plan of Fossati as still _in situ_: now every
evidence of the atrium has entirely disappeared.
_Phiale._--In the middle of the court was placed a fountain, where,
according to the Silentiary, was a “bubbling stream leaping into the
air from a bronze pipe.” The name given to such a fountain by Greek
writers was phiale or colymbethra, and, by the Latins, cantharus or
nymphaeum. At S. Sophia it was also called “The Laver of the Atrium”
(λουτὴρ μεσαυλίου).[311] The louter or loutron, with its colymbethra,
formed a sanctuary for the pursued: we read in Procopius of their
“fleeing to the church of S. Sophia, and coming to the holy loutron,
and laying hold of the colymbethra which was there.”[312]
According to the Anonymous author, on whom we place no reliance, the
phiale had twelve arcades or columns, and lions spouted out the water.
Canopied phialae it is true still exist at St. Demetrius at Salonica,
and in the monasteries of Mount Athos. The canopy of the phiale at old
St. Peter’s was of bronze; under it the great pine cone, which still
remains, threw out water in innumerable little threads. On the canopy
were probably placed the beautiful bronze peacocks, which also still
exist.[313] A very beautiful fountain of this kind, at Constantinople,
was placed before the church built by Basil in the palace. The basin
was marble, from which rose a pine cone pierced with holes. Above on
the cornice were placed cocks, stags, and rams, of cast bronze, from
which the water flowed.[314]
In the Court of the Lions at the Alhambra, the basin of the fountain
rests on lions, and the water runs away from the fountain in four open
streams to the four sides of the cloister. This work was certainly
executed under Byzantine influence, and it is curious to find more than
one small garden fountain at Constantinople in which the water issues
from the mouth of lions. On the other hand it seems probable that the
Anonymous imitated the description of the temple of Solomon and the
laver, which stood on twelve oxen. The other washing place he describes
(see page 141) with the different kinds of animals represented, seems
to be founded on the description of that of Basil’s church.
Porphyrogenitus speaks of the “cup of the phiale”; and it seems most
probable, considering the simple description of the Silentiary,
that, as in so many ancient churches, it was at first merely a bowl,
standing on a pillar rising from a polygonal basin. In the time of
Michael Palaeologus, there was such a basin on the sides of which “was
engraved on the marble the honoured form of the cross.”[315] A bowl
figured by Gruterus[316] in 1602 as “newly found at Constantinople,”
has been spoken of by Du Cange and others as having belonged to S.
Sophia, although the evidence of this is not very positive.[317] This
was a circular bowl very similar to the well-known representation of a
cantharus of Justinian’s time in the Ravenna mosaic. The inscription
around the rim read equally well in both directions.[318] This circle
being horizontal, we cannot but think, as it would necessarily be
read from outside, that Gruterus was mistaken in putting the bottom
of the letters toward the centre; we have therefore reversed this
in our figure. The words “Wash thy sins, not thy face only,” almost
certainly refer it to a phiale. Eusebius, for instance, speaking of
one of these fountains, says, “it is not meet for an unclean foot to
step on the sacred place within the temple,” and Paulinus tells us
that at Nola those who entered the church washed their hands in a
similar place.[319] Probably, so accurate a writer as Du Cange had good
reasons for referring the bowl in question to S. Sophia. Dr. Covel of
Cambridge, who was at Constantinople from 1670 to 1677, and has left
a valuable MS. now in the British Museum, which we shall have further
occasion to quote, also gives the inscription, which he says came from
the fountain of S. Sophia, but again, it is possible he derived this
from Du Cange, or from Grelot, whom he appears to have met, for some of
the Frenchman’s drawings are included in the MS.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Inscription on Phiale from Gruter.]
In this collection are drawings of two beautiful phiale cups, which
existed at Ephesus when visited by Dr. Covel. From the simple elegance
of their forms we suppose that these bowls cannot be later than the
sixth century.[320] See Fig. 27.
_Pavement of the Court._--When the Anonymous tells us that the four
boundaries of the church were called after the rivers that flowed from
Paradise, it is quite evident from the context that he is speaking of
the atrium; and it seems probable that immediately before, where he
speaks of “ever flowing waters of great rivers,” he is describing the
pavement of the court as figuring four streams. This certainly would
furnish a reason for the walks taking their names from the four rivers
of marble which flowed towards them, like the four real streams flow
in the court of the Alhambra. There is much to countenance this theory.
For instance, the atrium of old St. Peter’s was called Paradise:
Simeon of Thessalonica tells us the part outside the doors of a church
represented the creation, as the bema symbolised heaven; and the idea
might easily be referred to the words used in the service for blessing
the waters of the phiale.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--Phiale Bowls from Ephesus.]
This custom of blessing the waters on the eve of Epiphany, to which
Paulus the Silentiary alludes (see page 44), was practised as early
as the end of the fourth century.[321] Goar gives the ritual.[322]
After the evening service the priest with the censer and candlestick
proceeds to the “_luter_ of the _mesaulion_,” chanting “the voice of
the Lord is upon the waters.” Part of the ceremony of blessing included
a prayer, “We beseech thee, O Almighty Father ... who fixed Paradise in
Eden and bade its quadruple spring flow far and wide ... who blessed
the waters for Jacob, and hast bidden us, through thy prophet Isaiah,
to draw water in gladness from the fountains of the Saviour.” The
account of the Anonymous may be a duplication of his description of the
interior, but outside Charlemagne’s church at Aix there is a pine cone
which formerly belonged to a phiale; the water rained from it through
little holes, and about the foot are verses referring to the rivers of
Paradise and Baptism.
