Eastern Medieval Architecture: The Building Traditions of Byzantium and Neighboring Lands 0190272732, 9780190272739

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EASTE RN M EDI EVAL

A RC H I T E C T U R E

EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE THE BUILDING TRADITIONS OF BYZANTIUM AND NEIGHBORING LANDS , Robert G. Ousterhout

1

1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress. ISBN 978–0–19–027273–9 Publication was made possible with the generous support of the Onassis Foundation USA.

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Quad/Graphics, Inc., Mexico

ONASSIS SERIES IN HELLENIC CULTURE , The Age of Titans: The Rise and Fall of the Great Hellenistic Navies William M. Murray Sophocles and the Language of Tragedy Simon Goldhill Nectar and Illusion: Nature in Byzantine Art and Literature Henry Maguire Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris: A Cultural History of Euripides’ Black Sea Tragedy Edith Hall Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea David Konstan Euripides and the Gods Mary Lefkowitz Brother-Making in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: Monks, Laymen, and Christian Ritual Claudia Rapp The Treasures of Alexander the Great: How One Man’s Wealth Shaped the World Frank L. Holt The Serpent Column: A Cultural Biography Paul Stephenson Anna Komnene: The Life and Work of a Medieval Historian Leonora Neville Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade Anthony Kaldellis Dirty Love: The Genealogy of the Ancient Greek Novel Tim Whitmarsh Eastern Medieval Architecture: The Building Traditions of Byzantium and Neighboring Lands Robert G. Ousterhout

TABLE OF CONTENTS , Maps

xi

Author’s Preface

xiii

INTRODUCTION Historical Architecture East and West

xix

PART ONE: LATE ANTIQUITY Third to Seventh Centuries CHAPTER ONE Rome, the Domus Ecclesiae, and the Church Basilica

3

CHAPTER TWO A Tale of Two Cities: Constantinople and Jerusalem in the Time of Constantine

21

CHAPTER THREE Ritual Settings I: Liturgy, Initiation, Commemoration

37

CHAPTER FOUR Ritual Settings II: Pilgrimage, Relics, and Sacred Space

61

CHAPTER FIVE Makers, Methods, and Materials

81

CHAPTER SIX Regional Developments, East and West

101

CHAPTER SEVEN Secular Architecture: Cities, Houses, and Fortifications

137

CHAPTER EIGHT Innovative Architecture

175

CHAPTER NINE The Basilica Transformed: Hagia Sophia in Constantinople

199

CHAPTER TEN Justinian’s Building Program and Sixth-Century Developments

219

vii

PART TWO: THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD Seventh to Ninth Centuries CHAPTER ELEVEN The Transitional Period within Byzantium

245

CHAPTER TWELVE Transformation at the Edges of Empire

267

PART THREE: THE MIDDLE BYZANTINE CENTURIES Ninth to Twelfth Centuries

viii

CHAPTER THIRTEEN New Church Architecture and the Rise of Monasticism

303

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Secular Architecture and the Fate of the City

333

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Constantinople as an Architectural Center

353

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Master Builders and Their Craft

381

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Development of Regional Styles I: Middle Byzantine Greece and Macedonia

405

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Development of Regional Styles II: Middle Byzantine Anatolia

431

CHAPTER NINETEEN Development of Regional Styles III: The Caucasus: Armenia and Georgia

455

CHAPTER TWENTY Contested Lands: Architecture at the Time of the Crusades

479

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE The Exotic West: Venice, Southern Italy, and Sicily

507

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Exporting a Culture/Importing a Culture: Bulgaria, Kievan Rus’, and Serbia

531

EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

PART FOUR: THE LATE BYZANTINE AND POST-BYZANTINE CENTURIES Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

561

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Palaiologan Constantinople and a New Architectural Idiom

595

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Old and New: Greek Cities and Landscapes

621

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Regional Diversity: Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania

649

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Rival Powers: The Ottomans and Russia

