DM FYI: agosto 2020

Due to the decision of the Turkish government headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan to reserve Hagia Sophia into a mosque, I have decided to write about the historical tour and artistic characteristics of the building.

On July 25th, 2020 the first Muslim prayer after the reversion took place in the ancient basilica. The Turkish Islamic government has canceled the museum status of the building, a tittle it has held since the 20th century.

The building has been an Orthodox cathedral, a Catholic cathedral, a mosque and, more recently, a museum.

The first construction in the place where is located today the mosque was the Church of the Divine Wisdom of Christ, founded in 360 by order of the roman emperor Constantine II. But it suffered a fire in 404. The building was a wooden-roofed basilica. As written in the Chronicon Paschale (annals of the 7th century about the Christian world), the emperor made “many offerings, namely, large gold and silver vessels and many covers for the saint altar woven with gold and precious stones, and also several golden curtains for the doors of the church and others of gold cloth for the external doors”.

About the second Hagia Sophia, consecrated in 405 by the roman emperor Theodosius II, only part of the portico (currently in the garden of the current mosque) remains after being destroyed by the Nika insurrection in 532. The famous popular revolt that took place in Constantinople (current Istanbul) in 532 was motivated by the tax increases decreed by the emperor due to the constant war on the eastern border of the Empire and the conflict between the two branches of Christianity: Orthodox and Monophysite. The Orthodox defended the duality of the nature of Jesus Christ, divine and human without separation. While the Monophysitism separated the two natures of the son of God, but the human was absorbed by the divine. The faith professed by the emperor and his wife was orthodox. People from a humbler social position were monophysite. The emperor, with the aim of calming the atmosphere, organized a horse race, however at Nika’s scream the entire racecourse turned against him. The emperor fled and that further angered the people. Thus, a revolt began. The revolt burned and destroyed publica buildings, including Hagia Sophia.

After the revolt, Justinian I rebuilt many of the public buildings that had been destroyed. The creation of the Hagia Sophia that we know today began. Construction lasted only six years, an achievement considering that some of the Gothic cathedrals took almost a century.

The new basilica was consecrated on December 26, 537. The church has since been considered a symbol of Byzantine power. It embodies both imperial ideal and Christian worship.

The space it occupies within the city is also significant, crowing a hill, it encourages admiration.

In the 6th century, Constantinople reached its maximum splendor.

The chosen architects were Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus. At the time it was common for two technicians to be in charge of monumental works. One, the theorist, thought up the plan on which to construct the building and the other, the technician, shaped up the idea.

Anthemius was the theoretician, he was an expert in descriptive geometry and, according to the Byzantine historian Agatias, he must have knowledge of painting and sculpture. Isidore was the technician, and the author of an annotated edition of the second book by the Greek physicist, engineer, inventor, astronomer and mathematician Archimedes, devoted to the sphere and cylinder, and author of a commentary on the vaulting treatise of the Hellenistic engineer and mathematician Heron of Alexandria.

Taking into account the knowledge of these architects, the constructive characteristics of the elements of the basilica and the historical period in which it was built, it could be said that it was the last creation of ancient architecture.

The design has no background. It is made up of current elements from the time such as the basilica plant and the roundabout, which, combined, constitute a new building based on a dome. A counter system was used by means of two semi-domes arranged on the longitudinal axis of the space, that is, in the east and west wings of the building. These semi-domes rested on two small niches arranged diagonally in relation to the axis. This system was completely original since it rejected both the rows of columns that separated the naves of the basilica and the structures with concentric ambulatory spaces (walkable space behind the presbytery and the altar that allows access to the chapels located in the apse).

The building enclosure was over 1 000 square meters with a 31 meters diameter dome suspended in midair. A perfect foundation plan was devised, and all the main supporting elements were built of stone. The outer structure was made thinner, but large stone blocks were used up to a height of 7 meters. On the main pillars, of 44 meters each, 4 large arches were laid. On the vertexes of the arches, and the irregular pendentives that unite them, the main dome was raised, consisting of a gallon shell with 40 ribs and 40 curved accessories, reinforced on the outside by 40 short ribs placed at narrow intervals that frame small windows.

The aforementioned system was adopted on the east-west axis. In the transverse axis, walls with perforated eardrums were used to crown a set of arcades supported by columns on two floors. On the lower floor, 4 huge shafts form a kind of veil; on the upper floor, 6 columns support the eardrum. Behind these colonnades are two superimposed galleries, covered with groin vaults, in which two powerful pillars serve to counter the pressure of the central dome.

Despite the complex plan established, during construction some problems caused the base of the dome to be larger than planned. However, the dome, built on the base of bricks set on edge joined with thick mortar beds, was finally finished.

However, a series of earthquakes that shook the city between 553 and 557 caused its collapse in 558.

On the recommendation of the architect Isidore the younger, the southern and northern arches were progressively widened by the intrados (the lower surface of an arch or vault) from the imposts to the key so that the central space was closer to the square, raising the dome, in the year 563, up to 56 meters high (from the original 51).

Although some repairs were necessary, for example after an earthquake in 975, Isidore’s design has not been significantly altered.

The building was completed by a large atrium in the west that gave way to an exonarthex and a narthex, reaching a total area of more than 10 000 square meters.

The temple of Hagia Sophia shows characteristics of Byzantine architecture such as: the outward is austere, round arch and barrel vault, the dome rests on pendentives and the luminosity is achieved thanks to the decoration with mosaics.

Constantinople became one of the richest and most important cities in the world. Hagia Sophia was the headquarter of the city’s Orthodox Patriarch.

In 1204, the fourth crusade invaded and looted the city. Hagia Sophia became a Catholic cathedral.

In 1453, the fall of Constantinople is considered the end of the Middle Ages. Sultan Mehmet II of the Ottoman Empire set out to take the city. Women, children, the elderly and the sick took refugee in the cathedral. The city was bombed for 53 days. On May 29, 1453 the Ottoman Empire took over the city, marking the end of the Byzantine world. This is the moment when the name of the city changes to Istanbul (in Turkish Istanbul means “in the city” or “to the city”; Constantinople was for the Byzantines and I Polis: “the City”). The Hagia Sophia cathedral became a mosque. Minarets were added at each of its comers and, inside, panels with the name of Ala, Muhammad and his grandchildren were erected. The ornamentation changed remarkably with the Orthodox symbols being covered with plaster. The most important change was the construction of a mihrab (which indicates the orientation where to the Muslims should pray, Mecca). Hagia Sophia was the main mosque in Istanbul until the construction of the Blue Mosque in 1616.

The Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War I and its territory distributed between the victorious allies. Out of its rubble emerged the modern state of Turkey, proclaimed republic in 1923. The country’s founder and first secular president, Mustafá Kemal Atatürk, ordered Hagia Sophia to be converted into a museum. In 1935, Hagia Sophia was opened to the public as a museum.

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