Part 5 (2/2)

S. George suggests that this was a temporary decoration executed pending some delay in the covering of the walls with marble. He also thinks that the importance given to the joint in late Byzantine work and in Turkish work may be a development from such early treatment of mortar.

The floor of the church was paved with pieces of marble arranged in beautiful patterns, in which figures of animals and scenes from cla.s.sic mythology were inlaid. Gerlach[77] noticed the beauty of the pavement, and Salzenberg[78] represents a portion of it in his work on S. Sophia.

But the members of the Russian Inst.i.tute of Constantinople have had the good fortune to bring the whole pavement to light.

A noticeable feature is the number of doors to the church, as in S.

Irene. Besides the five doors already mentioned, leading into the interior from the narthex, there is a door at the eastern end of each aisle, and close to each of these doors is found both in the southern and northern walls of the building an additional door surmounted by a window. The latter doors and their windows have been walled up.

The exterior is in two stories, corresponding to the ground floor and the galleries. It has two ranges of eight large semicircular-headed windows in the northern and southern walls, some of them modified, others built up, since the building became a mosque. The five windows in the gable of the western wall are, like the wall itself, Turkish.

Pilasters are placed at the angles and at the apse.

On the south side of the church is a cistern, the roof of which rests on twenty-three columns crowned by beautiful Corinthian capitals.

NOTE

The full text of the description given of the church of S. John, mentioned by Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, reads as follows:--

e la primera parte (puerta?) de la Iglesia es muy alta e de obra rica, e delante desta puerta esta un grand corral y luego al cuerpo de la Iglesia, e el qual cuerpo es una quadra redonda sin esquinas muy alta, e es cerrada al derredor de tres grandes naves, que son cubiertas da un cielo ellas y la quadra. e ha en ella siete altares, e el cielo desta quadra e naves e las paredes es de obra de musayca muy ricamente labrada, e en ello muchas historias, e la quadra esta armada sobre veinte e quatro marmoles de jaspe verde, e las dichas naves son sobradadas, e los sobrados dellas salen al cuerpo de la Iglesia, e alli avia otros veinte e quatro marmoles de jaspe verde, e il cielo de la quadra e las paredes e de obra musayca, e los andamios de las naves salen sobre el cuerpo de la Iglesia, e alli do avia de aver verjas avia marmoles pequenos de jaspe.[79]

With the kind help of Professor Cossio of Madrid, the Spanish text may be roughly translated as follows:--

And the first part (door?) of the church is very lofty and richly worked. And before this door is a large court beside the body of the church; and the said body is a round hall without corners (or angles), very lofty, and enclosed round about by three large naves, which are covered, they and the hall, by one roof. And it (the church) has in it seven altars; and the roof of the hall and naves and the walls are of mosaic work very richly wrought, in which are (depicted) many histories. And the (roof of the) hall is placed on twenty-four marble columns of green jasper (verd antique). And the said naves have galleries, and the galleries open on the body of the church, and these have other twenty-four marble columns of green jasper; and the roof of the hall and the walls are of mosaic work. And the elevated walks of the naves open over the body of the church,[80] and where a bal.u.s.trade should be found there are small marble columns of jasper.

Outside the church, adds the amba.s.sador, was a beautiful chapel dedicated to S. Mary, remarkable for its mosaics.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE X.

S. JOHN OF THE STUDION. CISTERN.

_To face page 51._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 12.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 13.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 14. AND 15.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 16 AND 17.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 18.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 19.]

[35] The Latin thesis of Eugenius Marin, _De Studio coen.o.bio Constantinopolitano_, Paris, 1897, is a most useful work.

[36] Gyllius, _De top._ C.P. p. 313.

[37] _Itineraires russes en Orient_, p. 306, _traduits pour la Societe de l'Orient Latin par Mdme. B. de Khitrovo_.

[38] _Ibid._ p. 231. For all questions concerning the walls of the city I refer, once for all, to my work, _Byzantine Constantinople: the Walls and adjoining Historical Sites_, published in 1889 by John Murray, London.

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