Byzantine Churches in Constantinople: Their History and ArchitectureVan Millingen, Alexander
Philosophy
Byzantine Churches in Constantinople: Their History and Architecture
Van Millingen, Alexander
Architecture, Byzantine; Church architecture -- Turkey -- Istanbul; Church buildings -- Turkey -- Istanbul
To which of the many saints named Theodore in the Greek Calendar this
church was actually dedicated is a point open to discussion, but we
cannot go far wrong in ascribing it to one of the two most prominent
saints of that name, or, as sometimes was the case, to both of them, S.
Theodore the Tiro and S. Theodore the General. The former was a young
soldier in the Roman army who was tortured and put to death in 306 for
not taking part in the persecution of Christians under Maximian. The
latter was a general in the army of Licinius, and won the martyr's crown
for refusing to sacrifice to false gods, and for breaking their images
in pieces. He was the titular saint of the great church in Venice before
that honour was bestowed upon S. Mark the Evangelist. His relics were
carried to Venice from Constantinople in 1260, and his figure still
stands on one of the columns in the Piazzetta of S. Mark, with the
attribute of a dragon or a crocodile, symbolic of the false gods he
destroyed.[422]
_Architectural Features_
The church is a good example of the 'four column' type, with an outer
and an inner narthex. The former is in five bays, and extends to the
north and south, by one bay, beyond the inner narthex and the body of
the church. The terminal bays, it would seem, led to cloisters built
against the exterior of the northern and southern sides of the building.
Le Noir and Salzenberg[423] show a cloister along the south side of the
church, with four columns and an apse at its end. The central bay and
the two terminal bays are covered with domes on high drums, without
windows. The dome of the central bay has sixteen lobed bays, while its
companions have each eight flat ribs. All traces of the mosaics which
Salzenberg saw in the central dome have disappeared. On the exterior the
three domes are octagonal, decorated with flat niches and angle shafts
supporting an arched cornice. The exonarthex deserves special attentions
on account of its façade. It is a fine composition of two triple
arcades, separated by a solid piece of masonry containing the door. On
either side of the door, and on the piers at each end of the façade, are
slender flat niches, similar to those which occur in S. Mark's, Venice.
The finely carved capitals of the columns differ in type, the two
northern being a variant of the 'melon type,' the pair to the south
being Corinthian. They are probably old capitals re-used. Throughout
the building are traces of stones from some older building recut or
adapted to the present church. Between the columns is a breastwork of
carved marble slabs similar in style to those seen in S. Mark's and in
S. Fosca, Torcello.[424] The upper part of the façade does not
correspond to the composition below it, but follows the divisions of the
internal vaulting. It is in five circular-arched bays, each containing
an arched window. The infilling is of brick in various patterns. The
cornice looks Turkish. While the masonry of the lower portion of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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