193-524: Ayasofya Mosque may refer to: Hagia Sophia in Fatih, Istanbul, Turkey, first a church, then a mosque, then a museum, now again a mosque. Little Hagia Sophia , in Istanbul, Turkey, a former church converted into a mosque. Hagia Sophia, İznik , Turkey, first a church, then a mosque, then a museum, now again a mosque. Selimiye Mosque, Nicosia , North Cyprus, first
386-496: A decagonal dome. The material of choice in construction gradually transitioned during the 4th and 5th centuries from stone or concrete to lighter brick in thin shells. The use of ribs stiffened the structure, allowing domes to be thinner with less massive supporting walls. Windows were often used in these walls and replaced the oculus as a source of light, although buttressing was sometimes necessary to compensate for large openings. The Mausoleum of Santa Costanza has windows beneath
579-401: A matroneum (women's section). The exterior was decorated with elaborate carvings of rich Theodosian-era designs, fragments of which have survived, while the floor just inside the portico was embellished with polychrome mosaics. The surviving carved gable end from the centre of the western façade is decorated with a cross-roundel. Fragments of a frieze of reliefs with 12 lambs representing
772-442: A 24.95 meter span that may have been used as a throne room. It is known not to have been used as a church and was unsuitable as a mausoleum, and was used for some period between about 311 and when it was destroyed before about 450. The octagonal " Domus Aurea ", or "Golden Octagon", built by Emperor Constantine in 327 at the imperial palace of Antioch likewise had a domical roof, presumably of wood and covered with gilded lead. It
965-550: A Christian martyrium. It was half-destroyed by the Huns in 447 and was rebuilt in the 11th century. In the middle of the 4th century in Rome, domes were built as part of the Baths of Constantine and the Baths of Helena [ it ] . Domes over the calderia, or hot rooms, of the older Baths of Agrippa and the Baths of Caracalla were also rebuilt at this time. Between the second half of
1158-696: A Christian source, the Crusaders massacred some clerics who had surrendered to them. Much of the interior was damaged and would not be repaired until its return to Orthodox control in 1261. The sack of Hagia Sophia, and Constantinople in general, remained a sore point in Catholic–Eastern Orthodox relations . During the Latin occupation of Constantinople (1204–1261), the church became a Latin Catholic cathedral. Baldwin I of Constantinople ( r. 1204–1205 )
1351-422: A church, now a Mosque. Saint Sophia Church, Sofia , Bulgaria, first a church, then a mosque, now again a church. Hagia Sophia, Thessaloniki , Greece, first a church, then a mosque, now again a church. Hagia Sophia, Mystras , Greece, first a church, then a mosque, now again a church. Hagia Sophia, Trabzon , Turkey, first a church, then a mosque, then a museum, now again a mosque. Topics referred to by
1544-487: A common keystone, rather than as a single unit. The exterior step-rings used to compress the "haunches" of the dome, which would not be necessary if the dome acted as a monolithic structure , may be an acknowledgement of this by the builders themselves. Such buttressing was common in Roman arch construction. The cracks in the dome can be seen from the upper internal chambers of the rotunda, but have been covered by re- rendering on
1737-416: A constructional advantage and facilitated the building of large-scale domes. Roman domes were used in baths , villas, palaces, and tombs. Oculi were common features. They were customarily hemispherical in shape and partially or totally concealed on the exterior. In order to buttress the horizontal thrusts of a large hemispherical masonry dome, the supporting walls were built up beyond the base to at least
1930-624: A continuous spiral created a dome that was not strong enough for very large spans, but required only minimal centering and formwork. The later dome of the Baptistry of Neon in Ravenna is an example. In the 4th century, Roman domes proliferated due to changes in the way domes were constructed, including advances in centering techniques and the use of brick ribbing . The so-called " Temple of Minerva Medica ", for example, used brick ribs along with step-rings and lightweight pumice aggregate concrete to form
2123-620: A coronation site for a series of emperors. The remains were destroyed in 1965 and the exact layout is not known, but it may have been a double-shell octagon similar to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was likely built with a wooden dome over the shrine by the end of the 4th century. The rotunda, 33.7 meters (111 ft) in diameter and centered on
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#17328583601382316-614: A deacon of Hagia Sophia and an administrative official in for the patriarchate from Antioch in Pisidia . Both George and Theodore, likely members of Sergius's literary circle, attribute the defeat of the Avars to the intervention of the Theotokos , a belief that strengthened in following centuries. In 726, the emperor Leo the Isaurian issued a series of edicts against the veneration of images, ordering
2509-421: A dome with barrel vaults on four sides became the standard structural system. Domes over windowed drums of cylindrical or polygonal shape were standard after the 9th century. In the empire's later period, smaller churches were built with smaller diameter domes, normally less than 6 meters (20 ft) after the 10th century. Exceptions include the 11th century domed-octagons of Hosios Loukas and Nea Moni , and
2702-451: A dome with an oculus. This is the earliest known example of a dome in the city of Rome itself. The Domus Aurea was built after 64 AD and the dome was over 13 meters (43 ft) in diameter. This octagonal and semicircular dome is made of concrete and the oculus is made of brick. The radial walls of the surrounding rooms buttress the dome, allowing the octagonal walls directly beneath it to contain large openings under flat arches and for
2895-602: A fire. Most domes on churches in the Syrian region were built of wood, like that of the later Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and the dome of the Domus Aurea survived a series of earthquakes in the 6th century that destroyed the rest of the building. There is no record of the church being rebuilt after the earthquake of 588, perhaps due to the general abandonment of many public buildings in what
3088-457: A great fire in 859, and again in an earthquake on 8 January 869 that caused the collapse of one of the half-domes. Emperor Basil I ordered repair of the tympanas, arches, and vaults. In his book De caerimoniis aulae Byzantinae ("Book of Ceremonies"), the emperor Constantine VII ( r. 913–959 ) wrote a detailed account of the ceremonies held in the Hagia Sophia by the emperor and
3281-430: A larger half-collapsed dome spanning 29.5 meters (97 ft) called the "Temple of Diana". The dome of the "Temple of Diana", which may have been a nymphaeum as part of the bath complex, can be seen to have had an ogival section made of horizontal layers of mortared brick and capped with light tufa. It dates to the second half of the 2nd century and is the third largest dome known from the Roman world. The second largest
3474-520: A late fourth century account by Etheria appears to have been a timber-roofed cruciform building with arms of roughly equal length and four central piers supporting a dome approximately 3.5 meters wide. Emperor Theodosius completed an octagonal domed church dedicated to John the Baptist in the Hebdomon suburb of Constantinople around 392. It contained the relic of the head of John the Baptist and served as
3667-491: A lower crypt area for the remains and an upper area for devotional sacrifice. Christian domed mausolea contain a single well-lit space and are usually attached to a church . The first St. Peter's Basilica would later be built near a preexisting early 3rd century domed rotunda that may have been a mausoleum. In the 5th century the rotunda would be dedicated to St. Andrew and joined to the Mausoleum of Honorius . Examples from
3860-641: A medieval artifact, near the probable location and is still visible today. The original tomb was destroyed by the Ottomans during the conversion of the church into a mosque. Upon the capture of Constantinople in 1261 by the Empire of Nicaea and the emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus , ( r. 1261–1282 ), the church was in a dilapidated state. In 1317, emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus ( r. 1282–1328 ) ordered four new buttresses ( Medieval Greek : Πυραμίδας , romanized : Pyramídas ) to be built in
4053-799: A mosque until 1935, when it became a museum. In 2020, the site once again became a mosque. The current structure was built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I as the Christian cathedral of Constantinople for the Byzantine Empire between 532 and 537, and was designed by the Greek geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles . It was formally called the Church of God's Holy Wisdom (Greek: Ναὸς τῆς Ἁγίας τοῦ Θεοῦ Σοφίας , romanized: Naòs tês Hagías toû Theoû Sophías ) and upon completion became
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#17328583601384246-604: A mosque. The first church on the site was known as the Magna Ecclesia ( Μεγάλη Ἐκκλησία , Megálē Ekklēsíā , 'Great Church') because of its size compared to the sizes of the contemporary churches in the city. According to the Chronicon Paschale , the church was consecrated on 15 February 360, during the reign of the emperor Constantius II ( r. 337–361 ) by the Arian bishop Eudoxius of Antioch . It
4439-529: A place called the Lone Tree …. That was the cause for the flight into the Great Church. In one hour that famous and enormous church was filled with men and women. An innumerable crowd was everywhere: upstairs, downstairs, in the courtyards, and in every conceivable place. They closed the gates and stood there, hoping for salvation. History of Roman and Byzantine domes Domes were a characteristic element of
4632-467: A planned increase in bread prices, after a stoppage of the Cura Annonae rations resulting from the loss of the grain supply from Egypt. The Persians under Shahrbaraz and the Avars together laid the siege of Constantinople in 626; according to the Chronicon Paschale , on 2 August 626, Theodore Syncellus , a deacon and presbyter of Hagia Sophia, was among those who negotiated unsuccessfully with