_West Front._--On the east side of the atrium court, against the
west wall of the exonarthex, rise four great piers from which spring
flying arches to the west wall of the church. Salzenberg thought that
the upper arches were Turkish, and that the piers were originally
intended to support equestrian statues, which he therefore shows in
his drawings. Other writers, amongst whom is Fossati, say that the
bronze horses now on the gallery outside the west front of S. Mark’s
at Venice, taken from Constantinople in 1204, came from this position;
but there is not the least authority for this statement, and the horses
at Venice are not half the size of those that would be required to
justify the suggestion. Bondelmontius in 1422 describing the columns
of the city, speaks first of that of Justinian, “secondly of that of
the Cross, where are seen four upright porphyry columns; and on them
were placed four bronze horses which the Venetians took to S. Mark’s at
Venice, but the columns remain.” Brocquière, writing ten years later,
says that “westward [in the city] is a very high square column with
characters traced on it, and bearing on the summit an equestrian statue
of Constantine in bronze. He holds a sceptre in his left hand, with his
right extended towards Turkey in Asia and the road to Jerusalem as if
to denote that the whole of that country was under his government. Near
this column are three [_sic_] others placed in a line, and of single
pieces which bore the three gilt horses now in Venice.” Brocquière
has here certainly confused the column of Justinian, and that of
Constantine, but we may safely accept Bondelmontius. The porphyry
column of Constantine, situated in the Forum Constantine, at this time
bore a cross with the inscription “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Many modern
writers place the four horses in the hippodrome, as Nicetas speaks
of “the arched starting-places for the racers, above which are fixed
powerful horses of gilt bronze, curving their necks and facing one
another as if eager for the course” (Ed. Bonn, p. 150).
Between the four great piers of the west front there are now three
doorways. If, however, we refer to the plates of Salzenberg, we shall
find that only the two lateral ones are there shown, and that the
position of the central door is occupied by a window; this arrangement
was seen by Texier in 1834, and is shown in a MS. drawing of his,
now in the library of the Royal Institute of Architects. Referring to
the views and plan which Grelot published in 1680, we see the central
bay occupied by a belfry, with a pyramidal top rising above the roof
of the exonarthex. Now in Goar’s _Euchologium_[323] there is a note
to this effect, “The Greeks first took up the use of bells from the
time when Urso Patricio, Doge of Venice, in the year 865, sent them to
Michael the emperor, who greatly valued them, and built a tower for
them against S. Sophia.” We have already seen that large repairs were
made to the west front of the church about this time (page 123), with a
view of counteracting the thrust of the vaults. Before the belfry was
built the Semantron would have been used; this was a plate of bronze or
wood suspended in the atrium and struck like a gong (see Fig. 28). It
appears from the Russian pilgrims that the bells remained in use for
only a short time. A sixteenth century French MS. in the British Museum
speaks of the old square tower and bells. Grelot[324] says “this tower,
formerly the belfry, is now void, the Turks having exchanged the music
of bells for the noise of cannon.” It was not fifty _toises_ high, and
could not have held many bells, or large ones.[325]
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Semantron at Constantinople, from Lenoir.]
The upper story of the narthex, Grelot tells us was supported by six
flying buttresses, and both his exterior views show three complete
piers and flying arches on each side of the tower. The bay next the
belfry on the right was occupied by a low building with a pent roof, in
which were descending steps, at the bottom of which they drew off water
from “the great cisterns under the church, from which it was said a boat
might reach the sea.” As to the doors there were three towards the west,
used when Grelot made his plan, two being those at the extreme north and
south, opposite the lateral atrium walks, and the other, which was less,
and little used, was next the belfry on the left, and is in fact the
left one of the three present doors. The arches, which cover two of the
spaces between the piers and make them into porches, are shown in the
view by Fossati of the unrestored state of the front.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--West Front as altered in the Ninth Century.]
Comparing the drawings of Grelot and the plan given by Du Cange, both
published in 1680, with the present remains, it would appear that there
were formerly ten of these buttresses; two being merged in the central
belfry, and the two outside ones incorporated in the minarets, on the
sides of which traces of them may still be seen. Two others have either
been destroyed by the Turks, or Grelot’s drawings are wrong to this
extent, as no trace seems to remain of more than eight. Of these eight
which now in part remain, Salzenberg only reserves the four at the
centre, on which he places the horses. Our Figs. 26 and 29 represent
the original west front and the altered façade of the ninth century;
see also Plan, Fig. 24.
_Cisterns._--On the south side of the right-hand pier is a small arch
which gives access to a little recessed chamber in the buttress. From
this and from a similar recess north of the central entrance, water
from the cisterns beneath the church was probably obtained: a cross on
the wall of the little chamber would seem to show that it was a “holy
well.”[326]
Clavijo says the cisterns beneath the church would float ten galleys,
and C. Lebrun (1714) speaks of ten cisterns and forty columns standing
in the water. The only real description of the cistern we have been
able to find is in Dr. Covel’s MS. diary in the British Museum. In 1676
he writes, “We went to see the vaults under S. Sophia; they were full
of water, then 17 feet deep, and overhead, from the water up to the
top of the arch was about 2 yards and 6 inches. Every pillar is square
(4½ feet), and distant from another just 12 feet. The bricks are very
broad, thin, and well baked; [it is] not plastered within, the mortar
very hard. They say it goes under [the] At-Meidan, but we could not
enter it. The waste water of the Aqueduct enters into it, and [going]
out of it passing through the Seraglio, goes into the sea by the
dunghill. [There is] severe punishment to [those who] have houses with
offices [draining] into it; or [for those who] throw any filth into it:
the well of S. Sophia [opens] into it and many wells in the Seraglio.”
He gives a diagram plan, showing two rows of eight piers and a third
row of three, although, as no boundary is shown, it is impossible to
say if this is the whole extent (see below).[327]
_Generally._--Some of the exterior was doubtless cased with marble like
S. Mark’s; indeed some of the marble plating remained in Salzenberg’s
time. “The walls outside (the Anonymous writes) were covered with
large and valuable stones.” Where not so incrusted the narrow coursed
brickwork showed in thin red lines, almost equalled by the thick joints
of the mortar. From this brickwork the marble lattices of the windows,
each with its slab at the bottom charged with a cross, shone out fair,
and the gray lead of the many domes rose above all, curve on curve in
pearly gradation of light. The courts were doubtless closely set with
cypresses, like those which now rise about the turbehs on the south
side.
