5. Aya Sofia, Constantinople, as recently restored by Order of H. M. the Sultan Abdul Medjid. From the original Drawings of Chevalier GASPARD FOSSATI. Lithographed by Louis HAGHE, Esq. Imperial folio. London: 1854.
There is not one among the evidences of Moslem conquest more galling to Christian associations than the occupation of Justinian's ancient basilica for the purposes of Mohammedan worship. The most commonplace sight-seer from the west feels a thrill when his eye falls for the first time upon the flaring cresent which surmounts "Sophia's cupola with golden gleam;" and this emotion deepens into a feeling of awe at the mysterious dispensations of Providence, when he has stood beneath the unaltered and still stately dome, and
"surveyed
The sanctuary, the while the usurping Moslem prayed."
For oriental Christians, this sense of bitterness is hardly second to that with which they regard the Turkish occupation of Jerusalem itself. In the latter, however they may writhe under the political supremacy of their unbelieving master, still, as the right of access to those monuments which form the peculiar object of Christian veneration is practically undisturbed, they are spared the double indignity of religious profanation super-added to social wrong. But the mosque of St. Sophia is, in Christian eyes, a standing monument at once of Moslem sacrilege and of Christian defeat, the sense of which is perpetuated and embittered by the preservation of its ancient, but now desecrated name.
To an imaginative visitor of the modern mosque, it might seem as if the structure itself were not unconscious of this wrong. The very position of the building is a kind of silent protest against the unholy use to which its Turkish masters have perverted it. Like all ancient Christian churches, it was built exactly in the line of east and west; and, as the great altar, which stood in the semicircular apse, was directly at the eastern point of the building, the worshippers in the old St. Sophia necessarily faced directly eastward; and all the appliances of their worship were arranged with a view to that position. Now, in the exigencies of Mohammedan ecclesiology, since the worshipper must turn to the Kibla at Mecca (that is, in Constantinople, to the south-east), the mihrab, or sacred niche, in the modern St. Sophia is [{642}] necessarily placed out of the centre of the apse; and thus the mimber (pulpit), the prayer carpets, and the long ranks of worshippers themselves, present an appearance singularly at variance with every notion of architectural harmony, being arranged in lines, not parallel, but oblique, to the length of the edifice, and out of keeping with all the details of the original construction. It is as though the dead walls of this venerable pile had retained more of the spirit of their founder than the degenerate sons of the fallen Rome of the east, and had refused to bend themselves at the will of that hateful domination before which the living worshippers tamely yielded or impotently fled!
The mosque of St. Sophia had long been an object of curious interest to travellers in the east. Their interest, however, had seldom risen beyond curiosity; and it was directed rather toward St. Sophia as it is, than to the Christian events and traditions with which it is connected. For those, indeed, who know the grudging and capricious conditions under which alone a Christian visitor is admitted to a mosque, and the jealous scrutiny to which he is subjected during his visit, it will be easy to understand how rare and how precarious have been the opportunities for a complete or exact study of this, the most important of all the monuments of Byzantine art; and, notwithstanding its exceeding interest for antiquarian and artistic purposes, far more of our knowledge of its details was derived from the contemporary description of Procopius [Footnote 126] or Agathias, [Footnote 127] from the verses of Paulus Silentiarius, [Footnote 128] from the casual allusions of other ancient authorities, and, above all, from the invaluable work of Du Gauge, which is the great repertory of everything that has been written upon ancient or mediaeval Byzantium, than from the observation even of the most favored modern visitors of Constantinople, until the publication of the works named at the head of these pages.
[Footnote 126: De Edificiis, lib. i. c. i. ]
[Footnote 127: Pp. 152-3.]
[Footnote 128: A very good German version, with most valuable notes, is appended to the text of Saltzenberg's Baudenkmale.]
For the elaborate account of the present condition of the mosque of St. Sophia which we now possess, we are indebted to the happy necessity by which the Turkish officials, in undertaking the recent restoration of the building, were led to engage the services of an eminent European architect, Chevalier Fossati, in whose admirable drawings, as lithographed in the "Aya Sofia," every arch and pillar of the structure is reproduced. The archaeological and historical details, which lay beyond the province of a volume mainly professional in its object, are supplied in the learned and careful work of M. Salzenberg, who during the progress of the restoration was sent to Constantinople at the cost of the late King of Prussia, for the express purpose of copying and describing exactly every object which might serve to throw light on Byzantine history, religion, or art, or on the history and condition of the ancient church of St. Sophia, the most venerable monument of them all.
Nor is it possible to imagine, under all the circumstances of the case, a combination of opportunities more favorable for the purpose. From long neglect and injudicious or insufficient reparation, the mosque had fallen into so ruinous a condition, that, in the year 1847, the late sultan, Abdul Medjid, found it necessary to direct a searching survey of the entire building, and eventually a thorough repair. In the progress of the work, while engaged near the entrance of the northern transept, M. Fossati discovered, beneath a thin coat of plaster (evidently laid on to conceal the design from the eyes of true believers) a beautiful mosaic picture, almost uninjured, and retaining all its original brilliancy of color. A further examination showed that these mosaics extended throughout the building; and, with a liberality which every lover of art must gratefully applaud, the sultan at once acceded to the suggestion of M. Fossati, [{643}] and ordered that the plaster should be removed throughout the interior; thus exposing once more to view the original decorations of the ancient basilica. It was while the mosque was still crowded with the scaffolding erected to carry on this most interesting work, that M. Salzenberg arrived in Constantinople. He thankfully acknowledges the facilities afforded to him, as well by the Turkish officials as by the Chevalier Fossati; and, although the specimens of the purely pictorial decorations of the ancient church which he has published are not as numerous as the reader may possibly expect, yet they are extremely characteristic, and full of religious as well as of historical and antiquarian interest.
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. It recalls in numberless details, preserved in monuments in which time has wrought little change and which the jealousy or contempt of the conquerors has failed to destroy or even to travesty, interesting illustrations of the doctrine, the worship, and the disciplinary usages of the ancient Eastern Church, which are with difficulty traced, at present, in the living system of her degenerate representative. To all these researches the wider cultivation of art and of history, which our age has accepted as its calling, ought to lend a deeper significance and a more solemn interest. St. Sophia ought no longer to be a mere lounge for the sightseer or a spectacle for the lover of the picturesque.