4825-604: A prophecy. What was the reason that compelled all to flee to the Great Church? They had been listening, for many years, to some pseudo-soothsayers, who had declared that the city was destined to be handed over to the Turks, who would enter in large numbers and would massacre the Romans as far as the Column of Constantine the Great. After this an angel would descend, holding his sword. He would hand over
5018-406: A quarter of the rotunda wall's volume. The only opening in the dome is the brick-lined oculus at the top, 9 meters (30 ft) in diameter, that provides light and ventilation for the interior. The shallow coffering in the dome accounts for a less than five percent reduction in the dome's mass, and is mostly decorative. The aggregate material hand-placed in the concrete is heaviest at the base of
5211-413: A ring of windows similar to domes of the later Justinian era, or an octagonal cloister vault following Roman trends and like the vaulting over the site's contemporary chapel of Saint Aquiline , possibly built with vaulting tubes, pieces of which had been found in excavations. Although these tubes have been shown to date from a medieval reconstruction, there is evidence supporting the use of Roman concrete in
5404-454: A series of tightly arched meridional sections. The Church of Saint Simeon Stylites likely had a wooden polygonal dome over its central 27-meter (89 ft) wide octagon. In the city of Rome, at least 58 domes in 44 buildings are known to have been built before domed construction ended in the middle of the 5th century. The last imperial domed mausoleum in the city was that of Emperor Honorius , built in 415 next to St. Peter's Basilica . It
5597-725: A slight widening of use around 500 AD, but most church buildings were timber-roofed halls on the basilica plan. Under Justin I in the 520s, Justinian seems to have razed the Basilica of St. John in Ephesus and replaced it with a greek cross cruciform building with five domes similar to his later Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. This version of the building was described by Procopius in The Buildings . Justinian would later replace
5790-442: A supporting structure of four arches with pendentives between them allowed the spaces below domes to be opened up. Pendentives allowed for weight loads to be concentrated at just four points on a more practical square plan , rather than a circle. Until the 9th century, domes were low with thick buttressing and did not project much into the exterior of their buildings. Drums were cylindrical when used and likewise low and thick. After
5983-464: A timber roof, curtains, columns, and an entrance that faced west. It likely had a narthex and is described as being shaped like a Roman circus . This may mean that it had a U-shaped plan like the basilicas of San Marcellino e Pietro and Sant'Agnese fuori le mura in Rome . However, it may also have been a more conventional three-, four-, or five-aisled basilica, perhaps resembling the original Church of
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6176-681: A tribute was paid to the Avars . The Avars attacked the extramural areas of Constantinople in 623, causing the Byzantines to move the "garment" relic (Ancient Greek: ἐσθής , romanized: esthḗs ) of Mary, mother of Jesus to Hagia Sophia from its usual shrine of the Church of the Theotokos at Blachernae just outside the Theodosian Walls . On 14 May 626, the Scholae Palatinae , an elite body of soldiers, protested in Hagia Sophia against
6369-457: Is brickstamp evidence that the rebuilding of the Pantheon in its present form was begun under Trajan. Speculation that the architect of the Pantheon was Apollodorus has not been proven, although there are stylistic commonalities between his large coffered half-domes at Trajan's Baths and the dome of the Pantheon. Other indicators that the designer was either Apollodorus or someone in his circle who
6562-659: Is a mosque and former church serving as a major cultural and historical site in Istanbul , Turkey . The last of three church buildings to be successively erected on the site by the Eastern Roman Empire , it was completed in AD 537. The site was an Eastern rite church from AD 360 to 1453, except for a brief time as a Latin Catholic church between the Fourth Crusade and 1261. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, it served as
6755-697: Is a 1977 renovation in thin reinforced concrete. By the 5th century, structures with small-scale domed cross plans existed across the Christian world. Examples include the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia , the martyrium attached to the Basilica of San Simpliciano , and churches in Macedonia and on the coast of Asia Minor . In Italy, the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Naples and the Church of Santa Maria della Croce in Casarano have surviving early Christian domes. In Tolentino ,
6948-469: Is a ceiling over a dining hall in the palace fitted with pipes so that perfume could rain from the ceiling, although it is not known whether this was a feature of the same dome. The expensive and lavish decoration of the palace caused such scandal that it was abandoned soon after Nero's death and public buildings such as the Baths of Titus and the Colosseum were built at the site. The only intact dome from
7141-487: Is a domed Greek cross structure dated to either the 1st century BC or the 1st century AD. The hemispherical dome was made from large stone ashlar blocks pierced by four holes with shafts extending diagonally up to the outside surface. Domes reached monumental size in the Roman Imperial period . Although imprints of the formwork itself have not survived, deformations from the ideal of up to 22 centimeters (8.7 in) at
7334-478: Is believed to have held court in the rotunda using the main apse opposite the entrance as a tribune , which may explain its very large size. Later Roman buildings similar to the Pantheon include a temple to Asklepios Soter [ de ] (c. 145) in the old Hellenistic city of Pergamon and the so-called "Round Temple" at Ostia (c. 230–240), which may have been related to the Imperial cult . The Pergamon dome
7527-467: Is constructed with bricks stamped with brick-stamps dating from the 5th century, but the lower part is of constructed with bricks typical of the 4th century. This wall was probably part of the propylaeum at the west front of both the Constantinian and Theodosian Great Churches. The building was accompanied by a baptistery and a skeuophylakion . A hypogeum , perhaps with an martyrium above it,
7720-509: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia ( Turkish : Ayasofya ; Ancient Greek : Ἁγία Σοφία , romanized : Hagía Sophía ; Latin : Sancta Sapientia ; lit. ' Holy Wisdom ' ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (Turkish: Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi ; Greek : Μεγάλο Τζαμί της Αγίας Σοφίας ),
7913-603: Is possible that both they and John the Lydian considered Hagia Sophia a great temple for the supreme Neoplatonist deity who manifestated through light and the sun. John the Lydian describes the church as the " temenos of the Great God" (Greek: τὸ τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ Τέμενος , romanized: tò toû megálou theoû Témenos ). Originally the exterior of the church was covered with marble veneer , as indicated by remaining pieces of marble and surviving attachments for lost panels on
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8106-534: Is the collapsed "Temple of Apollo" built nearby along the shore of Lake Avernus . The span cannot be precisely measured due to its ruined state, but it was more than 36 meters (118 ft) in diameter. Octagonal rooms of the Baths of Antoninus in Carthage were covered with cloister vaults and have been dated to 145–160. In the second half of the 2nd century in North Africa, a distinctive type of nozzle tube shape
8299-507: The khagan of the Avars. A homily , attributed by existing manuscripts to Theodore Syncellus and possibly delivered on the anniversary of the event, describes the translation of the Virgin's garment and its ceremonial re-translation to Blachernae by the patriarch Sergius I after the threat had passed. Another eyewitness account of the Avar–Persian siege was written by George of Pisidia ,
8492-468: The 12 apostles also remain; unlike Justinian's 6th-century church, the Theodosian Hagia Sophia had both colourful floor mosaics and external decorative sculpture. At the western end, surviving stone fragments of the structure show there was vaulting , at least at the western end. The Theodosian building had a monumental propylaeum hall with a portico that may account for this vaulting, which
8685-479: The Chronicle of John Malalas , during a subsequent earthquake on 7 May 558, the eastern semi-dome collapsed, destroying the ambon , altar, and ciborium . The collapse was due mainly to the excessive bearing load and to the enormous shear load of the dome, which was too flat. These caused the deformation of the piers which sustained the dome. Justinian ordered an immediate restoration. He entrusted it to Isidorus
8878-571: The Cistern of Philoxenos and the Basilica Cistern , were composed of a grid of columns supporting small domes, rather than groin vaults . The square bay with an overhead sail vault or dome on pendentives became the basic unit of architecture in the early Byzantine centuries, found in a variety of combinations. Early examples of Byzantine domes existed over the hexagonal hall of the Palace of Antiochos ,
9071-561: The Column of Theodosius closer to Hagia Sophia; in others, it occurs at the Column of Constantine , which is closer still. Hagia Sophia is mentioned in a hagiography of uncertain date detailing the life of the Eastern Orthodox saint Andrew the Fool . The text is self-attributed to Nicephorus, a priest of Hagia Sophia, and contains a description of the end time in the form of a dialogue, in which
9264-511: The Danishmendids at the siege of Kastamon in 1133. After proceeding through the streets on foot carrying a cross with a silver quadriga bearing the icon of the Virgin Mary, the emperor participated in a ceremony at the cathedral before entering the imperial palace. In 1168, another triumph was held by the emperor Manuel I Comnenus , again preceding with a gilded silver quadriga bearing
9457-592: The Eastern Orthodox Church for nearly one thousand years, the church was dedicated to the Holy Wisdom . It was where the excommunication of Patriarch Michael I Cerularius was officially delivered by Humbert of Silva Candida , the envoy of Pope Leo IX in 1054, an act considered the start of the East–West Schism . In 1204, it was converted during the Fourth Crusade into a Catholic cathedral under