679

EPILOGUE An Enduring Legacy

705

Glossary

714

Abbreviations

723

For Further Research

725

Bibliography

727

Index

757

The Difficult Thirteenth Century

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ix

MAPS ,

[Map 1] The Roman Empire, ca. 390 (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 33) [Map 2] Justinian’s empire in 565 (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 52) [Map 3] The Byzantine Empire in 780 (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 130) [Map 4] The Byzantine Empire in the mid-eleventh century (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 178) [Map 5] The Byzantine Empire in the twelfth century (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 188) [Map 6] The Byzantine Empire and surrounding territories in the second half of the fourteenth century (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 264)

xx 103 246 304 305 596

xi

AUTHOR’S PREFACE ,

I

n many ways, this book began in 1978, with my lecture notes from Slobodan Ćurčić’s course “Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture” at the University of Illinois. It was the first time he’d taught the course, and I was in my first year as his first PhD student. Following the approach of his mentor, Richard Krautheimer, my mentor provided order, structure, and clarity to a field of study I found fascinating, although I still hadn’t made sense of it. Under Ćurčić’s guidance, I shifted my dissertation topic from my first interest, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, to the Kariye Camii in Istanbul, in effect leaping from the fourth to the fourteenth century—that is, almost the entire period covered in this book. For much of my career, I’ve been filling in the millennial gap between the two monuments. In 1983, shortly after I’d finished my dissertation, I succeeded my mentor at the University of Illinois when he accepted a professorship at Princeton, and for the next decades, I had the privilege and challenge of teaching “Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture” to generations of architecture students. Making the distant past accessible to aspiring practitioners inspired my 1999 book, Master Builders of Byzantium, an attempt to approach Byzantine architecture from the

perspective of its builders, with a focus on the workshops of Constantinople. When the book appeared, many of my colleagues mistook it for a textbook, as some of the reviews suggest. It wasn’t— in fact, a suitable textbook on the subject did not appear during the thirty-six years of my professional career. I’ve continued to use Krautheimer’s Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, with occasional nods to Cyril Mango’s Byzantine Architecture. Both have appeared in print long after their expiration date. More critically, neither author appears to have liked his subject very much, and their prejudices have trickled down into a variety of other scholarly assessments. In the early 1980s, Ćurčić joined forces with Krautheimer to update Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture. This resulted in the fourth revised edition, which appeared in 1986, and Ćurčić, whose interests were clearly chronologically later than Krautheimer’s, was able to defuse some of Krautheimer’s negative opinions. This was, however, still in the pre-computer era, and to facilitate typesetting, the publisher specified that any alterations to the text had to conform to the original line length and page length. Accordingly, the two eminent scholars made adjustments in pencil on graph paper, counting the letters as they went. Not

Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), inner narthex, interior looking south (author) xiii

surprisingly, beyond an enhanced and updated bibliography, modifications were limited. I mention this to emphasize that the textbooks or handbooks we have been using were written in a different era—before computers, before the internet, before Google, before JSTOR, before ARTSTOR, before any number of new research tools were at our disposal. The world has changed, and so has the way we study it. This fact has both invigorated and intimidated me. Ten years ago, I organized a methods course for graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania (where I taught from 2007 to 2017) called “How to Write a Textbook.” We read and critiqued a variety of books; we dissected our favorites; we wrote mock tables of contents and introductions; we even designed book covers. In the end, we came up with all sorts of ways not to write a textbook, but not a good single way to do it. Ultimately, it took the persuasive powers of Stefan Vranka at OUP, backed by the kind folks at the Onassis Foundation, a book contract, and a few publication subventions, to force my hand. My decision was that if I were to undertake this book project, it had to be engaging, evocative, and well illustrated, with a narrative that showcases both the monuments and the intellectual currents behind them in a positive way. I thus alternate chapters that are thematic with those that are period or region focused. They are arranged more or less chronologically, but because of the changes in focus, some of the monuments will crop up in several different chapters. The twentyseven chapters (plus introduction and epilogue) were written following my lesson plan for a semester’s worth of lectures, but I suspect few will use the book in the same way. It could also be used as a handbook, from which the reader (or the instructor assigning readings) can pick and choose, as the chapters are written to be self-contained narratives. And although I am an information junkie (as Master Builders surely indicates), I’ve tried not to clutter the narrative with too much data. The same goes for the footnotes. My first readers, Leslie Brubaker and her students, insisted they were necessary, but rather than overburden an already-long text, I’ve limited my references to a mix of useful recent scholarship and old standbys— that is, where to begin to find more information, xiv

