Hagia Sophia

“ Eugenius dates from the period of the Grand-Comneni; but the frescos on the western wall, which some travellers have noticed, are now nothing more than patches of colour. It is a somewhat larger edifice than Hagia Sophia, which, although less graceful, it resembles in some respects. The dome rests upon two fluted columns on the west side, while, on the east, it is supported by piers. A flood of light fills the interior, which is plain and bare, the church having been converted to the service of Islam by the Ottoman conqueror. ”

“ The church of Hagia Sophia, or the Divine Wisdom, now converted into a mosque, has been described as one of the most interesting monuments of Byzantine architecture, sculpture, and painting that time has spared.2 This appreciation can only be partially tested by the traveller of the present day, because the frescos which once covered the interior of the building have been daubed over with successive coats of whitewash. ”

“ Justinian, who, famed for his literature and his wars, built a church in Constantinople to Divine Wisdom; that is, to the Lord Jesus Christ, which he called Hagia Sophia; a work, as they report, surpassing every other edifice in the world, and where ocular inspection proves it superior to its most pompous descriptions: Justin the Younger; Tiberius, Mauricius, the first Greek; Focas, Heraclius, Heracleonas, Constans, Constantine, the son of Heraclius ”

“ But in the Arabian world Islam, the heir of Monophysite and Nestorian Christianity and of the Jews and the Persians, carried the development through to the end. When it turned Hagia Sophia into a mosque it only resumed possession of an old property. Islamic domical building followed Mazdaist and Nestorian along the same tracks to Shan-tung and to India. Mosques grew up in the far West in Spain and Sicily, where, moreover, the style appears rather in its East-Aramæan-Persian than in its West-Aramæan-Syrian mode. ”

“ For a long time I was fully aware of nothing but the vast harmony of Santa Sophia, descending upon me, wrapping me round. I saw moving figures, tiny, yet full of meaning, passing in luminous distances, pausing, bending, kneeling; a ray of light falling upon a white turban; an Arab in a long pink robe leaning against a column of dusky red porphyry; a dove circling under the dome as if under the sky. But I could not be strongly conscious of any detail, or be enchanted by any separate beauty. ”

“ Moreover, the words of the ‘Preacher,’ in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, “Wisdom (Σοφία) is the mother of fair Love and Hope and holy Fear,” suggested an allegory of a holy woman with three daughters so called, and thus, in compliment, no doubt, to the glorious newly-built church, the niece of Justinian’s empress, afterwards wife to his nephew and successor, was called Sophia, a name which thenceforward became the fashion among 107the purple-born daughters, and spread from them among the Slavonian nations, who regarded Constantinople as the centre of civilization. ”

“ And she wondered whether Rosamund, in her Sisterhood, was happier than she was in the world. In the Sisterhood there must surely be peace—monotony, drudgery, perhaps, but peace.
Santa Sophia, with its vast spaces, its airy dome, its great arches and galleries, its walls of variegated marble, its glittering mosaics and columns of porphyry, to-day made her realize that in her life of adventure and passion she was driven, as if by a demon with a whip, and that her horrible situation with Dion was but the culmination of a series of horrible situations. ”

“ To some art critics, and notably to Jesuit writers, whose sympathy with the genuine expression of artistic ideas has never been profound, S. Sophia seems to mark not only the culmination of Byzantine art but a distinct step in its decadence. Supreme indeed it is, but it is difficult for any one who knows Constantinople to doubt that the work which is at its greatest in S. Sophia was continued centuries after Anthemius had passed away. The same dignity, and sincerity, and splendour, are striven for, and if they are never attained it is only because the greatest genius is never repeated. ”

“ They, however, only breathed in action; and though imperial etiquette and Byzantine manners, prejudices, and traditions forbade them to appear in public, even Byzantine traditions offered them models to follow. Had not Pulcheria, daughter of an emperor, reigned at Constantinople in the name of her brother, the incapable Theodosius? Had she not contracted a nominal marriage with the brave Marcian, who was her sword against the barbarians?
Here was the ideal that Sophia could propose to herself; to be a czardievitsa, a "woman-emperor." ”

