It is very probable that some of the enamels added to the Pala d’Oro at Venice after the sack of Constantinople came from the sanctuary of S. Sophia, possibly from its altar. Sylvester Sguropulus[108] who accompanied John Palaeologus to Venice in 1438, describes the Pala d’Oro as “an icon which is formed out of many, and we heard that some of these were taken from the Church of S. Sophia.” It may be only a coincidence that one of the panels of the Pala contains the figure of Solomon with the Greek inscription, “Wisdom hath builded her house,” that being the usual legend for Solomon.
The altar would have been covered, like the altars shown in the mosaics at Ravenna, and the illustrations of the Menologium,[109] by a cloth reaching on all sides to the floor. These cloths bear very simple devices—in the centre a plain cross, circle, or star, and at the four corners gammidae ⛶ which in the code of symbolism probably expressed the four corners of that world, for which the daily sacrifice was offered.
Others however were more richly embroidered. In the Liber Pontificalis of Agnellus[110] it is said that Maximian, the Archbishop of Ravenna in Justinian’s time, ordered a most precious altar-cloth (endothis) of byssus, on which was embroidered the whole history of the Saviour. “It is not possible to imagine the human figures, or the beasts and birds which are made on it.” The figure of the archbishop was represented with the inscription, “Praise the Lord with me, for he hath raised me from the dust.” The Continuator of Theophanes also speaks of an altar-cloth on which “the birth of the Lord was represented.”[111]
The general Greek name for altar-cloth was endute. Those at S. Sophia are thus spoken of by the Anonymous, and we read that Michael Palaeologus sent to the Pope “an endute of the Great Church, of rose red, with gold and pearls worked on it.”[112]
Ciborium.—The altar stood under a canopy of silver called a kiborion, as is fully described by Paulus. According to the Anonymous it was patterned with niello or damascening (see p. [138]). Such ciboria are frequently spoken of in the Lives of the Popes.[113] Thus Gregory I. made for S. Peter’s a “ciborium with four columns of pure silver,” and Leo III. “made for the basilica of S. Paul a ciborium with large and beautiful columns of the purest silver.” The ciborium of S. Demetrius at Salonica, a fifth-century work described in the Acta Sanctorum, was also of silver. It supported at the top “a solid sphere of silver, with wonderful lily-leaves curved round it, and a cross above.”[114]
An illustration[115] in an eighth-century Gospel preserved at Venice represents a ciborium, like that at S. Sophia. We see four arches on four columns, and from the flat top above rises an octagonal cone. At the four corners stand bowls, and in each bowl is a candle or a representation of one, as the Silentiary describes. Pope Leo III. placed “above the altar of S. Peter four large cups of the purest silver, every one having in its centre a candle of silver-gilt.”[116]
The ciborium at S. Sophia described by Paulus may have lasted till 1203; Robert de Clari, writing at this time, says: “Around the altar there are columns of silver, which carry a canopy (abitacle) over the altar, made like a tower (clokier), which is all of massive silver, and so rich that one cannot estimate its value.”
Crowns, &c.—From the first a crown and dove of gold would have been suspended from the centre of the canopy; such doves are spoken of as being in use in Constantinople during the Council of 536.[117] Theophanes says: “On Easter Day Sophia, the widow of Justin II., and Constantia, the wife of Maurice, gave the Emperor Maurice a crown of exceeding value. When the emperor saw it, he took it to S. Sophia, and hung it above the Holy Table by triple chains of gold and precious stones.”[118] This, Nicephorus Callistus says, was preserved there till the taking of the city by the Latins.[119] According to Buzantios, the emperor Leo IV. and his wife Irene also suspended crowns here. Nicetas speaks of the “crown of the great Constantine, which hung above the Holy Table;” and again of one “John, surnamed Crassus, who rushed into S. Sophia and placed on his head a small crown, one of those which hang round the Holy Table;”[120] and it appears from the account of the Russian pilgrim Anthony, given in the next chapter, that just before the Crusade there were thirty crowns suspended from the ciborium—a beautiful symbolism.
The splendid hanging crowns at Monza and in the Cluny Museum show us that these votive crowns were broad circlets of gold incrusted with large uncut rubies and emeralds with borders of pearls, and strings of jewels, and other pendants hanging from the rim. A small enamelled crown for suspension above an altar which is amongst the Constantinople treasures at S. Mark’s is inscribed ΛΕΟΝ ΔΕϹΠ(ΟΤΗϹ); this, according to Labarte, must be Leo VI., who died in 911.[121]
Altar-veils.—Round the four sides of the ciborium were suspended the curtains described in such detail by Paulus. They were all the more wonderful at this time as being silk-woven and not embroidered.[122] The gold thread however seems to have been “laid” on. By the later Greeks those curtains were named tetrabela. They were often of deep red embroidered with gold, and were usually hung on rods going from capital to capital of the ciborium, as some of the illustrations in the Menologium show, though others seem to have been suspended from the curves of the arches.