Part 7 (2/2)
(2) SS. SERGIUS AND BACCHUS. IN THE GALLERY OVER THE NARTHEX.
_To face page 70._]
As an examination of the plan will show, the architect's design has not been followed with strict accuracy, and the result is that both the enclosing square and the interior octagon are very irregular figures.
Furthermore, the two portions of the building have not the same orientation, so that the octagon stands askew within its rectangular frame. How this lack of symmetry should be explained, whether due to sloven work or the result of the effort to adapt the church to the lines of the earlier church of SS. Peter and Paul, with which it was united, is difficult to decide.
The court which stands before the Turkish portico in front of the west side of the building represents the old atrium of the church, and to the rear of the portico is still found the ancient narthex. At the south end of the narthex is a stone staircase leading to the gallery. The arch at the foot of the staircase is built of fragments from the old ciborium or eikonostasis of the church. The great height (0.24 metre or 9 inches) of the steps is found, according to Mr. Antoniadi, also in S. Sophia.
The exterior walls, which are mostly in brick and rubble masonry, exhibit poor workmans.h.i.+p, and have undergone considerable repair, especially on the east. On the south there are two thicknesses of walling. The outer thickness has arched recesses at intervals along its length, corresponding to openings in the inner thickness, and thus while b.u.t.tressing the latter also enlarges slightly the area of the church.
The length of the rectangular enclosure from west to east is 101 feet, with an average breadth of 772-1/2 feet from north to south, excluding the recesses in the latter direction.
All the windows of the church have been altered by Turkish hands, and are rectangular instead of showing semicircular heads.
The pa.s.sage intervening between the rectangular enclosure and the octagon is divided into two stories, thus providing the church with an ambulatory below and a gallery above.
The domed octagon which forms the core of the building stands at a distance of some 18-1/2 feet from the rectangle within which it is placed. It measures 53-1/2 feet by 50-1/2 feet. The eight piers at its angles rise to a height of 33-1/2 feet from the floor to the springing of the dome arches. The archways thus formed, except the bema arch, are filled in with two pairs of columns in two stories set on the outer plane of the piers. The lower colonnade is surmounted, after the cla.s.sic fas.h.i.+on, by a horizontal entablature profusely carved while the upper columns are bound by arches, thus making seven sides of the octagon a beautiful open screen of fourteen columns and as many triple arcades, resplendent with marbles of various hues and rich with carved work. The ma.s.s of the piers is relieved by their polygonal form, a fluted cymatium along their summit, and a repeating design of a flower between two broad leaves below the entablature. Though the flower points upwards it has been mistaken for a cl.u.s.ter of grapes.[108] At the four diagonal points the sides of the octagon are semicircular, forming exhedrae, an arrangement which gives variety to the lines of the figure, widens the central area, secures more frontage for the gallery, and helps to b.u.t.tress the dome. The same feature appears in S. Sophia, whereas in San Vitale all the sides of the octagon, excepting the eastern side, are semicircular. The extension of the interior area of a building (square or octagonal) by means of niches at the angles or in the sides, or both at the angles and in the sides, was a common practice.[109]
There is considerable difference in the size of the piers and the dome arches. The eastern piers stand farther apart than their companions, and consequently the arch over them, the triumphal arch of the sanctuary, is wider and loftier than the other arches. The bays to the north-east and the south-east are also wider than the bays at the opposite angles. The apse is semicircular within, and shows three sides on the exterior. As in S. Sophia and S. Irene, there is no prothesis or diaconicon.
The pairs of columns, both below and above, are alternately verd antique and red Synnada marble, resting on bases of the blue-veined white marble from the island of Marmora. The capitals on the lower order are of the beautiful type known as the 'melon capital,' a form found also in San Vitale at Ravenna and in the porch of S. Theodore in Constantinople (p. 246). The neckings are worked with the capitals, and enriched by 'egg-and-dart' pointing upwards. In the centre of the capitals was carved the monogram of Justinian or that of Theodora. Most of the monograms have been effaced, but the name of the empress still appears on the capital of the western column in the south bay, while that of Justinian is found on the first capital in the south-western bay; on both capitals in the north-western bay, accompanied by the t.i.tle Basileus; and, partially, on the last capital in the north-eastern bay.
In the soffit of the architrave are sunk panels of various patterns, the six-armed cross occurring twice. The beadings of the fasciae are enriched with the designs commonly known as 'rope,' 'bead-and-reel,'
'egg-and-dart,' and again 'bead-and-reel.'
The frieze is in two heights. The lower portion is a semicircular pulvinar adorned with acanthus leaves, deeply undercut; the upper portion is occupied by a long inscription in raised ornamental letters to the honour of Justinian, Theodora, and S. Sergius. The cornice is decorated with dentils, 'bead-and-reel,' projecting consols, 'egg-and-dart,' and leaves of acanthus.