9650-832: The Hippodrome of Constantinople , and the second Hagia Sophia was burnt to the ground on 13–14 January 532. The court historian Procopius wrote: And by way of shewing that it was not against the Emperor alone that they [the rioters] had taken up arms, but no less against God himself, unholy wretches that they were, they had the hardihood to fire the Church of the Christians, which the people of Byzantium call "Sophia", an epithet which they have most appropriately invented for God, by which they call His temple; and God permitted them to accomplish this impiety, foreseeing into what an object of beauty this shrine
9843-724: The Latin Empire , before being returned to the Eastern Orthodox Church upon the restoration of the Byzantine Empire in 1261. Enrico Dandolo , the doge of Venice who led the Fourth Crusade and the 1204 Sack of Constantinople , was buried in the church. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, it was converted to a mosque by Mehmed the Conqueror and became the principal mosque of Istanbul until
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#173285836013810036-400: The Mausoleum of Diocletian , were domed beginning in the 3rd century. Some smaller domes were built with a technique of using ceramic tubes in place of a wooden centering for concrete, or as a permanent structure embedded in the concrete, but light brick became the preferred building material over the course of the 4th and 5th centuries. Brick ribs allowed for a thinner structure and facilitated
10229-467: The Mausoleum of Helena ), it is possible it originally had a funerary function, though by 405 its use had changed. A later account credited a woman called Anna with donating the land on which the church was built in return for the right to be buried there. Excavations on the western side of the site of the first church under the propylaeum wall reveal that the first church was built atop a road about 8 m (26 ft) wide. According to early accounts,
10422-515: The Parthians and Sasanians , and such domes are likely related to Persian "squinch vaults". In addition to the mausoleum, the Palace of Diocletian also contains a rotunda near the center of the complex that may have served as a throne room. It has side niches similar to those of an octagonal mausoleum but was located at the end of an apparently barrel-vaulted hall like the arrangement found in later Sasanian palaces. Masonry domes were less common in
10615-533: The Rus'–Byzantine War of 941 and the death of the Grand Prince of Kiev , Igor I ( r. 912–945 ), his widow Olga of Kiev – regent for her infant son Sviatoslav I ( r. 945–972 ) – visited the emperor Constantine VII and was received as queen of the Rus' in Constantinople. She was probably baptized in Hagia Sophia's baptistery, taking the name of the reigning augusta , Helena Lecapena , and receiving
10808-412: The church of San Felice and Fortunato in Vicenza [ it ] , and Sicily's Cuba [ it ] of Malvagna (5th or 6th century) and San Pietro ad Baias (5th or 6th century). In Jerusalem, Sion Church was built with a wooden dome between 456 and 460. The Church of the Kathisma was built along the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem around 456 with an octagonal plan. It was built over
11001-458: The late Republic and early Imperial period , such as the so-called "Temple of Mercury" bath hall at Baiae . Nero introduced the dome into Roman palace architecture in the 1st century and such rooms served as state banqueting halls, audience rooms, or throne rooms. The Pantheon 's dome, the largest and most famous example, was built of concrete in the 2nd century and may have served as an audience hall for Hadrian . Imperial mausolea , such as
11194-419: The synthronon . He adds that mules and donkeys were brought into the cathedral's sanctuary to carry away the gilded silver plating of the bema, the ambo, and the doors and other furnishings, and that one of them slipped on the marble floor and was accidentally disembowelled, further contaminating the place. According to Ali ibn al-Athir , whose treatment of the Sack of Constantinople was probably dependent on
11387-416: The "Great Church", likely on 15 April 428. According to the anonymous Letter to Cosmas , the virgin empress, a promoter of the cult of the Virgin Mary who habitually partook in the Eucharist at the sanctuary of Nestorius's predecessors, claimed right of entry because of her equivalent position to the Theotokos – the Virgin Mary – "having given birth to God". Their theological differences were part of
11580-402: The 12th century Chora Church , among others. The cross-in-square plan, with a single dome at the crossing or five domes in a quincunx pattern, as at the Church of St. Panteleimon , was the most popular type from the 10th century until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Rounded arches, vaults, and domes distinguish Roman architecture from that of Ancient Greece and were facilitated by
11773-403: The 1616 construction of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque . Upon its conversion, the bells , altar , iconostasis , ambo , and baptistery were removed, while iconography , such as the mosaic depictions of Jesus, Mary , Christian saints and angels were removed or plastered over. Islamic architectural additions included four minarets , a minbar and a mihrab . The Byzantine architecture of
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#173285836013811966-488: The 2nd and 1st centuries BC are seen in Pompeii , in the cold rooms of the Terme Stabiane and the Terme del Foro. These domes are very conical in shape, similar to those on an Assyrian bas-relief found in Nineveh . At a Roman era tepidarium in Cabrera de Mar , Spain, a dome has been identified from the middle of the 2nd century BC that used a refined version of the parallel arch construction found in an earlier Hellenistic bath dome in Sicily. According to Vitruvius ,
12159-418: The 2nd century and most preserved examples of the style date from this period. Hadrian's villa has examples at the Piazza D'Oro and in the semidome of the Serapeum. Recorded details of the decoration of the segmented dome at the Piazza D'Oro suggests it was made to evoke a billowing tent, perhaps in imitation of the canopies used by Hellenistic kings . Other examples exist at the Hadrianic baths of Otricoli and
12352-415: The 2nd century, it is an unreinforced concrete dome 43.4 meters (142 ft) wide resting on a circular wall, or rotunda , 6 meters (20 ft) thick. This rotunda, made of brick-faced concrete, contains a large number of relieving arches and voids. Seven interior niches and the entrance way divide the wall structurally into eight virtually independent piers. These openings and additional voids account for
12545-405: The 2nd century. A small dome on spherical pendentives at Beurey-Beauguay on the Côte-d'Or department of France has been dated to the 2nd or 3rd century. A stone voussoir dome over the caldarium of the West Bath of Jerash has been dated to the second century. The large rotunda of the Baths of Agrippa, the oldest public baths in Rome, has been dated to the Severan period at the beginning of
12738-402: The 2nd century. Centrally planned halls become increasingly important parts of palace and palace villa layouts beginning in the 1st century, serving as state banqueting halls, audience rooms, or throne rooms. Formwork was arranged either horizontally or radially, but there is not enough surviving evidence from the 1st and 2nd centuries to say what was typical. The opulent palace architecture of
12931-403: The 3rd century include the brick dome of the Mausoleum of Diocletian , and the mausoleum at Villa Gordiani . The Villa Gordiani also contains remains of an oval gored dome. The Mausoleum of Diocletian uses small arched squinches of brick built up from a circular base in an overlapping scales pattern, called a "stepped squinches dome". The scales pattern was a popular Hellenistic motif adopted by
13124-535: The 3rd century, but it is not known whether this is an addition or simply a reconstruction of an earlier domed rotunda. In the 3rd century, imperial mausolea began to be built as domed rotundas rather than tumulus structures or other types, following similar monuments by private citizens. Pagan and Christian domed mausolea from this time can be differentiated in that the structures of the buildings also reflect their religious functions. The pagan buildings are typically two story, dimly lit, free-standing structures with
13317-474: The 4th century and the middle of the 5th century, domed mausolea for wealthy families were built attached to a new type of martyrial basilica before burials within the basilica itself, closer to the martyr's remains, made such attached buildings obsolete. A pagan rotunda from this period located on the Via Sacra was later incorporated into the Basilica of Saints Cosmas and Damian as a vestibule around 526. The chapel of S. Satiro in Milan [ it ]
13510-465: The 4th-century skeuophylakion survived the fire. According to Dark and Kostenec, the fire may only have affected the main basilica, leaving the surrounding ancillary buildings intact. A second church on the site was ordered by Theodosius II ( r. 402–450 ), who inaugurated it on 10 October 415. The Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae , a fifth-century list of monuments, names Hagia Sophia as Magna Ecclesia , 'Great Church', while
13703-407: The 4th-century church was not yet known as Hagia Sophia. Though its name as the 'Great Church' implies that it was larger than other Constantinopolitan churches, the only other major churches of the 4th century were the Church of St Mocius , which lay outside the Constantinian walls and was perhaps attached to a cemetery, and the Church of the Holy Apostles . The church itself is known to have had
13896-516: The 5th century Theodosian basilica could have been built surrounded by a complex constructed primarily during the fourth century. During the reign of Theodosius II, the emperor's elder sister, the Augusta Pulcheria ( r. 414–453 ) was challenged by the patriarch Nestorius ( r. 10 April 428 – 22 June 431 ). The patriarch denied the Augusta access to the sanctuary of
14089-541: The 5th century, with a church in southern Turkey being the earliest proposed example, but the 6th century architecture of Justinian made domed church architecture standard throughout the Roman east. His Hagia Sophia and Church of the Holy Apostles inspired copies in later centuries. Cruciform churches with domes at their crossings, such as the churches of Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki and St. Nicholas at Myra , were typical of 7th and 8th century architecture and bracing