Many passages in the Byzantine authors show how much beauty of site was
regarded as essential for a fair church.[328] Procopius, describing
the Church of the Fountain at Constantinople, says, “there was a grove
of cypresses in a rich meadow of blooming flowers, a garden abounding
in fruit, with a gently bubbling spring of sweet water, everything
suggested the site of a church.”
CHAPTER X
BUILDING FORMS AND THE BUILDERS
§ 1. ORIGINS.
It may be well to say a few words on the growth of the Byzantine
architecture, of which Justinian’s church is the perfect flower. This
building is often spoken of as if it were at once the first and the
maturest essay in this great style, but this we might know would have
been impossible, even though the links that led up to it were lost,
which is not entirely the case. It is perfectly true, however, as Mr.
Morris says, that “the style leaps into sudden completeness in this
most lovely building.”
The new wants of the Church soon evolved the complete Christian
basilica, which, it has been said must have been in the mind of the
writer of the Apocalypse as the type of the entire arrangement of
the altar, the twenty-four elders, and the great congregation, in
his vision of the heavenly worship. In the time of Constantine, and
in Rome, alongside of work which was entirely classic, the churches,
with fewer ties to the past to limit development along truly rational
lines, had developed a manner which was a more direct outcome of
the necessities of building with a minimum of merely perfunctory
“architectural” forms--those conventions for the thoughtless
expenditure of the workers’ labour, which in still worse times make
architecture a burden to them instead of a delight.
This transitional style is rightly called early Christian, or
Constantinian. In the East, the vital part of the empire at this time,
a greater change was taking place that brought back life once again
to the arts of decoration; this may be expressed in a formula as the
re-orientalization of classic art--the linking of simple massive Roman
building to a new decoration, vividly alive and inventive, frank,
bright, and full of colour, and yet as rational in its choice and
application as the construction. In the modern sense the Romans may be
said to have invented building, and the Byzantine-Greeks architecture.
The Roman system of arched building, covered with brick and concrete
vaulted shells and domes, had been masked by non-functional pillars,
tablements, and pediments in what was thought the true Athenian manner;
at the same time many beautiful decorative expedients were also in use,
such as the lining of walls with large thin marble slabs, or small
pieces of glass of various forms and colours. Mosaic of gold glass
seems to have been known before the time of Constantine.[329] Gold
tesserae probably originated in an at first almost accidental use of
portions of the Roman glass vessels which are decorated by patterns in
gold leaf protected by a thin layer of glass over the surface. Parts of
such vessels are found used decoratively in the Catacombs.
Byzantine architecture was developed by the use of brick in the
frankest and fullest manner, especially in domical vaulting. Wide spans
were kept in equipoise by other smaller domes. The more concentrated
supports were marble monoliths, and the wall and vault surfaces were
covered by incrustations of marble slabs and glass mosaic. Directness,
an economy of labour relative to the results obtained, is perhaps the
most essential characteristic of the art both in construction and
decoration in the great period. This freedom and rationality mark
it out from all other styles of building, or rather make it include
all other styles, for this reaches the universal. M. Choisy rightly
insists on the fact that the Byzantine builders endeavoured to suppress
preparatory and auxiliary work, and to execute their vaults and domes
without centring. “The greater number of their vaults,” he says “rose
in space without any kind of support.... Their method is not a mere
variation of that of the West, but it is quite a distinct system, not
even derived from a Roman source, but Asiatic. Byzantine art is the
Greek spirit working on Asiatic elements.” Here we have an extreme
statement in one direction, and the word Roman must be used in a narrow
sense; for these Asiatic elements in construction, of which alone M.
Choisy seems to be speaking, whatever were their remote origins must
have been completely absorbed into the larger Rome of the Empire, and
we have no knowledge of any other system of construction in western
Asia from the first to the fourth century than “Roman,” unless we
subdivide this into Palmyrene, Herodian, or construct an imaginary
Persian style out of what went before and came afterwards. Choisy
himself shows that a large use of burnt brick was first made by the
Romans, and that the system of building vaults in sections known in
Assyria and Egypt had been adopted by Roman builders in the East in
the time of Constantine. But this was the essential germ of Byzantine
construction. It was the falling away of a dead scholasticism that
left Roman building in the East free to be shaped into Byzantine
architecture. Mr. Bury, who is extreme in the opposite direction, and
makes the same claim for the continuity of Roman art as he does for the
Empire, suggests that Romaic would be a better term than Byzantine. But
whatever name is given to the political system we must remember that
the arts are shaped by the people, and that the people were truly Greek
who, in the age of Justinian, thought out and left to the modern world
the last great gift of Hellenic genius--mediæval Greek architecture.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--Roman Tomb in Palestine.]
While the art of building in the East, particularly in Syria and Asia
Minor, and possibly in Egypt, was still distinctly Roman, a ferment and
change may be detected which cannot be matched in Rome itself. Both in
construction and ornamentation there is much already at Palmyra and
Baalbec that belongs to the new, and repudiates the rules of merely
official art.
In Rome the dome never appears to have been finally adapted to a
composite building by being directly applied to a square plan. The dome
on pendentives, so far as we know, was invented and perfected entirely
in the East. M. Choisy figures a building from Jerash, which may be
of the third or fourth century which he considers the earliest known
dome on pendentives. This building, although it is plainly early, has
nothing characteristically Roman about it. A building of the same class
however, recently discovered by the Palestine Exploration Society at
Kusr en Nûeijîs in eastern Palestine,[330] is an ornate example of late
Roman work; Ionic pilasters and carved entablature mask the outside,
while within we have a perfected dome on pendentives covering a central
square area, counterpoised by four barrel vaults. We agree with the
Memoir that--“there can be little hesitation in ascribing this building
to the second century A.D.” This building, probably a mausoleum, in
adjustment of parts, and geometrical development might be a Byzantine
church of three hundred years later. It is a little Sancta Sophia, and
taken together with the Jerash building it makes a class invaluable
as a fixed point to work from.[331] This however like most Syrian
buildings is of stone.