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with some suggestions for further reading and research at the end of the volume. With the multiple languages represented by the monuments, I’ve tried to reconcile the orthography to what is most familiar, often choosing the Latinized names rather than the Greek—thus, Sts. Sergius and Bacchus and not HH. Sergios kai Bakchos; Procopius and not Prokopios. I’ve left Hagia Sophia and Hagia Eirene with their hagias intact, since they are concepts and not people, but in dedications to people I’ve opted for St., with the exception of a few familiar Italian monuments, which are better known as S. (i.e., San, Santa, or Santo). For toponyms, I’ve usually opted for the Anglicized historical name with the current name in parentheses—thus, Constantinople rather than Istanbul of Konstantinoupolis. But it’s hard to balance common usage with consistency, and I apologize for whatever offenses my choices might cause. As I ventured further afield, I attempted to follow the simplified Library of Congress system, often with unfamiliar diacritical marks. I’ve also attempted to codify the architectural drawings in a consistent manner, with meter scales and north arrows. As the book gradually came together, beginning in 2014, I was aided and abetted by any number of friends, colleagues, assistants, and institutions, as well as readers and suppliers of illustrations and financial and moral support. Several colleagues graciously agreed to read all or part of the book. Mark Johnson, Vasileios Marinis, Stefan Vranka, and Ann Marie Yasin read the whole thing and offered a variety of valuable comments. Leslie Brubaker and her seminar at the University of Birmingham read and commented on the first half of the book, which helped me immensely as I tackled the second half. Megan Boomer, Ivan Drpić, Derek Krueger, Christina Maranci, and Alice Sullivan also read and commented on pertinent sections of the text. Engin Akyürek, Demitris Athanasoulis, Charalambos and Demetra Bakirtzis, Elizabeth Bolman, Suna Çağaptay, James Crow, Sofia Georgiadou, Sarah Guérin, Anne D. and John Hedeman, Ayşe Henry, Jane Hickman, Michalis Kappas, Armen Kazaryan, David Kim, Young Kim, Dale Kinney, W. Eugene Kleinbauer, Ann Kuttner, Lynne Lancaster, Henry and Eunice Maguire, Stavros Mamaloukos, Mikael

Muehlbauer, Robert Nelson, Rory O’Neill, Jordan Pickett, Scott Redford, Brian Rose, Nancy Ševčenko, Kaja Silverman, Anna Sitz, Deb Stewart, Tasos Tanoulas, Tassos Tantsis, Ann Terry, Tolga Uyar, and Charles K. Williams II offered advice, bibliography, guidance, and reassurance. Ali Harwood assisted with the illustrations; Kaelin Jewell edited the text and prepared the bibliography and index. Financial support and the excellent libraries of the University of Illinois, the University of Pennsylvania, and Dumbarton Oaks have facilitated my research through several decades. I also gratefully acknowledge the publication subventions provided by the Williams Fund at Penn and the 1984 Foundation of Philadelphia, as well as the support of the Onassis Foundation. I am also indebted to the many institutions and  individuals who generously assisted with

illustrations, all of whom are acknowledged in the credits. Of these, let me single out Bettina Smith and her excellent staff at the Image Collection and Fieldwork Archives at Dumbarton Oaks; Michael Waters, Tayfun Öner, Nektarios Zarras, and Elka Bakalova, who went above and beyond the call of duty; and Danica Ćurčić, who made her late father’s photographs and drawings available to me. Professor Slobodan Ćurčić—who inspired my lifelong “church itch”—sadly passed away shortly before my manuscript was completed, but an attentive reader will find his presence throughout its pages. I humbly dedicate this book to him— my teacher, mentor, and friend. RGO, March 2019 Philadelphia

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

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EASTE RN M EDI EVAL

A RC H I T E C T U R E

INTRODUCTION

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HISTORICAL ARCHITECTURE EAST AND WEST

T

he rich and diverse medieval architectural traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and adjacent regions are the subject of this book. The focus is the Byzantine (or East Roman) Empire (324–1453 ce), with its capital in Constantinople, although the framework expands chronologically to include the foundations of Christian architecture in Late Antiquity and the legacy of Byzantine culture after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Because Late Antiquity has become a burgeoning field of study in its own right, I have limited my discussions of Western Europe to Italy and have opted to emphasize the later developments. Geographically broad as well, this study includes architectural developments in areas of Italy, the Caucasus, the Near East, the Balkans, and Russia, as well as related developments in early Islamic architecture—that is, areas connected culturally or politically to the Byzantine Empire (see Map 1). The term “the East” is used here to refer inclusively to this large and diverse area. The title of the book, Eastern Medieval Architecture, is intended to reflect its breadth—that is, covering more than just the Byzantine Empire and more than just the Eastern Mediterranean. This book might have been titled Architecture of the Forgotten Middle Ages, for it addresses the lesser known and understudied monuments of the East, which often stand in sharp contrast to their better