14282-695: The 9th century, domes were built higher and used polygonal drums decorated with engaged columns and arcades. Exterior dome decoration was more elaborate by the 12th century and included engaged columns along with niches, blind arcades, and string courses. Multiple domes on a single building were normal. Domes were important elements of baptisteries , churches, and tombs. They were normally hemispherical and had, with occasional exceptions, windowed drums. Roofing for domes ranged from simple ceramic tile to more expensive, more durable, and more form-fitting lead sheeting. The domes and drums typically incorporated wooden tension rings at several levels to resist deformation in
14475-458: The Church of the Wisdom, at the top of the window, a large flame of fire issuing forth. It encircled the entire neck of the church for a long time. The flame gathered into one; its flame altered, and there was an indescribable light. At once it took to the sky. ... The light itself has gone up to heaven; the gates of heaven were opened; the light was received; and again they were closed." This phenomenon
14668-468: The Emperor Nero (54 – 68 AD) marks an important development. There is evidence of a dome in his Domus Transitoria at the intersection of two corridors, resting on four large piers , which may have had an oculus at the center. In Nero's Domus Aurea , or "Golden House", planned by Severus and Celer, the walls of a large octagonal room transition to an octagonal domical vault, which then transitions to
14861-645: The Greek historian Doukas , the Hagia Sophia was tainted by these Catholic associations, and the anti-union Orthodox faithful avoided the cathedral, considering it to be a haunt of demons and a "Hellenic" temple of Roman paganism . Doukas also notes that after the Laetentur Caeli was proclaimed, the Byzantines dispersed discontentedly to nearby venues where they drank toasts to the Hodegetria icon, which had, according to late Byzantine tradition, interceded to save them in
15054-643: The Hagia Sophia served as inspiration for many other religious buildings including the Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki , Panagia Ekatontapiliani , the Şehzade Mosque , the Süleymaniye Mosque , the Rüstem Pasha Mosque and the Kılıç Ali Pasha Complex . The patriarchate moved to the Church of the Holy Apostles , which became the city's cathedral. The complex remained a mosque until 1931, when it
15247-560: The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem . The building was likely preceded by an atrium , as in the later churches on the site. According to Ken Dark and Jan Kostenec, a further remnant of the 4th century basilica may exist in a wall of alternating brick and stone banded masonry immediately to the west of the Justinianic church. The top part of the wall
15440-610: The Justinianic Hagia Sophia revealed the western remains of its Theodosian predecessor, as well as some fragments of the Constantinian church. German archaeologist Alfons Maria Schneider began conducting archaeological excavations during the mid-1930s, publishing his final report in 1941. Excavations in the area that had once been the 6th-century atrium of the Justinianic church revealed the monumental western entrance and atrium, along with columns and sculptural fragments from both 4th- and 5th-century churches. Further digging
15633-558: The Roman provinces, although the 3rd century "Temple of Venus" at Baalbek was built with a stone dome 10 meters (33 ft) in diameter. A stone corbelled dome 5.806 meters (19.05 ft) wide, later known as " Arthur's O'on ", was located in Scotland three kilometers north of the Falkirk fort on the Antonine Wall and may have been a Roman victory monument from the reign of Carausius . It
15826-511: The Temple of Minerva Medica. The largest centrally planned Early Christian church, Milan 's San Lorenzo Maggiore , was built in the middle of the 4th century while that city served as the capital of the Western Empire and may have been domed with a light material, such as timber or cane. There are two theories about the shape of this dome: a Byzantine-style dome on spherical pendentives with
16019-621: The Younger, nephew of Isidore of Miletus, who used lighter materials. The entire vault had to be taken down and rebuilt 20 Byzantine feet (6.25 m or 20.5 ft) higher than before, giving the building its current interior height of 55.6 m (182 ft). Moreover, Isidorus changed the dome type, erecting a ribbed dome with pendentives whose diameter was between 32.7 and 33.5 m. Under Justinian's orders, eight Corinthian columns were disassembled from Baalbek , Lebanon and shipped to Constantinople around 560. This reconstruction, which gave
16212-460: The advance of the Turks. The identity of the emperor was often confused with that of other famous saint-emperors like Theodosius I and Heraclius . The orb was frequently referred to as an apple in foreigners' accounts of the city, and it was interpreted in Greek folklore as a symbol of the Turks' mythological homeland in Central Asia, the "Lone Apple Tree". The orb fell to the ground in 1316 and
16405-414: The all-holy dedicatory offerings". After a successful sally by Renier and his knights, Maria requested a truce, the imperial assault ceased, and an amnesty was negotiated by the megas doux Andronikos Kontostephanos and the megas hetaireiarches John Doukas . Greek historian Niketas Choniates compared the preservation of the cathedral to the efforts made by the 1st-century emperor Titus to avoid
16598-461: The architecture of Ancient Rome and of its medieval continuation, the Byzantine Empire . They had widespread influence on contemporary and later styles, from Russian and Ottoman architecture to the Italian Renaissance and modern revivals . The domes were customarily hemispherical, although octagonal and segmented shapes are also known, and they developed in form, use, and structure over
16791-450: The army to destroy all icons – ushering in the period of Byzantine iconoclasm . At that time, all religious pictures and statues were removed from the Hagia Sophia. Following a brief hiatus during the reign of Empress Irene (797–802), the iconoclasts returned. Emperor Theophilus ( r. 829–842 ) had two-winged bronze doors with his monograms installed at the southern entrance of the church. The basilica suffered damage, first in
16984-476: The building and the central covering collapsed in 1103. It was rebuilt with a Romanesque dome that lasted until 1573, when it collapsed and was replaced by the present structure. The original vaulting was concealed by a square drum externally rather than the octagon of today, which dates from the 16th century. Fluted or coffered domed structures appear in art with greater frequency from the late 4th century. The early church of St. John at Ephesus mentioned in
17177-499: The building we now see, it seems to me that they would have prayed that they might see their church destroyed forthwith, in order that the building might be converted into its present form. Upon seeing the finished building, the Emperor reportedly said: "Solomon, I have surpassed thee " ( Medieval Greek : Νενίκηκά σε Σολομών ). Justinian and Patriarch Menas inaugurated the new basilica on 27 December 537, 5 years and 10 months after construction started, with much pomp. Hagia Sophia
17370-484: The building with 4,000 Roman pounds of gold, but he was dismissed from office in October 532. John the Lydian wrote that Phocas had acquired the funds by moral means, but Evagrius Scholasticus later wrote that the money had been obtained unjustly. According to Anthony Kaldellis , both of Hagia Sophia's architects named by Procopius were associated with the school of the pagan philosopher Ammonius of Alexandria . It
17563-457: The building's western face. The white marble cladding of much of the church, together with gilding of some parts, would have given Hagia Sophia a shimmering appearance quite different from the brick- and plaster-work of the modern period, and would have significantly increased its visibility from the sea. The cathedral's interior surfaces were sheathed with polychrome marbles, green and white with purple porphyry , and gold mosaics. The exterior
17756-559: The building. Construction of the church began in 532 during the short tenure of Phocas as praetorian prefect . Although Phocas had been arrested in 529 as a suspected practitioner of paganism , he replaced John the Cappadocian after the Nika Riots saw the destruction of the Theodosian church. According to John the Lydian , Phocas was responsible for funding the initial construction of
17949-434: The capital cities and other cities with imperial affiliations. Domes were also very common over polygonal garden pavilions. Depictions on late Roman coins suggest that wooden bulbous domes sheathed in metal were used on late Roman towers in the eastern portion of the empire. Construction and development of domes declined in the west with the decline and fall of the western portion of the empire. In Byzantine architecture ,
18142-454: The centuries. Early examples rested directly on the rotunda walls of round rooms and featured a central oculus for ventilation and light. Pendentives became common in the Byzantine period, provided support for domes over square spaces. Early wooden domes are known only from a literary source, but the use of wooden formwork , concrete, and unskilled labor enabled domes of monumental size in
18335-400: The church architecture of the surviving Eastern Roman Empire . A transition from timber-roofed basilicas to vaulted churches seems to have occurred there between the late 5th century and the 7th century, with early examples in Constantinople, Asia Minor, and Cilicia . The first known domed basilica may have been a church at Meriamlik in southern Turkey, dated to between 471 and 494, although
18528-504: The church its present 6th-century form, was completed in 562. The poet Paul the Silentiary composed an ekphrasis , or long visual poem, for the re-dedication of the basilica presided over by Patriarch Eutychius on 24 December 562. Paul the Silentiary's poem is conventionally known under the Latin title Descriptio Sanctae Sophiae , and he was also author of another ekphrasis on the ambon of
18721-698: The church, the Descripto Ambonis . According to the history of the patriarch Nicephorus I and the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor , various liturgical vessels of the cathedral were melted down on the order of the emperor Heraclius ( r. 610–641 ) after the capture of Alexandria and Roman Egypt by the Sasanian Empire during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 . Theophanes states that these were made into gold and silver coins, and
