§ 1. BRONZE WORK.
One of the most interesting facts in connection with the building is the lavish use of bronze in construction and decoration. There is every reason to suppose that the bronze casing of the Royal Doorway entering the church from the narthex, was applied long subsequent to the building of the church. We give in [Fig. 65] a sketch of the bronze cornice of this door, with its hooks for the door hangings; the left hand shows the form towards the narthex, the right hand the interior. The deep-splayed casing of the cornice resembling a sarcophagus may have suggested the story quoted by Buzantios,[361] that the body of S. Irene reposed above this doorway. By comparing it with the adjoining marble doorways, it is apparent that the bronze must be laid over similar marble forms, and that this deep-splayed casing simply covers a marble cornice hacked back to one slanting face. Salzenberg gives a detail of the panel at the centre, and the inscription has already been quoted. Such inscriptions were general at the entering in of ancient churches. For instance, a small church[362] in Palestine has the legend, “This is the gate of the Lord, the righteous shall enter in thereat,” and a similar inscription is on the lintel of the early church at Corfu.[363] An isolated lintel at Constantinople has “Open me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter and praise the Lord.” Paulinus says that at the door of his church at Nola was written, “Peace be to thee with peaceful heart and pure, who comest within the secret place of Christ.”
Fig. 65.—Bronze Casing to Royal Doorway. Scale 1/60.
In a paper on the inscriptions at S. Sophia, by C. G. Curtis and S. Aristarchês in the Transactions of the Philological Society[364] of Constantinople the authors point out that S. Sophia was greatly injured by earthquake on the 25th of October, 975, and restored six years afterwards, and say that the form of the letters of the inscription suggests that it was written at this time. Possibly an earthquake gave a very sufficient reason for such a casing, by fracturing the great marble lintel, but there appears to have been a whole series of additions and alterations at this end of the church before this period, and it might very well have been done at the same time as the mosaic above it.
All the doors opening into or from the narthex, with one exception, are cased in bronze on a wood foundation about five inches thick, formed into panels. They are all hung in two leaves, and the back edges against the frame are rounded continuing top and bottom as pivots on which they revolve. The nine doors entering the church are comparatively plain, each leaf being divided into three panels.
The central doors entering the narthex are two panels high, each of which bore a large cross; these were applied separately, the upper one under a round arch on pilasters, and the lower beneath a gable also supported by pilasters. The lower cross is planted on a rock, from which flow the four rivers, symbol of the Gospel preached to the ends of the earth. Part of a verse in the mosaic of the apse at Nola as given by Paulinus makes this symbolism clear.
“Christ the rock
Of all the church, the base of rock sustains
From which as living streams four fountains flow;
The four evangelists, whose words are gone
Through every land.”
The margins, framing the panel of this pair of doors, are decorated with elliptical hollows and pairs of small rosettes alternately (see [Fig. 66]).
Fig. 66.—Central Bronze Door entering Narthex. Scale about three feet to an inch.
The two doors right and left of this central door are less in size; here each leaf is again divided into two panels. The top one has a relief of a chalice from which rises the stem of a cross with crisp acanthus foliage on either side. The lower panel has a large plain cross. These reliefs are all applied to the panels, the crosses being made up of four arms, which are separately inserted into a central boss. The horizontal arms, and in many instances the whole crosses, have been removed by the Mahommedans. The styles and rails of these doors are inlaid with strap-like forms and gammidae in silver, and engraved with a representation of a setting of gems (see [Fig. 67]). These inlaid straps, with seal-like ends, exactly repeat the forms found on door-hangings. See [Fig. 13]. At S. Sophia the forms have certainly been taken from similar veils. The large simplicity of the design of these beautiful bronze doors suggests that they may be of Justinian’s time.
The doors still further from the centre, right and left, that is to say the two end doors of the five entering the narthex, have each leaf divided into three panels. The top and bottom panels are charged with crosses; and the centre one, which is smallest, bears an annular boss; the styles are studded with discs. The south door of narthex, and also the end doors in the west wall of the nave are similar to these; the others in this wall, including the great central door from the narthex, have the big panel in the centre and two smaller ones with circular boss top and bottom (see [Fig. 68]).
Fig. 67.—Bronze Door of Narthex. Scale about four feet to an inch.
The outer doors of the porch at the south end of narthex are still more remarkable. The panel margins are made up of cast bronze decorated with meanders, frets, and leaf mouldings, very delicately modelled in high relief. These are evidently of antique workmanship, possibly they may be as late as the fourth century, but they can hardly have been wrought later. The ancient doors have been enlarged by adding outer margins, consisting of later relief work, and flat metal studded with little leaf ornaments which form the heads of pins. The panels have been filled with plates of bronze, which bear an inscription ingeniously made up of monograms, arranged on crosses in circles; these are deeply engraved into the metal plates and filled with silver. It is interesting to find here an example of the damascened work of which some of the doors in Italy brought from Constantinople are such remarkable specimens.[365] The letters are beautifully designed, and in all cases the horizontal arm of the cross is above the centre of the circle in which it occurs.
Good engravings of these doors are given by Salzenberg, who however incorrectly transcribes and arranges the inscription on the panels. Of this we here give a corrected version, [Fig. 69]. (The top line in the figure is actually above the right-hand monograms.)
