[Footnote 139: "Decline and Fall," vol. iii., p. 523.]
[Footnote 140: "Eastern Church," vol. i., p. 237. ]
It was, no doubt, with profound self-gratulation that, at the end of almost six years of anxious toil, Justinian received the intelligence of the completion of this great labor of love. At his special entreaty, the last details had been urged forward with headlong haste, in order that all might be ready for the great festival of Christmas in the year 538; and his architect had not disappointed his hopes. There is some uncertainty as to the precise date of the dedication; and indeed it is probable that the festival may have extended over several days, and thus have been assigned to different dates by different writers. But when it came (probably on Christmas eve, December 24, 538) it was a day of triumph for Justinian. A thousand oxen, a thousand sheep, a thousand swine, six hundred deer, ten thousand poultry, and thirty thousand measures of corn, were distributed to the poor. Largesses to a fabulous amount were divided among the people. The emperor, attended by the patriarch and all the great officers of state, went in procession from his palace to the entrance of the church. But, from that spot, as though he would claim to be alone in the final act of offering, Justinian ran, unattended, to the foot of the ambo, and with arms outstretched and lifted up in the attitude of prayer, exclaimed in words which the event has made memorable: "Glory to God, who hath accounted me worthy of such a work! I have conquered thee, O Solomon!"
Justinian's works in St. Sophia, however, were not destined to cease with this first completion of the building. Notwithstanding the care bestowed on [{650}] the dome, the selection of the lightest materials for it, and the science employed in its construction, an earthquake which occurred in the year 558 overthrew the semi-dome at the east end of the church. Its fall was followed by that of the eastern half of the great dome itself; and in the ruin perished the altar, the tabernacle, and the whole bema, with its costly furniture and appurtenances. This catastrophe, however, only supplied a new incentive to the zeal of Justinian. Anthemius and his fellow-laborers were now dead, but the task of repairing the injury was entrusted to Isidorus the Younger, nephew of the Isidorus who had been associated with Anthemius in the original construction of the church. It was completed, and the church rededicated, at the Christmas of the year 561; nor can it be doubted that the change which Isidorus now introduced in the proportions of the dome, by adding twenty-five feet to its height, contributed materially as well to the elegance of the dome itself as to the general beauty of the church and the harmony of its several parts.
The church of Justinian thus completed may be regarded as substantially the same building which is now the chief temple of Islam. The few modifications which it has undergone will be mentioned in the proper place; but it may be convenient to describe the building, such as it came from the hands of its first founder, before we proceed to its later history.
St. Sophia, in its primitive form, may be taken as the type of Byzantine ecclesiology in almost all its details. Although its walls enclose what may be roughly [Footnote 141] called a square of 241 feet, the internal plan is not inaptly described as a Greek cross, of which the nave and transepts constitute the arm, while the aisles, which are surmounted by the gynaeconitis, or women's gallery, may be said to complete it into a square, within which the cross is inscribed. The head of the cross is prolonged at the eastern extremity into a slightly projecting apse. The aisle is approached at its western end through a double narthex or porch, extending over the entire breadth of the building, and about 100 feet in depth; so that the whole length of the structure, from the eastern wall of the apse to the wall of the outer porch, is about 340 feet. In the centre, from four massive piers, rises the great dome, beneath which, to the east and to the west, spring two great semi-domes, the eastern supported by three, the western by two, semi-domes of smaller dimensions. The central of the three lesser semi-domes, to the east, constitutes the roof of the apse to which allusion has already been made. The piers of the dome (differing in this respect from those of St. Peter's at Rome) present from within a singularly light and elegant appearance; they are nevertheless constructed with great strength and solidity, supported by four massive buttresses, which, in the exterior, rise as high as the base of the dome, and are capacious enough to contain the exterior staircases of the gynaeconitis. The lightness of the dome-piers is in great part due to the lightness of the materials of the dome itself already described. The diameter of the dome at its base is 100 feet, its height at the central point above the floor is 179 feet, the original height, before