18914-528: The city's capture. Despite the ill-repute and empty state of Hagia Sophia after December 1452, Doukas writes that after the Theodosian Walls were breached, the Byzantines took refuge there as the Turks advanced through the city: "All the women and men, monks, and nuns ran to the Great Church. They, both men and women, were holding in their arms their infants. What a spectacle! That street was crowded, full of human beings." He attributes their change of heart to
19107-452: The complex geometry of the octagonal domed hall at the 2nd century Small Thermal Baths of Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli . The vaulting has collapsed, but a virtual reconstruction suggests that the walls of the octagonal hall, which alternate flat and convex, merged into a spherical cap. Segmented domes made of radially concave wedges, or of alternating concave and flat wedges, appear under Hadrian in
19300-554: The complex with locals and mercenaries, and despite the strong opposition of the patriarch, made the "house of prayer into a den of thieves or a well-fortified and precipitous stronghold, impregnable to assault", while "all the dwellings adjacent to Hagia Sophia and adjoining the Augusteion were demolished by [Maria's] men". A battle ensued in the Augustaion and around the Milion , during which
19493-490: The congregational basilica with the centralized shrine. With a similar plan to that of the Church of Saint Simeon Stylites , four naves projected from a central rotunda containing Constantine's tomb and spaces for the tombs of the twelve Apostles . Above the center may have been a clerestory with a wooden dome roofed with bronze sheeting and gold accents. The oblong decagon of today's St. Gereon's Basilica in Cologne , Germany,
19686-565: The construction process. This new church was contemporaneously recognized as a major work of architecture. Outside the church was an elaborate array of monuments around the bronze-plated Column of Justinian , topped by an equestrian statue of the emperor which dominated the Augustaeum , the open square outside the church which connected it with the Great Palace complex through the Chalke Gate . At
19879-448: The controversy over the title theotokos that resulted in the Council of Ephesus and the stimulation of Monophysitism and Nestorianism , a doctrine, which like Nestorius, rejects the use of the title. Pulcheria along with Pope Celestine I and Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria had Nestorius overthrown, condemned at the ecumenical council, and exiled. The area of the western entrance to
20072-404: The culmination of their dispute with the empress Maria of Antioch , regent for her son, the emperor Alexius II Comnenus . Maria Comnena and Renier occupied the cathedral with the support of the patriarch, refusing the imperial administration's demands for a peaceful departure. According to Niketas Choniates, they "transformed the sacred courtyard into a military camp", garrisoned the entrances to
20265-504: The defenders fought from the "gallery of the Catechumeneia (also called the Makron)" facing the Augusteion, from which they eventually retreated and took up positions in the exonarthex of Hagia Sophia itself. At this point, "the patriarch was anxious lest the enemy troops enter the temple, with unholy feet trample the holy floor, and with hands defiled and dripping with blood still warm plunder
20458-658: The destruction of a city founded on seven hills in the Book of Revelation was frequently understood to be about Constantinople, and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius had predicted an " Ishmaelite " conquest of the Roman Empire. In this text, the Muslim armies reach the Forum Bovis before being turned back by divine intervention; in later apocalyptic texts, the climactic turn takes place at
20651-709: The destruction of the Second Temple during the siege of Jerusalem in the First Jewish–Roman War . Choniates reports that in 1182, a white hawk wearing jesses was seen to fly from the east to Hagia Sophia, flying three times from the "building of the Thōmaitēs " (a basilica erected on the southeastern side of the Augustaion) to the Palace of the Kathisma in the Great Palace , where new emperors were acclaimed . This
20844-549: The destruction of the Theodosian Hagia Sophia and comparing the new church with the old, Procopius lauded the Justinianic building, writing in De aedificiis : ... the Emperor Justinian built not long afterwards a church so finely shaped, that if anyone had enquired of the Christians before the burning if it would be their wish that the church should be destroyed and one like this should take its place, shewing them some sort of model of
21037-434: The dome and changes to lighter materials as the height increases, dramatically reducing the stresses in the finished structure. In fact, many commentators have cited the Pantheon as an example of the revolutionary possibilities for monolithic architecture provided by the use of Roman pozzolana concrete. However, vertical cracks seem to have developed very early, such that in practice the dome acts as an array of arches with
21230-473: The dome and nothing but paired columns beneath that, using a surrounding barrel vault to buttress the structure. The 24-meter (79 ft) dome of the Mausoleum of Galerius was built around 300 AD close to the imperial palace as either a mausoleum or a throne room. It was converted into a church in the 5th century. Also in Thessaloniki, at the Tetrarchic palace, an octagonal building has been excavated with
21423-528: The dome: a circular oculus and four square skylights. The dome has a span of 21.5 meters (71 ft) and is the largest known dome built before that of the Pantheon. It is also the earliest preserved concrete dome. While there are earlier examples in the Republican period and early Imperial period, the growth of domed construction increased under Emperor Nero and the Flavians in the 1st century AD, and during
21616-402: The dome; a burial cloth of Christ shown on Fridays, and on the apse a new depiction of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus, between the apostles Peter and Paul. On the great side arches were painted the prophets and the teachers of the church. According to the 13th-century Greek historian Niketas Choniates , the emperor John II Comnenus celebrated a revived Roman triumph after his victory over
21809-499: The domestic wing. Unlike Nero's similar octagonal dome, its segments extended all the way to the oculus. The dining hall of this private palace, called the Coenatio Jovis , or Dining Hall of Jupiter, contained a rotating ceiling like the one Nero had built, but with stars set into the simulated sky. During the reign of Emperor Trajan , domes and semi-domes over exedras were standard elements of Roman architecture, possibly due to
22002-445: The eastern and northern parts of the church, financing them with the inheritance of his late wife, Irene of Montferrat ( d. 1314). New cracks developed in the dome after the earthquake of October 1344, and several parts of the building collapsed on 19 May 1346. Repairs by architects Astras and Peralta began in 1354. On 12 December 1452, Isidore of Kiev proclaimed in Hagia Sophia the long-anticipated ecclesiastical union between
22195-567: The edge of the Augustaeum was the Milion and the Regia, the first stretch of Constantinople's main thoroughfare, the Mese . Also facing the Augustaeum were the enormous Constantinian thermae , the Baths of Zeuxippus , and the Justinianic civic basilica under which was the vast cistern known as the Basilica Cistern . On the opposite side of Hagia Sophia was the former cathedral, Hagia Irene. Referring to
22388-439: The edifice was built by Constantius' father, Constantine the Great ( r. 306–337 ). Hesychius of Miletus wrote that Constantine built Hagia Sophia with a wooden roof and removed 427 (mostly pagan) statues from the site. The 12th-century chronicler Joannes Zonaras reconciles the two opinions, writing that Constantius had repaired the edifice consecrated by Eusebius of Nicomedia , after it had collapsed. Since Eusebius
22581-524: The efforts of Trajan's architect, Apollodorus of Damascus , who was famed for his engineering ability. Two rotundas 20 meters (66 ft) in diameter were finished in 109 AD as part of the Baths of Trajan , built over the Domus Aurea, and exedras 13 and 18 meters (43 and 59 ft) wide were built as part of the markets north-east of his forum . The architecture of Trajan's successor, Hadrian, continued this style. Three 100-foot (30 m) wide exedras at Trajan's Baths have patterns of coffering that, as in
22774-783: The eight winds that is compared by analogy to the eight winds depicted on the Tower of the Winds , which was built in Athens at about the same time. This aviary with its wooden dome may represent a fully developed type. Wooden domes in general would have allowed for very wide spans. Their earlier use may have inspired the development and introduction of large stone domes of previously unprecedented size. Complex wooden forms were necessary for dome centering and support during construction, and they seem to have eventually become more efficient and standardized over time. The "so-called tomb of Ummidia [ it ] "
22967-424: The fifth century. It is a rotunda with four apse niches in the corners. The best preserved example of Roman architecture in the city, it has been used as a baptistery, church, mosque, and mausoleum over the centuries. The dome rises to about 14 m from the floor with a diameter of about 9.5 m. Its original function as a hypocaust hall is disputed and, based on its form, the building may originally have been
23160-417: The first Hagia Sophia was built on the site of an ancient pagan temple, although there are no artefacts to confirm this. The Patriarch of Constantinople John Chrysostom came into a conflict with Empress Aelia Eudoxia , wife of the emperor Arcadius ( r. 383–408 ), and was sent into exile on 20 June 404. During the subsequent riots, this first church was largely burnt down. Palladius noted that
23353-495: The first, Marcus Agrippa , does not mention any god or group of gods. Its name, Pantheon , comes from the Greek for "all gods" but is unofficial, and it was not included in the list of temples restored by Hadrian in the Historia Augusta . Circular temples were small and rare, and Roman temples traditionally allowed for only one divinity per room. The Pantheon more resembles structures found in imperial palaces and baths. Hadrian