“ Go, Sophia, go!
From then on she was alone.
What am I? What is a woman alone?
Not a queen or an empress, not a wife or a mother, not a daughter, not a nun. Not mistress, now that Michael and Manfred had each sent her away. Not courtesan or even harlot.
Crossing the Bosporus to Asia Minor, she had survived. She did not care to remember the means by which she survived. Of all of them, the least dishonorable was theft.
She let herself be used, and she could be very useful. She found her way to the Byzantine general Michael Paleologos, who wanted to take Constantinople back from the Franks. ”

“ Sophia, the baths of Zeuxippus, a part of the palace, from the first entrance to the altar of Mars, and the long portico from the palace to the forum of Constantine; a large hospital, with the sick patients, was consumed; many churches and stately edifices were destroyed, and an immense treasure of gold and silver was either melted or lost. From such scenes of horror and distress, the wise and wealthy citizens escaped over the Bosphorus to the Asiatic side; and during five days Constantinople was abandoned to the factions, whose watch-word, Nika, vanquish! ”

“ Notwithstanding the beauty and attractiveness of M. Louis Haghe's magnificent lithographs of Chevalier Fossati's drawings published in the "Aya Sofia," the subject has received in England far less attention than it deserves. There is not an incident in Byzantine history with which the church of St. Sophia is not associated. There is not a characteristic of Byzantine art of which it does not contain abundant examples. ”

“ Dignified in his soul and thought,
When he located the apses and the exedras,
Pointing them to West and East?
The temple bathed in the world is beautiful,
And the forty windows are the triumph of light ”

“ One may not wander through them; one may not sit in them; one may only look at them, and long to lose oneself in their darkness and silence, to vanish in their secret recesses. The Turk leaves them alone, to rot or to flourish, as Allah and Nature will it.
On the third of Stamboul's seven hills stands the Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, all glorious without, as Santa Sophia is not, but disappointing within, despite its beautiful windows of jeweled glass from Persia, and the plaques of wonderful tiles which cover the wall on either side of the mihrab. ”

“ In the church are lamps of the purest silver and gold, and their number cannot be counted. The church is opened and closed by seven hundred and fifty-two double doors, and there are windows innumerable. There are seven hundred prebendary priests, of which three hundred and fifty take each week in turn. Now the Patriarch of Agia Sophia has in that city one hundred metropolitans and archbishops, and each metropolitan has seven suffragans in the same city. ”

“ A. xx. 14, which refers to the more commonplace part of the story as told by the Anonymous. “That famous city is endowed with wonderful and inestimable wealth. In it may be seen the famous church Agia Sophia, that is the Holy Wisdom; an angel of God appeared and taught the workmen as they were building. Underneath the church in its cisterns there is refreshing water, some of which is salt and some of it rainwater. The church below is borne on one hundred and seventy-three columns of marbles, and above on two hundred and forty-six. ”

“ The grand church of Santa Sophia, close to the Seraglio, is no longer the most magnificent edifice in the universe, as it was in the time of Justinian, for even the neighbouring mosque of Sultan Ahmed far exceeds it in beauty and elegance. It is a clumsy building, supported by buttresses added at various times to keep it from falling. The character of the interior has been changed by the Turks, who have introduced additional pillars, and the once bright mosaics have been covered over; but the dome never fails to strike the beholder: it is a marvel of strength and lightness. ”

“ Near by in front of the door which is behind the altar of S. Sophia is the place where they bless the water, plunging in the Cross; a roof covered with lead surmounts the basin of green marble. It is here they baptize the emperors; four cypresses and two palms form a crescent in this place. Some distance in front of the ambo of S. Sophia is a pedestal of marble which supports the holy chalice; it is within a stone inclosure, and is covered by a vault of gilt copper. From the entrance of the church to the ambo is 66 cubits, and it is 30 beyond to the sanctuary, which is 50 long by 100 wide. ”