The inscription has been deciphered in the previously mentioned Transactions of the Greek Syllogos at Constantinople.
| [ΘΕΟΦΙΛΟΥ ΚΑΙ] ΜΙΧΑΗΛ ΝΙΚΗΤΩΝ | |
| ΚΥΡΙΕ ΒΟΗΘΕΙ | ΘΕΟΦΙΛΩ ΔΕϹΠΟΤΗ |
| ΘΕΟΤΟΚΕ ΒΟΗΘΕΙ | ΘΕΟΔΩΡΑ ΑΥΓΟΥϹΤΗ |
| ΧΡΙϹΤΕ ΒΟΗΘΕΙ | ΜΙΧΑΗΛ ΔΕϹΠΟΤΗ |
| ΕΤΟΥϹ ΑΠΟ-ΚΤΙϹΕΩϹ | ΚΟϹΜΟΥ SΤΜΘ ΙΝΔ.Δ |
| (of Theophilus and) | Michael Conquerors |
| (1) Lord, help | (2) Theophilos Emperor |
| (3) Mother of God, help | (4) Theodora Augusta |
| (5) Christ, help | (6) Michael Emperor |
| (7) Year from the creation | (8) of the world 6349. Ind. 4 |
The sixth and eighth monograms show evidence of having been altered. The silver has been removed from the earlier form, and the grooves having been filled up with bronze fresh letters were inlaid: the lines stopped out however show a different colour from the original ground, and so the palimpsest can be read. The revision was made “after the birth of Michael the first son of Theophilus in 839 and his coronation in the year 840.[366] Before this time the monogram of John the patriarch, which may still be traced, occupied the position of Michael’s monogram: and instead of 6349 Indiction 4, the date was 6347 Indiction 2, thus giving the year beginning September 838, when John the Sixth was Patriarch of Constantinople.”[367] The inscription “Michael Conquerors” (which is formed by piercing a bronze plate, not by damascening, as shown by Salzenberg) occupies the top of the right-hand leaf of the door: that on the left corresponding to it is lost. MM. Curtis and Aristarches have restored this as above. The existing words, it is evident, must have been added after Michael’s birth and with the alteration of the monograms probably form a memorial of his coronation. Murray’s Handbook 1893 suggests that the word Nikêtôn refers to the restoration of images; but the revision of the inscription was made during the lifetime of Theophilus, who was the last of the iconoclastic emperors. According to Muralt[368] Theophilus died Jan. 20 A.M. 6350 (842). Just before, feeling himself to be dying, he made the empress swear not to re-establish images, and not to depose the patriarch John. Three weeks however after the emperor’s death, Methodius was named patriarch. “The victory of the image-worshippers was celebrated by the installation of the long-banished pictures in S. Sophia on the 19th of February 842, just thirty days after the death of Theophilus.”[369] It is almost certain that the conjectural restoration is correct for Theophilus and Michael are thus associated in a mural inscription[370] and Niketes was a common title from Constantine downwards. On the panels are certain pin-holes[371] placed symmetrically between the monograms; these must have been for the attachment of reliefs.
Fig. 68.—Bronze Doors in Narthex. Scale about four feet to an inch.
Fig. 69.—Inscription Damascened in Silver on Bronze Door.
The Anonymous author speaks of doors of “elektron” and of silver dipped in gold, but we cannot rely on this any more than on his 365 doors of ivory.
Electrum is incorrectly translated as amber in the last edition of Murray’s Guide (1893). Labarte pointed out that enamel forms the right equivalent, and for this interpretation he has ample authority. Theophilus, the Byzantine writer on the arts, continually uses the word for glass enamels, either set as separate jewels, or fused as translucent enamels to a metal base. A note in the English edition of this writer explains that this use of the word was probably extended from amber to cover other transparent bodies of similar appearance. From the lavish way in which enamel was used about the tenth century it is possible that some of the doors such as those in the iconostasis might have been enamelled.
As to the “dipping” of silver or bronze with gold the Silentiary tells us that Justinian “overlaid with gold” the bronze zones of the columns; and the annulets of the porphyry columns at the east entrance still show gilding. Buzantios[372] quotes from a MS. chemical treatise in the Paris library which mentions “dipping bronze like the doors of S. Sophia,” and Fossati says the head of the Royal Door was gilt.
Theophilus explains in detail how bronze or silver might be gilt by fire-gilding, the process here called dipping. The copper in the bronze had to be pure and free from lead. The gold was ground very fine and cooked with mercury. This amalgam was then applied to the surface with a copper bit, like that plumbers use in soldering, and polished with a wire brush.
We have given sketches of the bronze collars which surround the columns, at the junction of capital and shaft, and just above the bases. The porphyry columns in the two western exedras have many intermediate annulets at unequal heights; these in some cases were doubtless intended to bind up longitudinal fractures in the shafts, which show in many places; but in other instances they appear to cover the junction of separate drums of porphyry. These are all shown in Grelot’s interior view. The principal collars are certainly of the time of Justinian; those under the capitals have square metal bosses or boxes covering the point where they meet and are pinned together. These “seals” of the great order bear the monograms of Justinian and Theodora.
The annulets at the base are made continuous at the joint, and have the appearance of being brazed: those of the main order are now kept brightly polished. One of the base annulets in the north gallery is signed by a monogram as the work “of Stephen.”[373]
Besides the hooks, in the form of upturned fingers, for the hangings at the bronze door, similar hooks occur in the marble lintels of the doors in the narthex and the exonarthex.