23546-680: The former sieges of Constantinople by the Avar Khaganate and the Umayyad Caliphate . According to Nestor Iskander's Tale on the Taking of Tsargrad , the Hagia Sophia was the focus of an alarming omen interpreted as the Holy Spirit abandoning Constantinople on 21 May 1453, in the final days of the Siege of Constantinople. The sky lit up, illuminating the city, and "many people gathered and saw on
23739-467: The former cathedral Hagia Irene is referred to as Ecclesia Antiqua , 'Old Church'. At the time of Socrates of Constantinople around 440, "both churches [were] enclosed by a single wall and served by the same clergy". Thus, the complex would have encompassed a large area including the future site of the Hospital of Samson . If the fire of 404 destroyed only the 4th-century main basilica church, then
23932-513: The haunches of the dome and the dome was then also sometimes covered with a conical or polygonal roof. A variety of other shapes, including shallow saucer domes , segmental domes , and ribbed domes were also sometimes used. Stone or brick ribs were usually flush with the inside surface of Roman domes where they would not have been visible. The audience halls of many imperial palaces were domed. Domes were "closely associated with senatorial, imperial, and state-sponsored patrons" and proliferated in
24125-499: The hexagon at Gülhane , the martyium of Sts. Karpos and Papylos , and the rotunda at the Myrelaion . The timber-roofed basilica of Ilissos [ de ] in Athens had a dome over its sanctuary. The 5th century St. Mary's church in Ephesus had small rectangular side rooms with sail vaults made of arched brick courses. The brick dome of the baptistery at St. Mary's was composed of
24318-512: The icon of the Virgin from the now-demolished East Gate (or Gate of St Barbara, later the Turkish : Top Kapısı , lit. 'Cannon Gate') in the Propontis Wall , to Hagia Sophia for a thanks-giving service, and then to the imperial palace. In 1181, the daughter of the emperor Manuel I, Maria Comnena , and her husband, the caesar Renier of Montferrat , fled to Hagia Sophia at
24511-400: The inside surface of the dome and by patching on the outside of the building. The Pantheon's roof was originally covered with gilt bronze tiles, but these were removed in 663 by Emperor Constans II and replaced with lead roofing. The function of the Pantheon remains an open question. Strangely for a temple, its inscription, which attributes this third building at the site to the builder of
24704-415: The interlocutor, upon being told by the saint that Constantinople will be sunk in a flood and that "the waters as they gush forth will irresistibly deluge her and cover her and surrender her to the terrifying and immense sea of the abyss", says "some people say that the Great Church of God will not be submerged with the city but will be suspended in the air by an invisible power". The reply is given that "When
24897-460: The kingdom, together with the sword, to some insignificant, poor, and humble man who would happen to be standing by the Column. He would say to him: "Take this sword and avenge the Lord's people." Then the Turks would be turned back, would be massacred by the pursuing Romans, and would be ejected from the city and from all places in the west and the east and would be driven as far as the borders of Persia, to
25090-594: The late 5th-century Column of Leo . A large lintel of the skeuophylakion 's western entrance – bricked up during the Ottoman era – was discovered inside the rotunda when it was archaeologically cleared to its foundations in 1979, during which time the brickwork was also repointed . The skeuophylakion was again restored in 2014 by the Vakıflar . A fire started during the tumult of the Nika Revolt , which had begun nearby in
25283-494: The later Pantheon, align with lower niches only on the axes and diagonals and, also as in the Pantheon, that alignment is sometimes with the ribs between the coffers, rather than with the coffers themselves. The Pantheon in Rome, completed by Emperor Hadrian as part of the Baths of Agrippa , has the most famous, best preserved, and largest Roman dome. Its diameter was more than twice as wide as any known earlier dome. Although considered an example of Hadrianic architecture, there
25476-459: The linear walls suggest a timber roof, rather than a brick dome. There is a story that she used the contribution to public funds that she had promised Justinian on his ascension to the throne to roof her church in gold. The church included an inscription praising Juliana for having "surpassed Solomon" with the building, and it may have been with this in mind that Justinian would later say of his Hagia Sophia, "Solomon, I have vanquished thee!". In
25669-437: The mausoleum of Catervus was modeled on the Pantheon, but at one-quarter scale and with three protruding apses, around 390–410. The Baptistery of Neon in Ravenna was completed in the middle of the 5th century and there were 5th century domes in the baptisteries at Padula and Novara . Small brick domes are also found in towers of Constantinople's early 5th century land walls . Underground cisterns in Constantinople, such as
25862-425: The memory of this insult contributed to Hadrian as emperor having Apollodorus exiled and killed. In the middle of the 2nd century, some of the largest domes were built near present-day Naples , as part of large bath complexes taking advantage of the volcanic hot springs in the area. At the bath complex at Baiae, there are remains of a collapsed dome spanning 26.3 meters (86 ft), called the "Temple of Venus", and
26055-466: The military supremacy of the Islamic caliphate over the Christian empire. In Niccolò Barbaro 's account of the fall of the city in 1453, the Justinianic monument was interpreted in the last days of the siege as representing the city's founder Constantine the Great, indicating "this is the way my conqueror will come". According to Laonicus Chalcocondyles , Hagia Sophia was a refuge for the population during
26248-525: The mortar and allow for faster construction. Metal clamps between stone cornice blocks, metal tie rods, and metal chains were also used to stabilize domed buildings. Timber belts at the bases of domes helped to stabilize the walls below them during earthquakes, but the domes themselves remained vulnerable to collapse. The surviving ribbed or pumpkin dome examples in Constantinople are structurally equivalent and those techniques were used interchangeably, with
26441-504: The new western capital of Ravenna. Although they continued to be built elsewhere in Italy, domes would not be built again within Rome until 1453. Other 5th century Italian domes may include a church at Casaranello [ it ] (first half of the 5th century), the chapel of San Vittore in Milan [ it ] at the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio , the chapel of St. Maria Mater Domini in
26634-500: The number of divisions corresponding to the number of windows. Aided by the small scale of churches after the 6th century, such ribbed domes could be built with formwork only for the ribs. Pumpkin domes could have been built in self-supporting rings and small domical vaults were effectively corbelled, dispensing with formwork altogether. Roman baths played a leading role in the development of domed construction in general, and monumental domes in particular. Modest domes in baths dating from
26827-461: The opening. Circular channels on the upper surface of the oculus also support the idea that this lantern, perhaps itself domed, was the rotating dome referred to in written accounts. According to Suetonius , the Domus Aurea had a dome that perpetually rotated on its base in imitation of the sky. It was reported in 2009 that newly discovered foundations of a round room may be those of a rotating domed dining hall. Also reported in contemporary sources
27020-418: The original. Alternatively, the central covering may have been a square groin vault . The building may have been the church of the nearby imperial palace and a proposed construction between 355 and 374 under the Arian bishop Auxentius of Milan , who later "suffered a kind of damnatio memoriae at the hands of his orthodox successors", may explain the lack of records about it. Fires in 1071 and 1075 damaged
27213-462: The patriarch. Early in the 10th century, the pagan ruler of the Kievan Rus' sent emissaries to his neighbors to learn about Judaism, Islam, and Roman and Orthodox Christianity. After visiting Hagia Sophia his emissaries reported back: "We were led into a place where they serve their God, and we did not know where we were, in heaven or on earth." In the 940s or 950s, probably around 954 or 955, after
27406-669: The pendentive dome was known in 2nd century Roman architecture and possibly earlier, in funerary monuments such as the Sedia dei Diavolo [ it ] and the Torracio della Secchina [ it ] on the Via Nomentana . Pendentive domes would be used much more widely in the Byzantine period. A "Roman tomb in Palestine at Kusr-en-Nêuijîs" had a pendentive dome over the square intersection of cruciform barrel vaults and has been dated to
27599-554: The region of North Italy near Milan. Examples include the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Fonte in Milan [ it ] (late 4th century), a domed baptistery in Naples (4th to 6th centuries), and a baptistery in Aquileia (late 4th century). Part of a baths complex begun in the early 4th century, the brick Church of St. George in Sofia was a caldarium that was converted in the middle of
27792-583: The reign of Emperor Domitian is a 16.1-meter (53 ft) wide example in what may have been a nymphaeum at his villa at Albano . It is now the church of Santa Maria della Rotunda [ it ] . Domitian's 92 AD Domus Augustana established the apsidal semi-dome as an imperial motif. Square chambers in his palace on the Palatine Hill used pendentives to support domes. His palace contained three domes resting over walls with alternating apses and rectangular openings. An octagonal domed hall existed in
27985-404: The repairs. He erected again and reinforced the fallen dome arch, and rebuilt the west side of the dome with 15 dome ribs. The extent of the damage required six years of repair and reconstruction; the church was re-opened on 13 May 994. At the end of the reconstruction, the church's decorations were renovated, including the addition of four immense paintings of cherubs; a new depiction of Christ on
