§ 2. LIGHTING.
The description by the Silentiary[189] of the lamps and candelabra which illuminated the Great Church forms one of the most fascinating parts of the whole poem. Although the multitude of lamps which once lit up the interior have long disappeared, the main features of the lighting may be brought back to our imaginations by comparing the description with illustrative examples. First then in the central space under the great dome, chains fell from the height of the upper cornice, where they were probably attached to strong bronze arms which projected far out like the present metal stakes which project in the exedras on the first-floor cornice. These chains all terminated at some height above the floor in supporting the great sweep of a metal circle to which were suspended flat circular discs of silver, each of which was pierced with holes into which were dropped glass oil vases with rims which prevented them falling through. With these discs were associated crosses of metal which also carried lamps. These, cross and disc together, or alternately, hanging round in a great circle made a “circling chorus of bright lights” within which was a large corona of other lamps and above it a large central disc.
Then along the sides of the church were rows of lamps in the forms of silver bowls, and ships; other rows of lights were attached to beams supported above the floor by metal standards, and to projecting metal arms, or suspended rods. Upon the beam of the iconostasis was a row of candelabra, each with a series of horizontal circles diminishing upwards about the stem, like a fir-tree, issuing from a silver bowl. Above the centre of the iconostasis was a great standard light-bearing cross. Round about the ambo similar light trees were placed.
Light coronae, crosses, or single lamps were favourite gifts to a church, and in these objects S. Sophia probably became much more wealthy as time went on. Michael III., for instance, gave to the church in 867 “a circle (kuklos) for lights which they call a polycandelon, as big as any of the others but all of gold weighing sixty pounds. To it was given the first and most holy place.”[190] “A chalice and paten superior to all the others, as well as a polycandelon in the form of a cross with many lamps,” are also mentioned as given by Michael. His successor Basil I., “as there was a danger of the sacred lamps being extinguished for want of oil,” assigned for the use of the church “the tribute called mantea, so that the light might never be quenched.”[191] The Anonymous doubtless exaggerates beyond belief with his 300 polycandela and 6000 lamps all of gold, but the kinds of candelabra he speaks of must have been perfectly well known (p. [140]).
Fig. 16.—Polycandelon or Disc, for Seventeen Lamps, in the British Museum.
At the end of the twelfth century, Robert de Clari, the knight of Amiens, wrote—“Throughout the church hang one hundred candelabra, and there is not one which does not hang from a silver chain as thick as a man’s arm, and each candelabrum has quite twenty-five lamps or more, and there is not a single candelabrum which is not worth two hundred silver marks.” Benjamin of Tudela mentions “candelabra, lamps, and lanterns, of gold and silver more than any man can name;” and Stephen of Novgorod (1350) speaks of “a multitude immense, innumerable, of lamps.”
Of the great brilliance of illumination obtained in the early churches there can be no doubt. Paulinus writes that at his church at Nola the lights were suspended in such profusion that they seemed to float in a sea. An interesting account of the method of lighting followed at the Lateran, illustrated by a plan of the circles, is given by Rohault de Fleury.[192]
A Byzantine lamp-holder lately sent to the Louvre from Constantinople is probably almost identical in general form with the “discs” of Paulus. This polycandelon is a broad flat ring of bronze pierced with eight holes for as many lights, and suspended by four chains. It bears a votive inscription which reads, “Lord, remember thee of Thy servant Abraham, son of Constantine.”[193]
In the British Museum is a much more ornate example of the same kind of disc. This is also of bronze, about sixteen inches diameter, pierced with seventeen holes for the lights, the interspaces being cut away to form a radiating pattern. We give a drawing of this interesting lamp, with which we have associated a small pierced plate for a lamp chain in the same collection ([Fig. 16]). In the Archæological Museum at Granada there is an ornamental disc closely resembling the example in the British Museum. It came from the mosque of Elvira, and probably belongs to the ninth century. We mention this because the bottom plate of the modern mosque lamp with the small holes which take glass tubular vessels eight or ten inches long and only about two inches in diameter, continues the tradition of the Byzantine polycandela, and the oil vessels well represent those like spear shafts mentioned by the Poet.
Fig. 17.—Silver Polycandelon from Lampsacus, in the British Museum.
In another example in the British Museum the disc is not quite flat but of the form of a dinner plate, the holes for the lamps being around the rim. This lamp-holder is of silver, and was brought from Lampsacus near Gallipoli with several altar vessels inscribed with a monogram which reads ΜΗΝΑ or ΑΜΗΝ. In [Fig. 17] we have restored the oil vases. Another bronze polycandelon has recently been brought from Egypt by Professor Flinders Petrie: this is about eight inches across ([Fig. 18][194]).
