The Church of Sancta Sophia, Constantinople: A Study of Byzantine BuildingLethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
Religion
The Church of Sancta Sophia, Constantinople: A Study of Byzantine Building
Lethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
Ayasofya Müzesi
(“Draw the water with gladness, for the voice of the Lord is upon the
waters”); together with a monogram which reads ΝΙΚΟΜΕΔΟΥ. Beneath the
monogram appears a stopping where evidently a tap was fixed, in exactly
the position of those to the urns in S. Sophia. The first half of the
latter inscription is on a small vessel of lead found at Tunis, which,
from the character of the decoration, cannot be later than the fourth
or fifth century. The first mention of the vessels in S. Sophia which
we have been able to find is by an English traveller, Fynes Moryson
(1595), who says, “I did see two nuts of marble of huge bigness and
great beauty.”
We give in Fig. 11 the vessel in the south exedra at S. Sophia,
together with that of Murano, and for further comparison some beautiful
vessels from a relief of Justinian’s time on the ivory throne at
Ravenna. We have omitted the Turkish top of the former. Canon Curtis,
who has specially examined them, writes to us that between the top and
body of each vessel is a copper band which conceals the joint, if there
is a joint.
_Images and Tombs._--Very few fragments of Christian sculpture remain
in Constantinople. The Silentiary does not mention any sculpture at S.
Sophia. Probably the feeling which was mature in Leo the Isaurian was
always latent; Oriental Christians sharing in the dislike with which
Jew and Moslem regarded statues. Canon Curtis writes: “On the northern
side of the sweating column I used to see parts of a bas-relief
representing, as I thought, a procession, but it was almost concealed
by the metal plates, and now it is entirely hidden.” The wealth of
the church in icons at a late period may be gathered from incidental
references. Not until a late time do we hear of any tombs in the
church. S. Chrysostom and most of the other patriarchs were buried in
the Church of the Holy Apostles.
Pachymeres mentions “the stele of the three Germani (Patriarchs of
Constantinople) near the porphyry columns on the west.” Nicephorus
Gregoras[147] also writes that the remains of the patriarch Arsenius
were buried in the great Church of S. Sophia.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Water Vessels from S. Sophia and Murano.]
_Hangings._--The descriptions on several occasions mention veils and
hangings by the names of _vela_ and _velothyra_. With mosaics and
miniatures to help us it is possible to judge of the lavish way in
which these hangings were used.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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