“ A monk at length succeeded in persuading the sick man to consent, and he was carried on a mattress to a steam frigate which was to convey him from Bari to Portici in order to avoid any stop at Naples. From Portici to Caserta the five hours’ journey caused the unfortunate sovereign such torture that the Archbishop of Naples ordered continuous prayers to be offered for him in all the churches. Once amid these new surroundings—the lofty halls and salons of the palace, the enchanting park and gardens—Maria Sophia’s spirits rose, and she felt almost happy again. ”

“ Sophia at Constantinople, it was for centuries a Christian cathedral; like the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem, it is built upon a spot consecrated by the most ancient religious rites. Situated in the midst of the most densely peopled part of the city, and pressed on all sides by its most crowded bazaars, occupying a quadrangle nearly five hundred feet one way by over three hundred the other, the wanderer among the shops is constantly coming to one side or another of it, and getting glimpses through the spacious portals of the colonnaded court within. ”

“ Swaggering German officers were everywhere; for the German occupation is firmly established, and nearly as complete as at Constantinople. There seemed to be no social life, dulness reigning supreme, and I longed for the brightness and plenty of Bucharest. Curiously enough, the most striking thing about Sofia is the Turkish Baths, which have their place in a wonderful new building; they are considered the finest Turkish Baths in the world. ”

“ But many hues are mingled with them: yellow and black, deep plum-color and red, green, brown, and very dark blue. The windows, which are heavily grated, have no painted glass, so the mosque is not dark. It has a sort of lovely and delicate dimness, touching as the dimness of twilight. It is divinely calm, almost as Nature can be when she would bring her healing to the unquiet human spirit. We know that during the recent war Santa Sophia was crowded with suffering fugitives, with dying soldiers and cholera patients. ”

“ Everything slips into the heart of the great harmony, however precious, however simple, even however crude. There are a few ugly things in Santa Sophia: whitewash covering mosaics, stains of fierce yellow, blotches of plaster which should be removed. They do not really matter; one cannot heed them when one is immersed in such almost mysterious beauty.
THE MOSQUE OF SANTA SOPHIA
Men and birds are at ease in Santa Sophia. ”

“ In the Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, only four piers and four columns, the latter from Byzantine buildings,191 break the interior view. In the Mosque of Sultan Achmed, only four piers uphold the roof. And at the same time, what spaciousness! What loftiness and grandeur! If in these mosques one misses the warmth of feeling awakened in S. Sophia, one finds the same sense of the majesty of Heaven, the same suggestion of the littleness of man.
But, if we must not look for grandeur in the churches of Constantinople outside S. Sophia, we meet with much that is exceedingly attractive. ”

“ They are mere ghosts, their skeletons wrapped in a shroud of whitewash. Still the Greek artist retained his skill to the last, and the decorative work of S. Saviour in the Chora will stand comparison even with the similar work in S. Sophia.
In Byzantine times the greatness of S. Sophia tended to crush competition. No other ecclesiastical building approached the 'Great Church.' But structural ability was only latent, and displayed its old power again in the erection of the imperial mosques of the early Turkish Sultans, for they too are monuments of Greek architectural genius. ”

“ Many years have passed since the Rose of Starnberg Lake was planted at the foot of Vesuvius, many since Francis the Second’s tottering throne collapsed, burying the hopes of a lifetime. But time has treated Maria Sophia gently. If she has wept bitter tears, the world has seen no trace of them. Her smile is still that of the beautiful young Queen of Naples, and she has kept that youth of the heart that never fades. But what her thoughts are as she goes about among her pets, no one knows. Does she still see Gaeta at times behind its dark, receding cliffs? ”