Fig. 18.—Coptic Polycandelon for Four Lamps.
On Mount Athos we probably find the best existing parallel to the circle of discs at S. Sophia in the monastery of Docheiareiu (see [Fig. 19]).[195] In the words of the Silentiary, “these discs form a coronet.”
The second crown of lights, which hung within the great circle of discs at S. Sophia, would also have had a circular rim supported by chains with lamps suspended beneath, or attached to arms projecting from the rim. S. Bernard speaks of a church where were placed “not crowns but wheels with precious stones and lights around them.” To these circular candelabra ecclesiastical writers usually give the title of coronae. Leo III. gave to the basilica of S. Andrew at Rome a “gold corona of lamps set with gems.” Other authors call crowns with lamps of this kind phara; we read in Leo Ostiensis of a “pharum or large crown of silver with six and thirty lamps hanging from it.”[196] They are also spoken of as cycli, but more generally as polycandela. The Chronicon Cassinense mentions “a pharos or crown of silver, weighing a hundred librae, twenty cubits round about, with twelve towers projecting from it, and thirty-six lamps hanging from it. This was fixed outside the choir, before the great cross, by an iron chain adorned with seven gold apples.”[197] The same chronicle also speaks of a “silver-gilt corona, coloured with precious stones, with six crosses hanging from it.” The great circles of Aix and Hildesheim are the best-known examples of the ancient coronae. These have twelve towers like that just mentioned, and they symbolised the New Jerusalem. R. de Fleury suggests that relics were contained in such turrets. An extremely beautiful pharos in the Hermitage Museum represents a basilica.
Fig. 19.—Corona with Lamp Discs, Mount Athos.
The light crosses were very generally known throughout Christendom, and the historian Socrates mentions that crosses of silver with burning candles upon them were carried in processions in the time of Chrysostom. According to Anastasius, at S. Peter’s there was a large pharos “in the form of a cross which hung before the presbyterium having 1,370 candles;” this was lighted four times a year; also “a gold carved cross hanging before the altar with twelve candles,” and “a cross lamp with two little ships and three fishes.” The lamp cross hanging in S. Mark’s is the best-known example remaining. It is possible that those at S. Sophia mentioned with the discs hung horizontally to four chains.
Fig. 20.—Single Lamp with Votive Inscription.
At S. Sophia, in addition to the discs, crosses, and circles, there were, according to Du Cange, lamps hung from nets. The word which he interprets in this way is that translated “skiff” (line 480), as it means a small row-boat. How he gets his interpretation of nets it is difficult to see. We mention it here for its intrinsic beauty only: it was a familiar arrangement for lamps. Anastasius in his Lives of the Popes speaks of one of the churches at Rome having “a pharos in the form of a net,” and again of a large pharos “like a net with twenty baskets,” and also “a bronze net with silver baskets.”
The hanging lamps in the form of ships mentioned by our poet would have carried the oil vessels round their sides. A most interesting example of a lamp of this kind is given in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (Smith and Cheetham). It represents a small vessel with a mast and sail, containing two figures, one steering, and the other looking out from the prow. These figures are either Peter and Paul or more probably Christ and Peter. The symbolism of the ship for the Church is too familiar to need comment; the mast in the centre, without which the ship is unsafe, as S. Ambrose says, typifies the cross without which the church is unable to stand. The galley form of lamp was well known also in antiquity. In the Christian era it was only one of the many beautiful and suggestive forms in which lamps were made; some resembled birds, crystal fish, or shells, others again were bowls of white or emerald glass.
Fig. 21.—Sixth-century Candlestick.
In the sanctuary there would have been suspended large single lamps which burnt perpetually (Akoimetoi). A very fine single Byzantine lamp of this kind is shown in the fifteenth-century picture by Marco Marziale in the National Gallery, in which the interior of S. Mark’s figures as the temple. In [Fig. 20] we give a restoration of fragments of a beautiful early Christian bowl-shaped lamp bearing a votive inscription figured by Rossi. On Mount Athos Dr. Covel noticed a lamp of beaten gold set with jewels.
