Part 24 (2/2)

_To face page 212._

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 72.]

_Architectural Features_

In plan the church belongs to the 'four column' type, and has two narthexes. The dome, placed on a drum, circular within and twelve-sided without, is carried on four piers which the Turks have reduced to an irregular octagonal form. It is divided into twelve bays by square ribs, and is lighted by twelve semicircular-headed windows. The cornice-string is adorned with a running leaf spray of a pleasing and uncommon design.

The arms of the cross have barrel vaults, while the chambers at its angles are covered with cross-groined vaults. The apsidal chambers are small, with shallow niches on the north, south, and west, and a somewhat deeper niche on the east where the apse stands. These niches are carried up through a vaulting string-course, carved with a repeating leaf ornament, and combine with the groined vault above them to produce a charming canopy. The southern transept gable, though much built up, still displays the design which occurs so frequently in Byzantine churches, namely, three windows in the lunette of the arch (the central light rising higher than the sidelights), and three stilted arches below the vaulting string-course, resting on two columns and containing three windows which are carried down to a breastwork of carved marble slabs between the columns. The floor of the church is paved with square red bricks, except in the apses, where marble is employed. The gynecaeum, above the inner narthex, is divided into three bays separated by broad transverse arches. The central bay, which is larger than its companions, is covered with a dome vault, and looks into the body of the church through a fine triple arcade in the lunette of the western arm of the cross. The smaller bays are covered with cross-groined vaults. As elsewhere, the vaulting-string in the gynecaeum is decorated with carved work. The inner narthex, like the gynecaeum above it, is divided into three bays covered with cross-groined vaults, and communicates with the church, as usual, by three doors. Its walls seem to have been formerly revetted with marble. In the northern wall is a door, now closed, which gave access to a building beyond that side of the church. The exonarthex is also divided in three bays, separated by transverse arches, and communicates with the inner narthex by three doors and with the outer world by a single door situated in the central bay. That bay has a low dome without windows, while the lateral bays have groined vaults.

Turkish repairs show in the pilasters and the pointed arches which support the original transverse arches. The doors throughout the building are framed in marble jambs and lintels, adorned in most cases with a running ornament and crosses. In the case of the doors of the exonarthex a red marble, _breche rouge_, is employed, as in the exonarthex of the Pantokrator, another erection of the Comnenian period.

On the exterior the building is much damaged, but nevertheless preserves traces of considerable elaboration. The walls are of brick, intermixed with courses of stone, and on the three sides of the central apse there are remains of patterned brickwork. On the b.u.t.tresses to the southern wall are roundels with radiating voussoirs in stone and brick, and if one may judge from the fact that the string-course does not fit the face of the wall, parts of the exterior of the church were incrusted with marble. The round-headed windows of the dome cut into its cornice. Under the church is a cistern[355] which Bondelmontius deemed worthy of mention.[356] Until some twenty years ago extensive substructures were visible on the north-east of the church, affording homes for poor Greek families.[357] They were probably the foundations of the lofty monastery buildings whose windows commanded the magnificent view of the Golden Horn that doubtless suggested the epithet Pantepoptes, under which the Saviour was wors.h.i.+pped in this sanctuary.

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

S. SAVIOUR PANTEPOPTES. EXTERIOR DECORATION IN BRICK, ON SOUTH SIDE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: S. MARY PAMMAKARISTOS. BRACKET AT THE SOUTH-EAST ANGLE OF THE EXTERIOR WALL OF THE PARECCLESION.]

_To face page 214._

S. Saviour Pantepoptes is the most carefully built of the later churches of Constantinople. The little irregularities of setting out so common in the other churches of the city are here almost entirely absent. This accuracy of building, the carving of the string-courses, and the remains of marble decoration both within and on the exterior, prove exceptional care.

For details see Figs. 68, 72, 75.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 73.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 74.]

[347] Patr. Constantius, pp. 70-80.

[348] Nicet. Chon. p. 752.

[349] Glycas, p. 622.

[350] _Ibid._ For the career of this distinguished woman, see Diehl, _Figures byzantines_.

[351] Nicet. Chon. pp. 315-16; Pachym. i. pp. 314-15, ii. p. 185.

[352] Villehardouin, _La Conquete de C.P._ pp. 141-44; _Chroniques greco-romaines_, pp. 96, 97.

[353] Riant, _Exuviae sacrae_, p. 178.

[354] Paspates, p. 314.

[355] _Die byzantinischen Wa.s.serbehalter von K.P._, von Dr. P.

Forcheimer und Dr. J. Strzygowski, pp. 106-7.

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