known contemporaries in Western Europe. Viewed through an Orientalist lens, scholars of the past two centuries saw the East (broadly construed) as exotic, distant, and only vaguely connected to Western civilization. Nevertheless, they often looked to the East as a never-ending generator of architectural ideas, which were called upon at critical moments to invigorate and inspire European masons. Their sweeping generalizations are usually discounted today: the twin-towered façade, the alternating support system, ribbed vaults, pointed arches, and the like seem to have developed independently in both West and East, and one doesn’t need to be modeled on the other. And while there was certainly cultural interchange across the Mediterranean, architecture is most often regionally based, following established workshop practices, and determined by local concerns and devotional habits. But the view of the East as a source of inspiration has encouraged the notion that developments there must necessarily precede those in the West. Still following this outdated view, most textbooks on Western art or architecture are unsure where to place the Byzantine Empire: it appears either as the end of Antiquity or as the beginning of the so-called Dark Ages.1 Later 1 See my comments, R.  G.  Ousterhout, “An Apologia for Byzantine Architecture,” Gesta 35, no. 1 (1996): 21–33; and those

Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, view from the west (author) xix

[Map 1]

The Roman Empire, ca. 390 (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 33)

FIGURE 0.1 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, view from the west (author)

Byzantine developments—those coeval with the Romanesque and Gothic—are usually omitted, not fitting into a neatly encapsulated, linear view of European cultural history. In fact, most textbooks stop with Hagia Sophia in Constantinople or San Marco in Venice, and the vibrant architectural developments in the Caucasus, the Balkans, and elsewhere are omitted altogether. Recent scholarship is more willing to see the cultures of the East as parallel and coeval to those of the West. From this perspective, the differences in architectural traditions stand as the cultural expressions of polities in similar stages of development, with common concerns manifest in different ways. That said, it is nevertheless difficult to view Byzantine and other Eastern architectures without preconceptions based on our greater familiarity with Western medieval monuments. Consequently, we expect something like a linear pattern of evolution, new structural achievements, and buildings on the grandest of scales. Byzantine architecture fails to live up to such great expectations and is all too often dismissed as small, stagby R. S. Nelson, “The Map of Art History,” ArtB 79 (1997): 28–40.

nant, and dull. Rather than developing from tiny Dark Age basilicas into the towering cathedrals of the Gothic era, church architecture in the East seems backward by comparison. The great Hagia Sophia (Fig. 0.1)—taller and broader than any Gothic structure (Fig. 0.2)—appeared already in the sixth century, when very little was happening in Western Europe. Subsequent centuries in the East witnessed a significant reduction in architectural scale. Indeed, most of the church buildings in the East tend to be small, centralized, and domed (Fig. 0.3); rather than a move toward monumental forms and unified spaces, we find instead increasing compartmentalization and complexity on a small scale. Because of the dramatic difference in form and scale, it is easy to forget that the two lines of development—East and West—are contemporary. Why did medieval architecture in the East follow a different trajectory than that of the West? This is a critical question and one this book attempts to answer. Several suggestions have been put forward, such as economic factors (i.e., limited scale represents limited skill) or notions of sacred presence, with the centrally planned memorial

INTRODUCTION: HISTORICAL ARCHITECTURE EAST AND WEST

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0.2 Beauvais, Cathedral of St. Peter, view from the east (Andrew Tallon, courtesy of the Archmap Project, Columbia University) FIGURE

FIGURE 0.3 Kitta (Mani), Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, view from the east (author)

structures (martyria) guiding the developments in the East. The differences may lie more in worship practices: although corporate worship never disappeared in Byzantium, private devotion grew in popularity, more conveniently housed in smaller buildings. Even the nature of monasticism differed: rather than the grand establishments of Western Europe, with a regularized typology (e.g., a basilica flanked by a cloister), a fixed rule (e.g., the Order of St. Benedict), and hundreds of monastics in residence, Byzantine monasteries tended to be small, family-sized units, less formally organized, and without an established architectural typology. Moreover, from the twelfth century onward in Western Europe, the cathedral dominates the architectural scene, representing a concept of urbanism all but unknown in the East, xxii