A church at Koja Kalessi in Isauria,[332] Fig. 31, which there is a
great reason to suppose of early fifth century work, furnishes an
important link. We have here an approximation of the square domed
building to the columned basilica which is most interesting. This
church is substantially complete with women’s galleries opening to the
nave by a second tier of arcades just as at S. Sophia.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--Plan of a Church in Isauria.]
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Church of the Trinity, Ephesus.]
The next building we should place in the sequence is the church of the
Trinity at Ephesus of which Hübsch, Wood and Choisy give plans. The
former furnishes a restoration, and speaks of it as probably one of the
earliest of Christian churches, but there is no reason to suppose it
earlier than the beginning of the fifth century. Choisy speaks of it as
a curious monument of transition already Byzantine in structure. Before
seeing Hübsch’s restoration, we had placed an arcade in the lateral
arches, agreeing in every respect with his suggestions; and that this
was the original form is strongly confirmed by the next church--as it
seems to us--in the development. This is the church of S. Sophia at
Salonica, which has long been assigned to Justinian’s reign at a time
subsequent to the erection of S. Sophia, but is now thought to belong
to the fifth century. M. Petros Papageorgios in the _Hestia_[333]
of Athens for October 3rd and November 14th 1893, gives the mosaic
inscription of this church, which he thinks definitely fixes its
decoration in the year 495.[334]
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Church of S. Sophia, Salonica. Scale about
forty-five feet to an inch, for three plans.]
The churches at Cassaba, Ancyra and Myra in Asia Minor engraved in
Texier’s _Asie Mineure_, and repeated by Salzenberg relate themselves
so closely to this chain of development that we believe they will
be found to belong rather to the fifth and sixth centuries than to
the seventh or eighth as those writers thought. The square type with
a central dome persisted independently without coalescing with the
basilica. Such was the domed church at Antioch founded by Constantine
and completed by Constantius; here the central dome was surrounded by
aisles, and formed an octagon. In the churches of St. George at Ezra,
and St. Sergius at Bosra we have domes standing over a central octagon
contained in an external square. These were built about 515, and they
furnished the type that was followed at St. Sergius at Constantinople
which was built only a few years before S. Sophia.
§ 2. THE BUILDERS OF THE CHURCH.
It is noteworthy that the architects who built S. Sophia as well as the
historians who chronicle the work, all, so far as their birth-places
are known, come from Syria and Asia Minor. The flourishing city of
Ephesus was one of the great centres of the transformation of the art
of building; and it was from the neighbouring cities of Tralles and
Miletus, that Anthemius and Isidorus came to Constantinople.
Of the two master builders who appear to have been employed together by
Justinian, it seems clear, from Procopius and the other writers, that
Anthemius was more especially concerned in the preparation of the first
draft or model, and that Isidorus, by birth a Milesian, was associated
with him in the conduct of the works.
“Anthemius,” says Paulus, “skilled in setting out a plan, laid the
foundation.” “Anthemius was the man who devised and worked at every
part,” writes Agathias, and this author gives some account of his life.
“Now this Anthemius was born at Tralles, and he was an inventor of
machines; one of those who apply designs to material, and make models
and imitations of real things. He was distinguished in this and had
reached the summit of mathematical knowledge, just as his brother
Metrodorus was distinguished in letters. Besides these there were three
other brothers, Olympus, famous for his knowledge of law, and Dioscorus
and Alexander, both skilled in medicine. Of these Dioscorus lived in
his native land and Alexander in Old Rome. But the fame of the skill
of Anthemius and Metrodorus reached the emperor, and they were invited
to Constantinople, where they spent the rest of their lives, each
presenting wonderful examples of his skill. One taught letters; the
other raised wonderful buildings throughout the city and in many other
places; these, I think, even if nothing were said about them, as long
as they remained unharmed, would be sufficient to win for him perpetual
glory.”
Stories of his mechanical ingenuity are told by Agathias one of which
is as follows. Anthemius had a quarrelsome neighbour whose room
overhung his ground. He placed here large kettles of water, with an
arrangement of leather pipes and a tube like a trumpet up to the
projecting part; and making the other parts secure, “he heated the
water so that the whole thing burst up like an earthquake.”
As to the scheme prepared by the master builders for the building, an
examination of the evidence seems to suggest the following antecedent
conditions and governing ideas. 1. The ground levels required a short
and wide church (_ante_, p. 186). 2. An old western apse possibly
suggested the western hemicycle of the new church (_ante_, p. 19). 3.
The plan, while a direct outcome of traditional forms as we have shown,
seems a synthesis of the three types which were then current; the
Basilican like S. John Studius; the square church with a dome like S.
Sergius, and the cross plan of the Church of the Apostles.
At S. Sergius, the expedient of planning columned exedras to fill out
the angles of the square beneath a domed vault had proved its utility
and beauty. For the influence of the cross type we need only turn to
the plan, and observe that the width across the “transepts” is exactly
the same as the length included by the eastern and western hemicycles.
The master builders not only designed the church, they came “and worked
at every part,” and lived with their building until their death; they
certainly graduated as workmen, and we hear nothing of their honours
or position, only of their genius.[335] In the words of M. Choisy, “In
Justinian’s time, to build was the essential _rôle_ of the architect.”
Both master builders are again mentioned as working together on the
occasion of the fortifications of Dara in Mesopotamia, having been
injured by floods. The emperor on hearing of it at Constantinople
“straightway summoned those most celebrated architects Anthemius and
Isidorus mentioned before, and inquired what might be devised.” The
scheme of Chryses, the engineer of the works at Dara, was however
adopted.[336]
The younger Isidorus who re-erected the dome of S. Sophia Procopius
mentions as having been employed by Justinian in rebuilding the city
of Zenobia in Mesopotamia with its fortifications, churches, baths
and porticoes. “All this work was done under the superintendence of
Isidorus and Joannes, of whom Johannes was a Byzantine and Isidorus
a Milesian by birth, being the nephew of that Isidorus I mentioned
before.”
