1

"among all the Christian sanctuaries of the world, there is not another with a nave at once so spacious and so symmetrical as this." The second feature is the marvellous richness of decoration. Even now the immemorial pillars, which had stood in the temple of Baalbek before Christ lived. on earth, are glorious in their beauty. Porphyry and verde antique, of colossal size, surmounted by elaborately carved capitals, with the monograms, undefaced, of Justinian and Theodora, they stand, to all appearance, as they have stood for thirteen hundred years. And if the dignity of the great columns impresses, the beauty of the varied work on the capitals attracts and interests. There may be traced the growth of Byzantine art, foreign influence, and ancient survival. Emblem and monogram and device enrich the new impost-capital, which, in its 1 Grosvenor, Constantinople, vol. ii. pp. 514, 515.

four main varieties, is found in the great church.

The minute care which is shown in these designs' is seen no less in the decoration of doors-much of which still remains—and the beauty of bronzes and inscriptions. Of the mosaics, which were once the greatest adornment of the building, and made the great dome glitter like the firmament of heaven, many remain and were restored by Forsati. Four only are visible without any covering. On the pendentives of the dome are four gigantic seraphim with six wings. Only the face is painted over; the wings, as seen from below, seem a dark brown relieved by a blue-grey. In the vault of the apse the figure of the Lord may be seen dimly, through the paint, in a favourable light; but, practically, the immense

1

Many are admirably reproduced by Messrs. Lethaby and Swainson, as also by Salzenberg.

seraphs are all that the worshipper now beholds of the magnificent decoration with which Justinian enriched the triumph of his architect's genius. Bema, ikonostasis, ambo, then glittered with jewels, treasures, relics, and "the splendour of the lighted interior," with its thousands of lamps, guided the mariner to sea "by the divine light of the church itself." Of all this nothing now is left; it is the marvellous architectural triumph which still makes S. Sophia supreme among churches; and that nothing but the destruction of the building can take

away.

Of the outside of S. Sophia little need be said. It has suffered from countless disfigurements, and probably was never decorated. Only its size impresses, and the great dome still towers over the surrounding buildings. Of these in general it is not necessary to speak. One example only of

the building of the age must be mentioned. The sixth century was rich in baptisteries. At the north-east angle of S. Sophia there still remains a circular building which may very probably be the baptistery of Constantine's Church.1 At the south-west is the baptistery of Justinian's building, a rectangle externally, and within an octagon with a low dome. In it was buried Mustapha I. in 1622. When I saw it it was deep in dust, and was being repaired and repainted within, over the twelfth century mosaics. Both these baptisteries closely resemble those at Ravenna. There the "Arian baptistery," S. Maria in Cosmedin, and the "Orthodox baptistery," S. Giovanni in Fonte, are both octagonal and domical. In both the ancient mosaics are resplendent. In each the centre of the dome is occupied

As Lethaby and Swainson, pp. 19, 20, 154, 155, 183, 217.