28178-464: The room itself to be unusually well lit. Because there is no indication that mosaic or other facing material had ever been applied to the surface of the dome, it may have been hidden behind a tent-like fabric canopy like the pavilion tents of Hellenistic (and earlier Persian) rulers. The oculus is unusually large, more than two-fifths the span of the room, and it may have served to support a lightweight lantern structure or tholos , which would have covered
28371-526: The ruins do not provide a definitive answer. It is possible earlier examples existed in Constantinople, where it has been suggested that the plan for the Meriamlik church itself was designed, but no domed basilica has been found there before the 6th century. The 6th century marks a turning point for domed church architecture. Centrally planned domed churches had been built since the 4th century for very particular functions, such as palace churches or martyria, with
28564-427: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Ayasofya Mosque . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ayasofya_Mosque&oldid=1122764158 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
28757-571: The second church in Kiev, Saint Sophia's , was founded in anno mundi 6460 in the Byzantine calendar , or c. 952 . The name of this future cathedral of Kiev probably commemorates Olga's baptism at Hagia Sophia. After the great earthquake of 25 October 989, which collapsed the western dome arch, Emperor Basil II asked for the Armenian architect Trdat , creator of the Cathedral of Ani , to direct
28950-409: The second third of the 6th century, church building by the Emperor Justinian used the domed cross unit on a monumental scale, in keeping with Justinian's emphasis on bold architectural innovation. His church architecture emphasized the central dome and his architects made the domed brick-vaulted central plan standard throughout the Roman east. This divergence with the Roman west from the second third of
29143-501: The site a mosque; proponents of the decision argued the Hagia Sophia was the personal property of the sultan. The decision to designate Hagia Sophia as a mosque was highly controversial. It resulted in divided opinions and drew condemnation from the Turkish opposition, UNESCO , the World Council of Churches and the International Association of Byzantine Studies , as well as numerous international leaders, while several Muslim leaders in Turkey and other countries welcomed its conversion into
29336-421: The site of a rock said to be used as a seat by the Virgin Mary as she traveled to Bethlehem while pregnant with Jesus, corresponding to a story told in the Protoevangelium of James . The outer diameter was similar to that of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at 26–27 meters, and the innermost octagon supported a dome 15.5 meters wide. With the end of the Western Roman Empire , domes became a signature feature of
29529-406: The so-called "Temple of Mercury" in Baiae suggest a centering of eight radiating frames, with horizontal connectors supporting radial formwork for the shallow dome. The building, actually a concrete frigidarium pool for a bath , dates to either the late Roman Republic, or the reign of the first emperor Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD), making it the first large Roman dome. There are five openings in
29722-501: The so-called "Temple of Venus" at Baiae. This style of dome required complex centering and radially oriented formwork to create its tight curves, and the earliest surviving direct evidence of radial formwork is found at the caldarium of the Large Baths at Hadrian's villa. Hadrian was an amateur architect and it was apparently domes of Hadrian's like these that Trajan's architect, Apollodorus of Damascus, derisively called "pumpkins" prior to Hadrian becoming emperor. According to Dio Cassius ,
29915-412: The steps outside the atrium of the Constantinian Old St Peter's Basilica in Rome. Near the staircase, there was a cistern, perhaps to supply a fountain in the atrium or for worshippers to wash with before entering. The 4th-century skeuophylakion was replaced in the 5th century by the present-day structure, a rotunda constructed of banded masonry in the lower two levels and of plain brick masonry in
30108-413: The subsequent Sack of Constantinople in 1204, the church was further ransacked and desecrated by the Crusaders, as described by Choniates, though he did not witness the events in person. According to his account, composed at the court of the rump Empire of Nicaea , Hagia Sophia was stripped of its remaining metal ornaments, its altar was smashed into pieces, and a "woman laden with sins" sang and danced on
30301-449: The suitability of those shapes for assembly around a single object. Baptisteries began to be built in the manner of domed mausolea during the 4th century in Italy. The octagonal Lateran Baptistery or the baptistery of the Holy Sepulchre may have been the first, and the style spread during the 5th century. In the second half of the fourth century, domed octagonal baptisteries similar to the form of contemporary imperial mausolea developed in
30494-419: The temperature and humidity of domed warm rooms could be regulated by raising or lowering bronze discs located under an oculus. Domes were particularly well suited to the hot rooms of baths circular in plan to facilitate even heating from the walls. However, the extensive use of domes did not occur before the 1st century AD. Varro's book on agriculture describes an aviary with a wooden dome decorated with
30687-406: The third. Originally this rotunda, probably employed as a treasury for liturgical objects, had a second-floor internal gallery accessed by an external spiral staircase and two levels of niches for storage. A further row of windows with marble window frames on the third level remain bricked up. The gallery was supported on monumental consoles with carved acanthus designs, similar to those used on
30880-472: The titles zōstē patrikía and the styles of archontissa and hegemon of the Rus'. Her baptism was an important step towards the Christianization of the Kievan Rus' , though the emperor's treatment of her visit in De caerimoniis does not mention baptism. Olga is deemed a saint and equal-to-the-apostles ( Ancient Greek : ἰσαπόστολος , romanized : isapóstolos ) in the Eastern Orthodox Church. According to an early 14th-century source,
31073-420: The tomb of Christ , consisted of a domed center room surrounded by an ambulatory. The dome rose over a ground floor, gallery, and clerestory and may have had an oculus. The dome was about 21 meters (69 ft) wide. Razed to the ground in 1009 by the Fatimid Caliph , it was rebuilt in 1048 by Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos , reportedly with a mosaic depicting Christ and the Twelve Apostles. The current dome
31266-543: The use of concrete and brick. By varying the weight of the aggregate material in the concrete, the weight of the concrete could be altered, allowing lighter layers to be laid at the top of concrete domes. But concrete domes also required expensive wooden formwork , also called shuttering, to be built and kept in place during the curing process, which would usually have to be destroyed to be removed. Formwork for brick domes need not be kept in place as long and could be more easily reused. The mortar and aggregate of Roman concrete
31459-435: The use of windows in the supporting walls, replacing the need for an oculus as a light source. Christian baptisteries and shrines were domed in the 4th century, such as the Lateran Baptistery and the likely wooden dome over the Church of the Holy Sepulchre . Constantine's octagonal church in Antioch may have been a precedent for similar buildings for centuries afterward. The first domed basilica may have been built in
31652-401: The western Catholic and eastern Orthodox Churches as decided at the Council of Florence and decreed by the papal bull Laetentur Caeli , though it would be short-lived. The union was unpopular among the Byzantines, who had already expelled the Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory III , for his pro-union stance. A new patriarch was not installed until after the Ottoman conquest. According to
31845-402: The western arm of this building, likely in the 550s, expanding it from one domed bay to two domed bays. The Church of St. Polyeuctus in Constantinople (524–527) may have been built as a large and lavish domed basilica similar to the Meriamlik church of fifty years before—and to the later Hagia Irene of Emperor Justinian—by Anicia Juliana , a descendant of the former imperial house, although
32038-405: The whole city sinks into the sea, how can the Great Church remain? Who will need her? Do you think God dwells in temples made with hands?" The Column of Constantine , however, is prophesied to endure. From the time of Procopius in the reign of Justinian, the equestrian imperial statue on the Column of Justinian in the Augustaion beside Hagia Sophia, which gestured towards Asia with right hand,
32231-521: The world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years, until the Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520. Beginning with subsequent Byzantine architecture, Hagia Sophia became the paradigmatic Orthodox church form , and its architectural style was emulated by Ottoman mosques a thousand years later. It has been described as "holding a unique position in the Christian world " and as an architectural and cultural icon of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox civilization. The religious and spiritual centre of
32424-443: The world's largest interior space and among the first to employ a fully pendentive dome. It is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and is said to have "changed the history of architecture". The present Justinianic building was the third church of the same name to occupy the site, as the prior one had been destroyed in the Nika riots . As the episcopal see of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople , it remained
32617-449: Was "closer in artistic sensibility to Trajan’s era than Hadrian’s" are the monumental size and the incorporation of tiny passages in the structure. The building's dimensions seem to reference Archimedes ' treatise On the Sphere and Cylinder , the dome may use rows of 28 coffers because 28 was considered by the Pythagoreans to be a perfect number , and the design balances its complexity with underlying geometrical simplicity. Dating from
