The mightiest and the most gigantic of all Byzantine churches is undoubtedly that of St. Sophia, at Constantinople. First the building was a temple dedicated to ‘Holy Wisdom,’ in the ancient or classic meaning of the word. The edifice was destroyed by fire, and rebuilt by Justinian in five years (A.D. 532-537). Twenty years later it was much damaged by an earthquake. The injured dome was removed, raised somewhat higher upon strengthened counterfoils, and finished A.D. 563. The architects were Anthemis of Tralles, and Isidorus of Miletus. The ground-plan, ornamentation, and construction, aim in combination at one single result--surprise. There is a contradiction between lengths and circles, destroying all effect of simple perspective. The various cupolas, arches, and half-cupolas, connected with great technical skill, have no organically united life. An antediluvian world opens its gates to us. There is everywhere something astounding and gorgeous, but we are unable to discern the necessity for the existence of the parts, to form a coherent total. The galleries with their colonnades puzzle us. The outer square-form, overtowered by a mighty cupola, and by half-cupolas, is as incongruous as the ornamentation of the interior. The shafts of the columns are amongst the finest specimens of Roman architecture. Walls and pillars are adorned with variegated marble panels in mosaic patterns. The roofs of the dome and semi-domes are covered with gold mosaics, set in coloured ornamented frames, interspersed with figurative tapestry-like representations. Christ, saints, and prophets, are suspended in golden clouds. The effect on an untutored mind is perfectly intoxicating. Though we do not underrate the fully developed system of stone-roof construction, we must draw the attention of our readers to the heavy and shapeless capitals with the scarcely recognisable Ionic volutes, combined with Corinthian leaf-work; all outlines being smothered by over-ornamentation, destroying the beautiful effect of the antique by a clumsy impost. Byzantine architecture remained stationary for hundreds of years. The religious spirit went hand in hand with their stiff, lifeless art. Ignorance and credulity engendered in the East a boundless intolerance of all divergence of opinion, to which was added an equally boundless toleration of falsehoods and frauds, so soon as these means served to support the received opinions. An intellectual standstill was the result of these principles, and acted on art, rendering it in general as well as in detail an unwieldy mixture of Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, and Roman forms, overloaded with Asiatic filigree composed of lines drawn from Christian symbolism. The Byzantine style of ornamentation will always be, like that of China, a strange element to us. However much the ingenuity of the winding, coiling, and recoiling lines, interspersed with small and large jewels, may interest us, though we