To the master builders Procopius, Paulus, and Theophanes give the
names _mechanikos_, _polumechanos_, _mechanopoios_, to which other
writers add _protooikodomos_--“first of the builders,” _magistros_ and
_maistor_. The craftsmen appear to have been classed as _technitai_
with a foreman over each subdivision. The Latin names of the different
building crafts are given both in Theodosius’ code,[337] and in the
edict of Diocletian,[338] which fixed their wages. This edict is
bilingual, but unfortunately the Greek synonyms for the workmen are
wanting. In the description of the building of S. Sophia, Procopius
speaks of the _lithologos_ or “stone-layer,” who built the big piers,
Paulus and the Anonymous use _laotoros_ and _laotomos_ a “mason” and
“stone-cutter,” wherever marble workers are mentioned, to which must
also be added _lithoxos_ “stone polisher.” The general bricklayers,
&c. are comprised as _oikodomoi_. _Tektonikos_ implies a carpenter.
S. Gregory of Nyssa, in describing a church of S. Theodore, calls the
craftsman who arranged the mosaic tesserae, ὁ συνθέτης τῶν ψηφίδων.
A list of the chief classes of workmen employed in the sixth century
on a monumental building in Italy given by Cassiodorus,[339] names the
following--Instructor-parietum, sculptor-marmorum, camerarum-rotator,
gypsoplastes, and musivarius. The instructor-parietum is probably
the man who set out the work, the camerarum-rotator is he who turned
the vaults. The gypsoplastes, a literal transcription of γυψοπλάστης,
signifies a worker or modeller in stucco, corresponding to the
plastes-gypsarius of the edict of Diocletian. The musivarius is the
“putter together of tesserae” of S. Gregory. Workmen who understood the
mysteries of “vault turning” seem to have been especially appreciated,
as Theophanes tells us that Isaurian workmen were employed to build the
dome of S. Sophia.
In the humblest work the personality of the maker is often delightfully
expressed. A Byzantine brick in the British Museum is stamped “ΧΡ. made
by the most excellent Narsis,” and a late Roman glass cup bears the
legend “Ennion made this. Think of it, O buyer.”
In his inquiry as to the methods of workmanship, M. Choisy says the
Byzantine Greeks did not efface from buildings all traces of the
workman’s individuality. “The workman is no mere passive instrument,
obedient, without any regard to initiative or responsibility, to the
workshop foreman; he is treated as an intelligent power, and finds in
front of him liberty, and a field open to his imagination.”
In Roman times the system was that we call “division of labour.”
“_L’art roman est un fait d’organisation._” The workman was not an
independent citizen working at his own pleasure for his daily wants;
he was a _functionnaire_, and compulsorily a member of an association
organised by the state on the model of military service. In the East
an altogether freer system seems to have obtained. The guilds were
independent associations, and in Palestine the Carpenter’s Son and the
tentmaker followed their callings irrespective of state authority.
“In Byzantine buildings the same name occurs in turn upon columns,
capitals, or simply squared blocks of stone, and there is nothing to
show that the foreman of the works kept one man at one particular kind
of work. The East never changes; at present the absence of division of
labour in Oriental buildings is most striking. The proprietor chooses a
master workman (_protomaistor_); to this improvised architect he adds
a certain number of head workmen (_maistores_) and their companions,
and these same men will work at digging the foundations, at the masonry
of the walls, and at the carpentry of the roof; even the ironwork and
joinery is scarcely reserved for special workmen.” The terms masters
and companions suggest an arrangement which merits consideration. Like
western workmen the Greek artizans were affiliated to corporations
which have lived to our days. These associations (_sunergasiai_) had
a council, composed exclusively of those, who, by apprenticeship and
trial, had earned the title of masters (_maistores_).
Each society was presided over by a “protomaistor” helped by
secretaries (_grammateus_ and _kerux_) to summon the meetings. It was
at once a corporation of workmen, a religious brotherhood, and a mutual
aid society: and such societies engaged in mutual acts of hospitality
and assistance between one town and another.
All workers in the East seem to have been thus associated into guilds,
and municipal life was organised on the guilds. This is evident
at Constantinople as early as the _Notitia_, see p. 11 above. The
members of the guilds had to help at fires, and Lydus gives the cry
which brought them together, “_Omnes Collegiati_.” Demetrius, the
silversmith of Ephesus, called together the _Sunergasia_ when the
craft was in danger; we even hear of strikes. Even unskilled labourers
had their guilds, and Mr. Ramsay has described the Guild of Street
Porters of Smyrna in Roman times (_American Journal of Archæology_,
Vol. I.). The existence of the guilds is the most significant fact of
the social history of the middle ages. In such craft organisation of
labour, free of the financial middlemen who now rightly call themselves
“Contractors,” we see the only hope that building for service, and
ornamenting for delight, can again be made possible.
Our studies have convinced us that “shop production” went on side by
side with the building organisation. This shop production will be
at once allowed for such things as gold cups and altars, lamps and
bronze doors, but we believe that decorative marble work was largely
produced in this way, and that just as enamelled cups and damascened
doors were “ordered” in Constantinople, so also were sculptured slabs
and capitals. It would be possible to account for mere resemblance by
“influence,” but absolute likeness between the capitals and sculptured
or inlaid slabs found in contemporary buildings, at cities so far
apart as Constantinople, Salonica, Parenzo, Ravenna, and Rome show
that in the fifth and sixth centuries such works were dispersed from a
common centre. So early as the fourth century S. Gregory Nazianzenus
speaks of a priest who came to Constantinople “from Thasos bringing
with him the gold of the church wherewith to buy slabs (_plakes_) of
Proconnesian marble.”[340] These things were not only bought, but
specially commissioned; for instance, the marbles of St. Clemente,
which are almost certainly Constantinople work, bear fine monograms of
John, afterwards elected pope in 532. The great contributing cause for
this, besides the political and artistic position of Constantinople,
was doubtless its possession of an absolutely perfect material in
boundless profusion--the coarse white marble, which we may see to-day
so delightfully wrought in small shops into the tombs, each of which
has its carved tree of cypress, palm, or rose.