32810-450: Was abandoned for fear of harming the structural integrity of the Justinianic building, but parts of the excavation trenches remain uncovered, laying bare the foundations of the Theodosian building. The basilica was built by architect Rufinus. The church's main entrance, which may have had gilded doors, faced west, and there was an additional entrance to the east. There was a central pulpit and likely an upper gallery, possibly employed as
33003-428: Was about 80 Roman feet wide, versus about 150 for the Pantheon, and made of brick over a cut stone rotunda. The Ostia dome was 60 Roman feet wide and made of brick-faced concrete. No later dome built in the Imperial era came close to the span of the Pantheon. It remained the largest dome in the world for more than a millennium and is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. Use of concrete facilitated
33196-432: Was built next to the area where the Great Palace was being developed. According to the 5th-century ecclesiastical historian Socrates of Constantinople , the emperor Constantius had c. 346 "constructed the Great Church alongside that called Irene which because it was too small, the emperor's father [Constantine] had enlarged and beautified". A tradition which is not older than the 7th or 8th century reports that
33389-400: Was built up in horizontal layers laid by hand against wooden form-work with the thickness of the layers determined by the length of the workday, rather than being poured into a mold as concrete is today. Roman concrete domes were thus built similarly to the earlier corbel domes of the Mediterranean region, although they have different structural characteristics. The aggregate used by the Romans
33582-438: Was built upon an extraordinary and richly decorated 4th century Roman building with an apse, semi-domed niches, and dome. A church built in the city's northern cemetery, its original dedication is unknown. It may have been built by Julianus , the governor of Gaul from 355 to 360 who would later become emperor, as a mausoleum for his family. The oval space may have been patterned after imperial audience halls or buildings such as
33775-427: Was built with a dome using the pottery technique of Ravenna, and was later connected to the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio. Christian mausolea and shrines developed into the "centralized church" type, often with a dome over a raised central space. The Church of the Holy Apostles , or Apostoleion , probably planned by Constantine but built by his successor Constantius in the new capital city of Constantinople, combined
33968-585: Was clad in stucco that was tinted yellow and red during the 19th-century restorations by the Fossati architects. The construction is described by Procopius in On Buildings ( Greek : Περὶ κτισμάτων , romanized : Peri ktismatōn , Latin: De aedificiis ). Columns and other marble elements were imported from throughout the Mediterranean, although the columns were once thought to be spoils from cities such as Rome and Ephesus. Even though they were made specifically for Hagia Sophia, they vary in size. More than ten thousand people were employed during
34161-483: Was closed to the public for four years. It was re-opened in 1935 as a museum under the secular Republic of Turkey, and the building was Turkey's most visited tourist attraction as of 2019 . In July 2020, the Council of State annulled the 1934 decision to establish the museum, and the Hagia Sophia was reclassified as a mosque. The 1934 decree was ruled to be unlawful under both Ottoman and Turkish law as Hagia Sophia's waqf , endowed by Sultan Mehmed, had designated
34354-405: Was crowned emperor on 16 May 1204 in Hagia Sophia in a ceremony which closely followed Byzantine practices. Enrico Dandolo , the Doge of Venice who commanded the sack and invasion of the city by the Latin Crusaders in 1204, is buried inside the church, probably in the upper eastern gallery . In the 19th century, an Italian restoration team placed a cenotaph marker, frequently mistaken as being
34547-476: Was dedicated two years after the Council of Nicea to "Harmony, the divine power that unites Universe, Church, and Empire". It may have been both the cathedral of Antioch as well as the court church of Constantine, and the precedent for the later octagonal plan churches near palaces of Saints Sergius and Bacchus and Hagia Sophia by Justinian and Aachen Cathedral by Charlemagne. The dome was rebuilt by 537–8 with cypress wood from Daphne after being destroyed in
34740-401: Was demolished in 1519 as part of the rebuilding of St. Peter's, but had a dome 15.7 meters wide and its appearance is known from some images. The last domed church in the city of Rome for centuries was Santo Stefano al Monte Celio around 460. It had an unusual centralized plan and a 22 meter wide dome made with vaulting tubes [ it ] , a technique that may have been imported from
34933-452: Was destined to be transformed. So the whole church at that time lay a charred mass of ruins. On 23 February 532, only a few weeks after the destruction of the second basilica, Emperor Justinian I inaugurated the construction of a third and entirely different basilica, larger and more majestic than its predecessors. Justinian appointed two architects, mathematician Anthemius of Tralles and geometer and engineer Isidore of Miletus , to design
35126-458: Was destroyed in 1743. The technique of building lightweight domes with interlocking hollow ceramic tubes further developed in North Africa and Italy in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. By the 4th century, the thin and lightweight tubed vaulting had become a vaulting technique in its own right, rather than simply serving as a permanent centering for concrete. It was used in early Christian buildings in Italy. Arranging these terracotta tubes in
35319-434: Was developed in the tradition of the terracotta tube dome at the Hellenistic era baths of Morgantina, an idea that had been preserved in the use of interlocking terracotta pots for kiln roofs. This tube could be mass-produced on potter's wheels and interlocked to form a permanent centering for concrete domes, avoiding the use of wooden centering altogether. This spread mainly in the western Mediterranean. Although rarely used,
35512-471: Was discovered before 1946, and the remnants of a brick wall with traces of marble revetment were identified in 2004. The hypogeum was a tomb which may have been part of the 4th-century church or may have been from the pre-Constantinian city of Byzantium . The skeuophylakion is said by Palladius to have had a circular floor plan, and since some U-shaped basilicas in Rome were funerary churches with attached circular mausolea (the Mausoleum of Constantina and
35705-510: Was no longer a capital of the Empire. Constantine built the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem around 333 as a large basilica with an octagonal structure at the eastern end, over the cave said to be the birthplace of Jesus. The domed octagon had an external diameter of 18 meters. It was later destroyed and when rebuilt by Justinian the octagon was replaced with a tri-apsidal structure. Centralized buildings of circular or octagonal plan also became used for baptistries and reliquaries due to
35898-496: Was often rubble, but lightweight aggregate in the upper levels served to reduce stresses. Empty " vases and jugs " could be hidden inside to reduce weight. The dry concrete mixtures used by the Romans were compacted with rams to eliminate voids, and added animal blood acted as a water reducer. Because Roman concrete was weak in tension, it did not provide any structural advantage over the use of brick or stone. But, because it could be constructed with unskilled slave labor, it provided
36091-482: Was perhaps St Elmo's fire induced by gunpowder smoke and unusual weather. The author relates that the fall of the city to "Mohammadenism" was foretold in an omen seen by Constantine the Great – an eagle fighting with a snake – which also signified that "in the end Christianity will overpower Mohammedanism, will receive the Seven Hills , and will be enthroned in it". The eventual fall of Constantinople had long been predicted in apocalyptic literature . A reference to
36284-413: Was replaced by 1325, but while it was still in place around 1412, by the time Johann Schiltberger saw the statue in 1427, the "empire-apple" ( German : Reichsapfel ) had fallen to the earth. An attempt to raise it again in 1435 failed, and this amplified the prophecies of the city's fall. For the Turks, the "red apple" ( Turkish : kızıl elma ) came to symbolize Constantinople itself and subsequently
36477-407: Was supposed to presage the end of the reign of Andronicus I Comnenus ( r. 1183–1185 ). Choniates further writes that in 1203, during the Fourth Crusade , the emperors Isaac II Angelus and Alexius IV Angelus stripped Hagia Sophia of all gold ornaments and silver oil-lamps in order to pay off the Crusaders who had ousted Alexius III Angelus and helped Isaac return to the throne. Upon
36670-405: Was the bishop of Constantinople from 339 to 341, and Constantine died in 337, it seems that the first church was erected by Constantius. The nearby Hagia Irene ("Holy Peace") church was completed earlier and served as cathedral until the Great Church was completed. Besides Hagia Irene, there is no record of major churches in the city-centre before the late 4th century. Rowland Mainstone argued
36863-429: Was the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and a principal setting for Byzantine imperial ceremonies, such as coronations . The basilica offered sanctuary from persecution to criminals, although there was disagreement about whether Justinian had intended for murderers to be eligible for asylum. Earthquakes in August 553 and on 14 December 557 caused cracks in the main dome and eastern semi-dome . According to
37056-449: Was thought by the original excavators in the 1930s to be part of the western entrance of the church itself. The propylaeum opened onto an atrium which lay in front of the basilica church itself. Preceding the propylaeum was a steep monumental staircase following the contours of the ground as it sloped away westwards in the direction of the Strategion , the Basilica, and the harbours of the Golden Horn . This arrangement would have resembled
37249-420: Was understood to represent the emperor holding back the threat to the Romans from the Sasanian Empire in the Roman–Persian Wars , while the orb or globus cruciger held in the statue's left was an expression of the global power of the Roman emperor. Subsequently, in the Arab–Byzantine wars , the threat held back by the statue became the Umayyad Caliphate , and later, the statue was thought to be fending off
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