The inscription (Fig. 20) may be rendered thus: Other sovereigns, indeed, have honoured dead men whose labour was useless. But our sceptred Justinian, fostering piety, honours with a splendid abode the servant of Christ, Creator of all things, Sergius; whom nor the burning breath of fire, nor the sword, nor other constraints of trials disturbed; but who endured for the sake of G.o.d Christ to be slain, gaining by his blood heaven as his home. May he in all things guard the rule of the ever-vigilant sovereign, and increase the power of the G.o.d-crowned Theodora whose mind is bright with piety, whose toil ever is unsparing efforts to nourish the dest.i.tute.
The inscription is not mere flattery to the founders of the church.
Justinian and Theodora were devout after the fas.h.i.+on of their day, and took a deep interest in the poor. The empress erected an asylum for fallen women, hostels for strangers, hospitals for the sick, and homes for the dest.i.tute. 'On the splendid piece of tapestry embroidered in gold which formed the altar cloth of S. Sophia, she was represented with Justinian as visiting hospitals and churches.'[110]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 20. INSCRIPTION ON THE FRIEZE.]
To the rear of the southern straight side of the octagon two columns stand under the gallery, with wide fillets worked on both sides of their bases, shafts, and capitals, showing that a frame of stone or wood was once affixed to them. The capitals are of the ordinary cus.h.i.+on type and bear on opposite faces the monograms Justinian, Basileus.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XIV.
(1) SS. SERGIUS AND BACCHUS. THE INTERIOR, LOOKING NORTH-EAST.
(2) SS. SERGIUS AND BACCHUS. PORTION OF THE ENTABLATURE.
_To face page 74._]
Two feet above the cornice, or twenty feet from the floor of the church, the level of the gallery is reached.[111] Here the columns are smaller than those below, and are bound together by arches instead of by an architrave. Their capitals represent the type known as the 'Pseudo-Ionic' or cus.h.i.+on capital, in view of its broad head. It appears appropriately here as the form of capital required to carry the impost of an arch upon a capital. At one time, indeed, that demand was met by placing upon the capital a distinct block of stone, a fragment, so to speak, of the horizontal architrave. It is the device adopted in San Vitale at Ravenna, S. Demetrius of Salonica, and elsewhere, but never it would seem in Constantinople, except in the underground cisterns of the city. It was, however, too inartistic to endure, and eventually was superseded by capitals with a broad flattened head on which the wide impost of an arch could rest securely.[112]
A free form of acanthus, deeply undercut on the face towards the central area of the church, covers the capitals, and in the centre of that face, on all the capitals except the eighth (counting from the north-east) is carved the monogram of the t.i.tle Basileus, or of Justinian, or of Theodora.
In the south side of the gallery stand two columns corresponding to the two columns in the aisle below. They are poor in design and not original. The western capital is 'Pseudo-Ionic,'[113] with a plain cross on the northern face. The eastern capital is in the basket form with roundels on the four faces. Two additional columns are found in the western portion of the gallery. They are of verd antique and larger than the other columns in this story of the church, and have sunk crosses in them. The splendour of the interior decoration has certainly been dimmed, for the walls of the edifice once gleamed with marbles and glittered with mosaics. 'By the sheen of its marbles,' says Procopius,[114] 'it was more resplendent than the sun, and everywhere it was filled profusely with gold.' When Ferguson examined the building, remains of frescoes or of mosaics, which have disappeared since his time, could be distinguished in the narthex. The soffit, both of the upper and of the lower cymatium on the piers, projects sufficiently to admit the application of the customary marble incrustation. The proportions of the building are marred by the boarded floor which rises seventeen centimeters above the original pavement, disguising the real elevation of the dome and of the columns in the lower colonnade. But notwithstanding all changes for the worse the building is still a beautiful structure. Very effective especially is the happy combination of the various lines and forms here brought together--the rectilinear and the semicircular sides of the octagon, the octagonal fabric and the round dome that crowns it, the horizontal entablature stretched along the summit of the lower story of columns and the arches that leap from column to column in the gallery. This harmonious variety of form has also a historical significance. An old order in architecture and a new order here meet and embrace before the earlier, having served its age, pa.s.ses away and the later comes triumphant to fill another era of the world with fresh beauties. Here in the tide of time we look before and after.
To the student of architecture the dome of this church is specially interesting. In the application of the dome to the octagon no pendentives are employed. The octagon is carried up to the base of the dome, which is built in sixteen longitudinal compartments that impinge upon one another and form groins giving to the dome its strength and sweep. On the groins is a plaster moulding, probably Byzantine. The eight compartments directly above the dome arches are flat, and flush with the inner face of the octagon, and in each of them is a semicircular-headed window. They rise perpendicular to a point a little above the windows, and then curve with a radius to the centre of the dome.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XV.
THE BAPTISTERY, S. SOPHIA, FROM THE EAST.
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