[Illustration: FIG. 24.--Plans of Additions to West End. A and C North and South Porches; B Belfry.] The north and south porches and great lateral stairways, which injuriously altered the exterior, must also have been built by Michael or Basil, as we find them mentioned in the _Book of Ceremonies._ In October 975 an earthquake caused the “hemisphere with the western arch (_apsis_) to fall.”[205] They were restored again by the same emperor in six years: he spent, Scylitzes says, “on the machines for mounting for the workmen to stand on, and for raising the scaffolding, to build what was fallen; ten centenaria of gold.”[206] According to Glycas, Romanus Argyrus (1028) beautified the capitals; Scylitzes also says this emperor “made bright with silver and gold both the capitals of the great church and of our Lady of Blachernae.”[207] The injuries wrought by the Crusaders to S. Sophia are referred to in Chapter V. Baldwin was crowned here in 1204, and for fifty-seven years Catholic priests read masses at its altar. On the recapture the Byzantine emperors made an effort to restore, but the church never recovered its former splendour. The patriarch Arsenius during the reign of Michael Palaeologus “restored the bema and ambo and solea at the king’s expense, besides enriching the church with vestments and sacred vessels.”[208] In the first half of the fourteenth century, Andronicus Palaeologus, the elder, strengthened the north and east sides. Nicephorus Gregoras says the emperor “heard from several experienced builders that in a short time the parts towards the north and east would give way, and fall unless strengthened. And he built pyramidal structures from the foundations and prevented the threatened destruction,” but bricks and mosaic continued to fall.[209] The pyramidal structures to the east must be the four great sloping buttresses which stand over the low attached buildings on that side; they are shown on Fossati’s plan. Gregoras also inveighs against the Empress Anna as having, in the reign of Cantacuzenus, robbed the church of furniture and ornaments, and says that tyranny and oppression were the chief causes of the destruction of the church. Cantacuzenus, in his own history,[210] speaks of the damage caused by an earthquake in 1346, when about a third of the roof fell, destroying “the great stoa by the side of the bema” (perhaps the iconostasis). This is also referred to by Gregoras, “the easternmost of the four arches which rival heaven fell, dragging with it the part of the house which rested on it. The hidden beauty of the bema was destroyed as well as its ornaments of sacred icons.”[211] The stoa and bema were restored by the Empress Anna, the wife of Andronicus Palaeologus, Phaceolatus being prefect of the works, but the upper parts with the roof had to wait until the accession of Cantacuzenus in 1347. He restored the decoration both in marble and mosaic, a work which John Palaeologus finished. Both