§ 3. ORIGINAL FORM OF THE CHURCH.
_Dome_, &c.--Agathias tells us that when Justinian rebuilt the dome it
was made higher, and that large alterations were made to the sustaining
arches on the north and south sides. Salzenberg cites Theophanes and
Zonaras who give the increase of height as twenty and twenty-five feet
respectively. If we examine the longitudinal section we shall see that
the great semidomes of the hemicycles and the apsoid of the bema show
much less of their curvature outside than the present central dome. The
windows in these do not stand above a cornice, but are pierced through
the vaults at middle height; the domical surface being unbroken by
any cornice from springing to crown. The cupola of the baptistery is
also continuous with the pendentives. A dome of this kind, however,
continuing the pendentives, would seem to be impossibly flat, and would
be some thirty feet less than the present height--see A in Fig. 4, the
existing dome rising to B. If a curve between these two be obtained
by lowering the crown of the dome about fifteen feet to C, it may be
noticed that a straight line tangential to the curve of the eastern
apsoid, and also to the great semidome would form similar contact with
the dome.
Salzenberg, understanding an account of Cedrenus as to a strengthening
of the abutments of the dome to refer to the great buttress masses
which rise above the gynaeceum roof, considers that the external
parts of these masses were additions made at the time of Justinian’s
restoration. These great vertical piles are so essential to the
structure, to the logical beauty of the design, and to the staircase
service of the building; moreover the preparation for them beneath
is so adequate, that we cannot accept this suggestion, and therefore
follow Choisy in considering them original. Now Choisy, examining the
external base of the dome where it forms a square, found that the
four angles had been increased, and that it did not originally form a
square, but rose above the piers and the lateral arches as shown in
Fig. 34, and in Fig. 37, where the first base is shown by hatching and
the additions by dotted lines, A A. “This alteration,” he writes, “is
not hypothetical. I verified the entire absence of bond between the
first base of the dome and the added work” (p. 138). These additions
were built on the lateral arches, and on the top of the piers, altering
the form shown in our Fig. 35 to the present form given by Salzenberg.
That Choisy is right, is borne out by seeing the resemblance of
treatment that there would have been between the growth of the dome on
the north and south and the semidome on the west (see Fig. 34).
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--View of Vaulted System of S. Sophia, adapted
from Choisy.]
Again, Salzenberg hardly makes it sufficiently clear that the large
arches in the walls which fill the great vertical semicircles over the
arcades on north and south sides, are in fact the inner surfaces of the
arches which pass between the pairs of piers on north and south sides
(seventy-two feet apart in this direction), and being the whole width
of those piers (fifteen feet eight inches) on soffite they form the
immense arches so well known on the outside. The semicircles of wall,
each of which contains twelve windows, are now filled in beneath these
arches, flush with their _inner faces_, and the arches therefore do not
show to the interior through the decoration (Figs. 4, 36, 38).
[Illustration: FIG. 35.--Plan of Upper Gallery as first designed.]
[Illustration: FIG. 36.--Section of Aisles and Gallery.]
Now Agathias (see page 30) says that at the restoration after the
earthquake in 558, at the north and south arches they brought towards
the inside “the portion of the building which was on the curve.” This,
we think, must refer to the filling wall, in the arches of seventy-two
feet span, which we suppose was formerly on the exterior, and thus left
an upper gallery twelve feet wide and seventy-two feet long open to the
interior. “And they made the arches wider to be in harmony with the
others, thus making the equilateral symmetry more perfect. They thus
reduced the vast space and formed an oblong design.” That is the arches
of seventy-two feet, when filled up on the inside, were no longer
visible, and the dome appeared to stand over arches of 100 feet span on
north and south, as already on east and west, the transverse dimension
of the church being lessened between these points by some twenty-four
feet. Salzenberg understanding Agathias to refer to the apparent arches
of 100 feet span on north and south is unable to offer any explanation.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--Plan of Basis of Dome as originally designed,
with Additions A A containing stairs.]
[Illustration: FIG. 38.--Section between Great and Secondary Orders.]
The actual evidence in the church, we believe, fully bears out the
interpretation here suggested. What we have called the secondary order
of columns would pass exactly beneath the position given to this wall.
These columns on the gallery floor are very strong, and a very strong
row of arches runs along over them (see Fig. 38). Moreover the curtain
walls in every other instance throughout the church are flush with the
exterior.
That this space is not available to the interior of S. Sophia has
caused Choisy to criticise the design in this respect as “a solution
undecided, _moyen terme_, _fâcheux_; the large arches by a departure
from ordinary rule being thrown on the outside so that the space
covered by them was lost. S. Sophia Salonica redressed this error.” We
wonder that Choisy’s views as to the original base of the dome did not
cause him to take the further step we have here suggested. The present
form, in which the lateral arches support the square base of the dome,
is at least a possible one; but that the arches when they carried
nothing and thus were actually vaults (as before shown by Choisy) were
not filled with a screen but were mere arches twelve feet on soffite,
lying against the sides of the building seems inconceivable. In our
Figure 34 we have amended Choisy’s view in this respect. Looking on
these lateral arches as vaults we have filled them with a window like
the western vault, and the harmony which results between the sides
and the west end amply verifies our conclusions. One point further.
The upper surface of the base of the dome on the west side should not
be wholly level as shown in Fig. 34, the central third _curves up_
following the line of the top of semidome. In other words, the great
arch of the interior pushes itself up through the base of the dome, and
this treatment thus recurred at various heights--over large windows of
aisles, over western and lateral lunettes, as we have shown, and over
the semidome.
Originally, before the interior was narrowed in the way we have
explained, there was a much clearer suggestion of a cross plan:
barrel vaults at north and south being filled at their ends with
large lunettes like the west vault. We suppose that the failure was
mainly in the secondary order, and that the window screen and all
possible weight was entirely removed and transferred to the great
order. Salzenberg was satisfied that there had been great alterations
in this part of the building, and Choisy’s view of the window-wall,
Plate xxv., entirely confirms his opinion. If it could be shown that
the alteration spoken of by Agathias will not bear the interpretation
we put on it, there were earlier troubles at this part mentioned by
Procopius. The best proof, however, we suggest is found in the design.