the reconstruction in 561, having been twenty-five feet less. [Footnote 142] The effect of this combination of domes, semi-domes, and plane arches, on entering the nave, is singularly striking. It constitutes, in the opinion of the authors of "Byzantine Architecture," what may regarded as the characteristic beauty be of St. Sophia; and the effect is heightened in the modern mosque by the nakedness of the lower part of the [{651}] building, and by the absence of those appurtenances of a Christian church,—as the altar, the screen, and the ambo,—which, by arresting the eye in more minute observation, withdrew it in the Christian times from the general proportions of the structure. This effect of lightness is also increased by numerous window's, which encircle the tympanum. They are twenty-four in number, small, low, and circular-headed; and in the spaces between them spring the twenty-four groined ribs of the dome, which meet in the centre and divide the vault into twenty-four equal segments. The interior was richly decorated with mosaic work. At the four angles beneath the dome were four colossal figures of winged seraphim; and from the summit of the dome looked down that majestic face of Christ the Sovereign Judge, which still remains the leading type of our Lord's countenance in the school of Byzantine art, and even in the Latin reproductions of it fills the mind with a feeling of reverence and awe, hardly to be equalled by any other production of Christian art. The exterior of the dome is covered with lead, and it was originally surmounted by a stately cross, which in the modern mosque is replaced by a gigantic crescent fifty yards in diameter; on the gilding of this ornament Murad III. expended 50,000 ducats, and the glitter of it in the sunshine is said to be visible from the summit of Mount Olympus—a distance of a hundred miles. To an eye accustomed to the convexity of the cupola of western churches, the interior height of the dome of Sophia is perhaps somewhat disappointing, especially considering the name "aerial," by which it is called by the ancient authorities. This name, however, was given to it, not so much to convey the idea of lightness or "airiness" in the structure, as because its proportions, as designed by the architect, were intended to represent or reproduce the supposed convexity of the "aerial vault" itself.
[Footnote 141: This is not exactly true. The precise dimensions of the building (excluding the apse and narthex) are 241 feet by 226 feet.]
[Footnote 142: Later Greek authorities, for the purpose of exalting the glories of the older church, allege that the second dome is fifteen feet lower than the first; and even Von Hammer (Constantinople und der Bosporus, vol. i., p. 346) adopts this view. But Zonaras and the older writers agree that the height was increased by twenty-five feet. See Neale's "Eastern Church," vol. i., p. 239.]
With Justinian's St. Sophia begins what may be called the second or classic period of Byzantine archaeology. It is proper, therefore, that we should describe, although of necessity very briefly, its general outline and arrangements.
With very few exceptions, the Greek churches of the earlier period (including the older church of St. Sophia, whether as originally built by Constantine and restored by his son, or as rebuilt by Theodosius) were of that oblong form which the Greeks called "dromic" and which is known in the west as the type of the basilica. The present St. Sophia, on the contrary, may be regarded as practically the type of the cruciform structure. This cruciform appearance, however, is, as has been already explained, confined to the internal arrangement, the exterior presenting the appearance of a square, or if the porch be regarded as part of the church, of an oblong rectangle.
To begin with the narthex or porch:—That of St. Sophia is double, consisting of an outer (exonarthcx) as well as an inner (esonarthex) porch. Most Byzantine churches have but a single narthex—often a lean-to against the western wall; and in some few churches the narthex is altogether wanting. But in St. Sophia it is a substantive part of the edifice; and, the roof of the inner compartment being arched, it forms the substructure of the western gynaeconitis, or women's choir, which is also carried upon a series of unrivalled arches supported by pillars, most of which are historical, around the northern and southern sides of the nave. The outer porch is comparatively plain, and communicates with the inner one by five marble doorways (of which one is now walled up), the doors being of bronze, wrought in floriated crosses, still distinguishable, although much mutilated by the Turkish occupants. The inner porch is much more rich, the floor of watered marble, and the walls lined with marbles of various colors and with richly carved alabaster. It opens on [{652}] the church by nine gates of highly-wrought bronze; over the central portal is a well-preserved group in mosaic, bearing the inscription:
