When this, the church of the world, fell into the hands of the Turks, many stories came to the West, or arose there without coming. The poetry of the Fall required the miraculous salvation of the priest celebrating mass, and the prophecy of his return as told by Theo. Gautier. It also required a massacre in the church, the riding in of the proud conqueror, and the mark of his blood-stained hand, which indeed is still pointed out some twenty feet above the pavement! Mijatovich, in his history of the last of the emperors, regards the massacre as unhistorical. An English romance almost contemporary with the Fall tells us how the Turks took possession, “For to let theyr hawkys fly In the chirch of Saint Sofy.” CHAPTER VIII FOSSATI’S REPARATIONS. SALZENBERG’S DESCRIPTION. Sancta Sophia seems really to have been in a dangerous condition when, in 1847, the Sultan Abdul Mesjid began a much-needed work of reparation which was carried on under the guidance of the Italian architect Fossati, who appears to have taken great pains, and notwithstanding some alterations and “restorations” in the worst sense he deserves our gratitude for probably saving the building. In the preface to his lithograph views published in London in 1852 he says, “The portions of the building that looked most threatening were reconstructed, and the lead roofs were repaired. The dome was relieved of four heavy buttress arches, whose function was taken by a double ceincture of iron around its base. Thirteen columns of the gynaeceum, which were inclining under the thrust of the great arches that support the dome, were put straight again.” The marble work of the interior was cleaned, and the gold mosaic vaults were cleared of the crust of limewash which concealed them. All representations of figures were however covered again. The sultan’s tribune was built, Fossati says, “in the Byzantine style.” The walls outside, after being repaired, were covered with a coating of plaster on which red stripes were painted. Since this time various remains of the Great Court, which existed as late as 1873, have entirely disappeared, and the broad bare space, in front of the exonarthex, has little now to recall the atrium with its fountain and quadriporticus.