It has been before pointed out that Choisy and other writers have
too hastily assumed that S. Sophia Salonica was built after the great
church of Constantinople. That it preceded it enforces the present
argument. Grelot (1680) writes that upper galleries remained in the
church in these positions, but he based his assertion on the row of
seven arched recesses just above the main cornice which he thought were
formerly open. It is clear however from an examination of the section
that the arches could only have opened to the vault of the first floor
gynaeceum. That these small arches did open to the vault of the first
floor, seems to be borne out by the fact that above the centre of the
secondary order, where its arch is low, a similar piercing is made,
through which (or the higher arches on each side) and through the seven
arches, a mysterious perspective into the immensity of the dome might
have been obtained by those in the gynaeceum (see Figs. 4, 36, 38).
Shallow arched recesses merely used decoratively seem to have been
little known to early Byzantine art, and arches on the first floor
through the great piers are blocked in a similar way. Moreover such
openings would explain why the vault between the two orders of columns
is so much stilted up into mere darkness.
_Atrium._--To explain the present confused arrangement of the exterior,
we must remember that from the time of the description of the church by
the Silentiary to its description by Gyllius was a thousand years--as
long as from the time of Alfred to the present day--and in this time we
may well expect alterations and accretions.
In Chapter IX. we have shown that the present form of the exonarthex,
with its great external piers, was an alteration, made about the time
the belfry was added in the ninth century. Before that time the atrium
was alike on all four sides--a true _quadriporticus_--one of the most
beautiful features of the ancient churches. (See Figs. 3 and 25.)
_North and South Porches._--Much of the confusion at the north-west
and south-west angles is the result of Turkish attachments, including
the western minarets, which were built in the last quarter of the
sixteenth century. The plan of gynaeceum floor furnishes the best key
to the former arrangement, for where there is Byzantine work above,
it must once have existed below. Comparing the first floor and roof
plans in Salzenberg with the ground plan, it becomes apparent that the
main block was originally finished both at north-west and south-west
angles to the general square of building. The two staircases now at
these angles were added as extra buttressing masses; the original
stairs being the four in the piers of north and south sides. The north
and south porches, with extra building above the latter on the first
floor, were also additions. Besides the irregularity and inferior
style of these buildings the following evidence should be noticed.
The actual form of the north-west angle on the gallery floor; and the
natural reading of the three plans when laid one over the other; broad
arches, which pass across the porches; the fact that the arch in south
porch (dotted in C on Figure 24, see also Fossati, Plate i.) now has
no office; and that above the door at this end of narthex, there is a
window which now merely opens into the south porch.
An examination of the exterior on the south side shows that the
south-west staircase was built before the porch, or the part above it
at least, because a straight joint in the walling, and the form of the
roofing, here clearly make evident that the apex of the gable roof was
originally over the centre of the staircase, and that the slope has
been subsequently run forward to cover the part above the porch.
In considering all the other irregularly attached buildings, together
with the historical evidence, it seems clear that the church as
designed and first built was externally a regular parallelogram,
interrupted only by the projection of the apse at the east end; which
was itself masked by a range of low chambers against the east wall,
through which there were two entrances to the church as at present,
and to which other two doors, in the east wall, still visible but now
blocked, gave access. The other external doors, besides those from
narthex, being two on the north and one in the south wall; together
with two external doors at the gynaeceum level, one of which probably
gave access to the gallery along which the emperor passed to the
church, and the other, to the north, may have led to the cells of the
clergy.
_Baptistery and Loggia._--Of early buildings detached from the church
we have the round building at the north-east, which we regard as having
descended from the earlier church, and the south-west baptistery, with
a loggia attached to its north side. The space between the church
and the baptistery on plan looks like a covered way, leading from
the church with a screen in the middle, but the part next the church
is, and always must have been, open. The part next the baptistery is
covered with a large semicylindrical vault, arched _transversely_
to the “screen,” and penetrated by a less cylinder in the direction
of the length of the loggia. Rebates (on baptistery side) round the
doorway which stands between the pair of columns show that there was a
door, and strips down the sides of the pillars, which stand above the
transom, show that pierced slabs or other closures filled the arched
front of the vault. If we add breast-high closures in the lateral
openings, as in the portico of St. John Studius, the whole becomes
an inclosed loggia against the baptistery. Salzenberg states that
there was a door in the north wall of baptistery, and Labarte places
another in the western compartment of south aisle of church, but for
the latter there does not appear to be a particle of evidence; and
consequently the court and loggia cannot have formed a direct passage
to the baptistery. 1. Salzenberg on his plan draws the transverse axis
of the baptistery, and that of the western bay of the church; these
do not agree by a foot or two, but the doorway of “screen” agrees
with _neither_, nor is it a mean between them, but varies by excess.
2. In the section (Salzenberg, Plate xi.) it is seen that the present
level of floor in this loggia is that of baptistery, and is below
that of church; but the columns have no bases, therefore the loggia
floor was beneath both church and baptistery. 3. A large arch is shown
between the church and west pier of this loggia, from which it springs
properly, while at the other end it is cut off incomplete by the wall
of the church. These reasons together lead us to suggest that the
loggia is possibly older than the church, and that it may be a part of
an arcade retained when the present church was built. The style of the
screen would readily allow of its being twenty or thirty years older
than S. Sophia. The capitals are not found elsewhere in the church,
while similar ones form the chief order at S. Sergius; and the door is
inserted between the two columns, exactly as in the portico of S. John
Studius. We do not however insist on its being earlier than the church
so much as on the evidence pointing to its being part of a continuous
arcade (see plan, Fig. 39). Doubtless it might be determined from a
careful examination whether the loggia or the baptistery was built
first.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--Restoration of Loggia by the Baptistery. Scale
about eight feet to an inch.]
