If this great man was unhappy in his death, he was happier than perhaps he knew in the monument that has kept alive the memory of his humanism and of his loyalty. The grace of its proportions, the beauty of its marbles, the delicacy of its sculpture, everything about it sets the church apart as a little masterpiece. Kahrieh Jami is also notable for the faded frescoes in its side chapel, where a portrait of Andronicus II looks ghostlike out of a niche, for in no other Constantinople church does there remain any visible trace of painting—or any such tomb as the one, in the same chapel, of the Grand Constable Michael Tornikes, with a long Greek epitaph. What completes, however, this picture of the last days of Byzantium, what gives Kahrieh Jami its unique interest, are its mosaics. In the nave they are still hidden, waiting as if for the day of release from a strange enchantment. But in the narthexes Mohammedan sensibilities have for once spared two long series of scenes from the life of Christ and the legend of Mary. And they make one ask oneself again why so noble an art is practically lost. For richness of effect no other form of surface ornament can equal it. The modern art of painting is, of course, far more expressive; for that very reason it is less suited to mural decoration. Mosaic can carry farther, and for great spaces or distances it is equally expressive—witness the tragic Christ of Cefalù. Moreover, it has decorative effects of its own which painting never can rival, while its greater brilliancy is better suited to most architectural settings. And it is infinitely more durable. Of the great frescoes of the Renaissance some are already gone, while others crack and darken year by year. The art of Michelangelo and Leonardo will one day be as mythic as that of Zeuxis and Apelles, except for the shadow of it saved by our modern processes of reproduction. But the mosaics of Venice, Ravenna, and Sicily, of Salonica and Constantinople, will last as long as the buildings that contain them. [Illustration: Mosaic from Kahrieh Jami: the Massacre of the Innocents Photograph by Sébah and Joaillier, Constantinople] [Illustration: Giotto’s fresco of the Massacre of the Innocents, in the Arena chapel, Padua Photograph by Alinari Brothers, Florence. Reproduced by permission]