Fig. 49.—Inlaid Marble Slabs above Royal Door. Scale about 1/50.
Directly over the Royal Door is a very beautiful arrangement of decorated slabs. First there is an immense upright piece of verde antique in the middle, ten or twelve feet high, with two lateral horizontal pieces making a great cross, in the quarters of which are panels with sunk and inlaid designs. At the head of the cross is a fifth panel which displays a still richer form of decoration. It represents a vaulted recess or ciborium between the columns of which hang curtains, looped back, and displaying a dark field. Here is the matrix of a cross which was probably of silver; right and left of the cross are other matrices, in which were set crowns or other objects, not to be determined from below. The two upper lateral panels have sunk geometrical designs. The lower pair are inlaid; their centres are charged with circles, above and below which are pairs of dolphins. These inlaid designs are made out in porphyry and green, which are separated by white lines and spaces which shine out bright, and are probably of mother of pearl like similar inlaid panels of this date around the apse at Parenzo. These panels at Parenzo are so much like those of S. Sophia that we do not doubt they were sent from Constantinople. There are very similar panels in the baptistery at Ravenna.
Finally we have the enriched surfaces of the two ranges of arcade spandrils. The upper row being sectile work of coloured morsels put together to form a pattern of scrolls and foliage, and the lower series having the surface entirely sculptured with the exception of discs of precious substance which are set in them.
This uttermost splendour is quiet and soft in its result. The surface of course has not that mechanically even, repellently smooth, painfully fitted appearance of modern work. The planes are waved under the hand sawing, and the face is smooth but hardly polished. The colour in consequence, gray and russet rising to full yellow, green and reds, veined, waved, and flowered in all manner of gradations and lovely combinations, vibrates with a wonderful “bloom” which doubtless owes much to age; but it is very probable that the marble was polished with wax encaustic which was so generally used for finishing surfaces by ancient workers. The wax deepens and mellows the colour and leaves a dull pleasant polish. We suppose the method followed was that recommended by Vitruvius for the encaustic polishing of coloured stucco walls. “Lay on with a brush a coat of melted Punic wax tempered with oil; then with a brazier of hot charcoal heat all the waxed surface, forcing the wax to melt in an even way over the whole surface; finally rub the wall with a wax candle and then polish it with a clean linen cloth just in the way the nude marble statues are treated. This practice is called γάνωσις by the Greeks.” Felix Fabri, who travelled in Palestine at the end of the fifteenth century, describes the rows of costly columns at Bethlehem, “and they are polished with oil so that a man can see his face in them as in a mirror.”
In regard to the wall plating we wish especially to point out the extremely easy way in which it is applied, without thought of disguise. The slabs of great size are placed vertically, entirely the reverse of solid construction; moreover the slabs of the finer panels are opened out side by side so that the veinings appear in symmetrical patterns. At the angles the lap shows in the most open way; while it is mitred where restored. The best account of the actual methods of fixing the marble slabs to walls by metal clamps which notch into the edges of the sheet before the adjoining one is fixed, is given by Professor Middleton, who figures an example of the second century from Rome which might belong to S. Sophia.
§ 4. MARBLE MASONRY.
After more than a thousand years of working marble through one complete development, Greek builders, by considering afresh the prime necessities of material, and a rational system of craftsmanship, opened the great quarry of ideas in constructive art which is exhaustless. In a hundred years architecture became truly organic, features that had become mere “vestiges” dropped away, and a new style was complete; one, not perhaps so completely winning as some forms of Gothic, but the supremely logical building art that has been.
If anywhere this vitalising had not been completed, it would have been in the more decorative forms; but here we find no mere exercise in applying architectural orders, everything is as real and fresh as in the structure. Having the Corinthian and Ionic capitals before their eyes and without forgetting or rejecting them, the Byzantine builders invented and developed an entirely fresh group of capitals fitted in the most perfect way for arched brick construction. As Mr. Freeman has said (Hist. Essays, iii. p. 61) of the new architecture: “The problem was to bring the arch and column into union—in other words to teach the column to support the arch.” This was done by shaping the block of marble which formed the capital so that a simple transition from the square block to the circle of the column was formed. When they were sculptured, and most of them are most elaborately sculptured, the general form is not altered but the carving enriches the surface only. The new “Impost capital” is found throughout the great cistern generally known as that of Philoxenus which is usually referred to the time of Constantine. In their study of the vaulted cisterns of Constantinople Forchheimer and Strzygowski have contributed much that is new to our knowledge of the architecture of the city and show that the evidence is entirely against this theory, which was propounded by Gyllius, whom more recent writers have been content to copy. This cistern, known to the Turks as Bin Bir direk (thousand and one columns), they identify with a great cistern which the Paschal Chronicle says was built by Justinian in 528. We believe with them that the architecture of the cistern agrees entirely with what we might expect as an outcome of the special circumstances in the time of the great building era. “Bin Bir direk exhibits the highest development of the art of cistern building, and it thus in its particular sphere resembles S. Sophia; like it the boldness of its construction was never again equalled by the Byzantines. It would be an explanation of the bold achievement if it might be assumed that Anthemius proved his capability in this subterranean work before he made his supreme effort in S. Sophia. Technical features, however, make it seem probable that the builder was an Alexandrine.”