The way by which the “Great Baptistery” was reached from the bema, as
mentioned in the _Ceremonies_ was probably by this cloister, which
perhaps inclosed one of the courts on the sides of the church, spoken
of by Procopius and the Silentiary. The portion drawn by Salzenberg
still remains, although sadly plastered over and mutilated.
§ 4. STRUCTURAL SYSTEM AND VAULTING.
The geometrical scheme of this building, which in its final form
must be the result of hundreds of adjustments, modifications, and
expedients, to meet newly discovered emergencies, is withal so
seemingly simple, that it may be read as a bare mechanical solution of
the primary conditions.
The great central area, excepting only the narrow bema, is surrounded
by two stories of vaults; the thrust of the dome over the square of
about 100 feet is not only resisted by these, but by the four immense
buttressing masses (or rather chambers for they are built hollow)
which, pierced by arches, pass right across the aisles. East and
west the dome is sustained by the semidomes of the great hemicycles,
and these in turn by the vaults of the three subdivisions of the
hemicycles. The thrusts are thus distributed in a regular pyramid.
The external wall, which incloses the whole, being built out to the
extremity of the great buttress piers of the north and south sides,
and the lesser piers east and west, is thus little more than a screen,
inclosing the more active parts of the structure.
One of the most remarkable expedients of this marvellously planned
building is that by which the vaults of the side aisles,--which, having
large spans, necessarily spring comparatively low down--are received
on the secondary order of columns, standing behind the pillars of the
great order. This allows of the stately colonnade on either side of the
central space and those in the four exedras being only controlled by
the height of the upper floor, which is forty-four feet above the area
as is explained by Figs. 36, 38. These secondary pillars also transform
the spaces left by the exedras into square compartments.
_Arch Forms._--The great arches under the dome have their centres two
feet six inches above the springing line. Those in the principal arcade
appear to be semicircular. In the adjoining exedras, the porphyry
columns not being nearly so long as the green ones, they were set on
pedestals, and the arches are “horseshoe” in form, at least towards the
nave, for they are built “winding,” so as to approach a square impost
on their caps. We say approach, for there is a gradual modification;
the caps being an inch or two wider towards the aisles, the impost
increases this by a few inches more. The openings from gynaeceum at
west end are segmental, some arches to the side windows and the lateral
windows of west elevation, Fig. 25, are bluntly pointed. The transverse
arching of narthex is semielliptical, or rather three-centred, a
segment with the curve at the ends quickened to become tangential
to the wall. The pointed arch is used in the great aqueduct near
Constantinople and in one of the city cisterns: both appear to be of
the age of Justinian.[341]
_Vaulting._--The vaulting is executed with the mastery and freedom
that comes of confidence in direct methods. Certain portions are
cylindrical, and others are formed by cylindrical cross-penetrations.
The octagon of the baptistery, and the square compartments of the
gynaeceum, are covered by domes which penetrate down into the angles
with continuous pendentives. The larger compartments of the vaults of
the aisles require some explanation.
Where four semicircular arches open about a square or oblong space,
and it is desired to make the vault conform exactly to them, this may
be accomplished by a semispherical dome, the span of which is equal to
the _diagonal_ of the compartment to be covered; such a vault presents
an unbroken surface. Or two cylindrical vaults may penetrate at
right angles, when the vault is broken by the intersection into four
surfaces. At S. Sophia it was evidently desired to keep the springing
high for the sake of the monolith columns, and yet to maintain, so far
as possible, a domical surface.
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--Construction of Vaults.]
Thus in Fig. 40 the dome springing out of the angle requires the height
_a_, the radius being equal to half the diameter; but it was wished to
flatten this to _b_, and yet for the vault to rise everywhere from
the arched line _e_, _c_. Now if the vault conforms to the surfaces
generated by the revolution of the arc _d_, _f_, _b_, about the axis
_o_, _d_, intersecting with a similarly generated surface at right
angles, we get a mean between the domed and cylindrical forms--a
domical vault. The intersections, instead of being everywhere square
on plan as at _x_, _x_, and rising just to the crown of the vault, as
would be the case with cylindrical penetrations, will be obtuse as at
_i_, _i_, and not rising so high will practically leave a large concave
surface unbroken at the crown of the vault. This is the principle of
the vaults of S. Sophia; the gradations being gentle and the means less
obvious, the forms are more like those found in nature, and the result
is extremely beautiful. The forms are further softened by every edge of
arch and vault being rounded, so that the mosaic completely envelops
the whole like a vast embroidered gold tissue.
There would be no difficulty in construction, for the vault falls
everywhere on an arch in the angle _e_, _f_, _b_ that is in planes
which are radii to the arch. The vaulting of the narthex is made up of
a series of compartments, much narrower than the span, divided by plain
arched bands. To meet the requirements of such oblong spaces two gauges
would be needed. The “winding” of the lines of intersection was not to
be feared, as they were so soon lost in the more domical surface of the
upper part of the vault.
After the above was written we found the geometrical and practical
construction of these vaults explained in _L’Art de Bâtir chez les
Byzantins_, in a manner which differs from that here given. M. Choisy’s
method is first of all to design the curve of the intersection over the
diagonal of the plan as a segment of a circle: then he considers all
sections of each compartment of the vault, taken parallel to its arch,
and therefore perpendicular to its axis, to be also segments of circles
springing from a series of points on the diagonals, their centres being
on the axis of each vault.
We cannot agree with this, for, although theoretically the vault so
conceived differs immaterially from the solution we have proposed, yet
practically its erection would be full of difficulty. M. Choisy’s
method is that proposed by M. Viollet-le-Duc for the later Romanesque
vaults, in which, the materials being poor rubble, centring must have
been required. In these Viollet-le-Duc thinks that diagonal centres
were used, and then planks were placed from them to the generating
arches, and the additional height of a domical vault made up by a layer
of earth. It is to be noticed that diagonal centres in this case almost
immediately produced diagonal stone ribs.