The treasury of S. Mark’s probably still contains lamps which hung in S. Sophia: one of especial beauty is a glass bowl with circles cut on the outside and attached to a metal rim on which is inscribed in Greek, “St. Panteleon, succour thy servant Zacchariah, Archbishop of Iberia, Amen.”[198]
In illustration of the tree-like candelabra which stood above the beam of the iconostasis, and round the ambo, we may mention the well-known classical examples. A lamp-bearer in the museum at Brussels is described as “an arbuste of considerable size and irregular trunk and branches with lamps suspended from the extremities of its boughs.” Anastasius mentions a “tree of bronze with candlesticks to the number of fifty in which were placed wax candles, thirty-six lamps as well hung from the boughs.” Paulinus also speaks of hanging candelabra at Nola “with branches like a vine bearing little glass cups which resembled burning fruit; when they were lighted it was like the sudden burst into life of spring flowers.”
Fig. 22.—Candlesticks.
Besides all these oil lamps there would have been a great number of standing candlesticks in the sanctuary. The Anonymous speaks of some the height of a man. One constant type is represented in [Fig. 21]; this is inlaid in mother-of-pearl on the apse walls at Parenzo, and is of Justinian’s time. [Fig. 22] shows two others from the Menologium. Wax candles, which are frequently mentioned, were patterned and coloured.
The miracle of the moving cross of lights mentioned by Anthony reminds us of a remarkable custom in regard to the great coronas of lights in Byzantine churches which is observed on Mount Athos, and also at Sinai, and is probably ancient. A part of the great festival service at Vatopedi consists in singing the Polyeleos. “When the last of the multitude of candles had been lighted in the great coronas under the domes, the monks fetched long poles, with which they pushed out the candelabra to the full extent that their suspending chains permitted and then let them go, the result being that in a few minutes the whole church was filled with slowly swinging lights.”[199]
The method of lighting described by the Silentiary has not changed in the unchanging East. S. Sophia is still lighted by a myriad little lamps arranged in rows, or suspended in circles. The single lamp is a small glass vessel of oil on which floats the wick; the two typical forms being like a bowl or an elongated tumbler. These cups are hung by three chains, or inserted in a ring, at the end of a metal arm, projecting from the wall or from the rim of a suspended circle.
Fig. 23.—Hanging Rods for Lamps in S. Sophia until 1850.
Up to the time of Fossati’s restoration there was an immense polygon of probably some sixty feet diameter of iron rods suspended from the dome. Grelot[200] described it in 1680 as a large circle of iron rods hanging down to within eight or ten feet of the pavement and having fixed to it “a prodigious number of lamps, ostrich eggs, and other baubles.” In the mosque of Achmet, several rings are bound together by straight rods, making overhead a geometrical arrangement of bars, from which the lamps are suspended; although these are all Turkish, the system remained from Byzantine times. [Fig. 23] is re-drawn from Fossati. (Aya Sophia, Constantinople, 1852.) One of the most beautiful methods is that of suspending the lamps to long straight iron bars running the whole length of the building as at S. John Studius.
In the mosque of Damascus, before the recent fire, there were hanging assemblages of circles one above another somewhat similar we may suppose to the trees of the poet. At Salonica a network of lamps which hangs almost like a curtain before the bema of S. Demetrius may illustrate the “nets” if nets there were. During Ramazan festoons of lamps are hung from minaret to minaret arranged in inscriptions; in 1676 Dr. Covel of Cambridge saw illuminations before the Sultan at Adrianople which represented “castles, mosques, peacocks, Turkish writings, &c., extremely pleasant and wonderful to behold.” These were formed by lamps hung to light frames; the method was probably derived from Byzantine illuminations such as the fireworks mentioned as being exhibited in the Hippodrome.
The four marble pillars that stand up out of the parapet at the western gallery of S. Sophia ([Fig. 41]) must always have carried lights on metal branches at the top, much as at present; and the long metal stakes with hook ends, that project from the first cornice at the angles of the exedras, and from which chandeliers hang, are possibly original in some cases.
The multiplication of small lights is the most brilliant system of illumination, for not only is there light everywhere but flame, and hence no shadows. Whoever sees the great church lighted for the solemn services of Ramazan, when, according to Fossati, “six thousand lamps are suspended at various heights,” may imagine the splendour of the lighted interior in Byzantine times. When, after one of the services, the lamplighters walked round and extinguished the lamps with a whisk from long fan-shaped brooms, we saw the need of the passages above the different cornices; and leaving Constantinople one April evening, as we slowly wound round the point, while the circle of windows in the lighted dome seemed to hang above the city, we realised that it was no idle saying of the poet’s that the mariner guided his laden vessel “by the divine light of the church itself.”