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where buildings continued to be the product of individual patronage rather than communal effort. Even with our vision narrowed to just monuments within the Byzantine Empire, a full understanding of the architectural history is fraught with challenges: to paraphrase one recent critic, Byzantine architecture is “an elusive concept built upon evidence that would be thrown out in any court of law.”2 The Byzantine Empire lasted for more than a millennium, and if we take into consideration areas under its influence, such as Russia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans, it can be said to have lasted even longer (Fig. 0.4). Its geographic scope is similarly broad, now spanning modern nation-states not always friendly with one another and not always easy for foreign scholars to access. Both the historical languages and those of modern scholarship are rich and varied, and there seem to be more than any single human being could possibly master in a lifetime. The student of Byzantine architecture is challenged to be intrepid as a diplomat, an explorer, an archaeologist, and a linguist, not to mention a scholar with a discerning eye. The study of historical architecture is full of challenges, not the least of which is learning it from a textbook. Buildings are three-dimensional entities, whereas our systems of representing them are two dimensional, and the reader is called upon to assemble these entities in the mind’s eye, to imagine the experience of the forms and spaces in three dimensions. How big is it? How does the plan relate to the elevation? How is space defined or modulated? Does the external articulation relate to interior space? Thinking more experientially, what happens when you pass through a door? How do the qualities of sound and light change? How do construction materials or decorative details affect our response to the building? These are all questions that the close analysis of a building might answer but that are harder to understand from a short description and a few select images. The standard approach to Byzantine architecture—indeed, to most historic architectures— begins with formal analysis, establishing the basic typology and taxonomy of buildings, and 2 S. Melikian, “‘Byzantium Art’: A Fit-All Category Defeated by Its Elusiveness,” International Herald Tribune (24–25 January 2009), 11.

FIGURE 0.4 Moscow, Cathedral of the Virgin of the Intercession, also known as St. Basil’s, seen from the east (author)

resulting in the description of planning schemes, formal solutions, structural features, or decorative details. Although a variety of texts survive, buildings often constitute our primary surviving evidence for reconstructing or re-imagining the culture that produced them.3 We are thus obliged to learn all we can about them, beginning with their physical structure, closely observed—that is, to “read” the fabric of the building with the same insight and nuance that a philologist would apply to the study of a text. If we are to understand what buildings mean and how they communicate, we must begin with their grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. The approach adopted in this book begins with formal analysis as a first step toward understanding the cultural context: how does a building reflect the concerns of the society that produced it, symbolically or ideologically? How does it reflect the social or economic situation of its day? How was it used on a daily basis? These questions may move us into the world of the social histo3 See comments by C. Mango, Byzantine Architecture (New York, 1974), 7–9.

rian, whose concerns are often at odds with established approaches to Byzantine art or architecture. Traditional art history, for example, relies on stylistic and iconographic analysis of visual images and has only in recent decades become concerned with issues of patronage, context, and social history. Because the vast majority of the surviving architecture is religious, it is often read in religious terms only, as manifestations of the belief system of the period, rather than as windows onto the society that produced it. Historians of material culture, however, tend to shy away from “high” art and architecture that reek of elitism or religiosity. And yet, the churches are hard to ignore, as they stand in sharp contrast to the paltry remains of urban and residential architecture, which were less carefully constructed and often built of ephemeral materials. That is, the religious buildings represent the concerns that were most important to the society that built them. They have survived for a reason. Writing an architectural history depends on surviving buildings, and because the majority of them are ecclesiastical structures, medieval architecture, both East and West, is often dismissed as

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“all about churches.” As I shall argue, a church is never just a church. It may stand as a manifestation of piety and the spiritual aspirations of its age, and we would be remiss not to recognize it as such. But it is also a social construct, an emblem of power, prestige, and identity; it represents the combined efforts of artisans of varying backgrounds and social statuses; it is the product of intention, a social contract orchestrated within a hierarchy of command, technical knowledge, and labor. At all levels of society, Eastern medieval people looked at, inhabited, and responded to their architectural environment, for buildings were the visual manifestations of human enterprise in the world around them. They also wrote about buildings in texts ranging from theological exegeses to legal documents to ekphraseis. These texts often concentrate on the defining features of a building at the expense of general description, but they can inform us of what was important to the contemporary viewer and provide a personal, emotional response to the experience of architecture. For example, the Historia mystagogica, a theological treatise attributed to the eighth-century patriarch Germanos I of Constantinople, outlines the symbolism of the church and its parts, offering many overlapping meanings and associations:4 The church is a heaven on earth wherein the heavenly God “dwells and walks.” It typifies the Crucifixion, the Burial and the Resurrection of Christ. It is glorified above Moses’s tabernacle of testimony. . . . It was prefigured by the Patriarchs, foretold by the Prophets, founded by the Apostles, and adorned by the Hierarchs. The conch is after the manner of the cave of Bethlehem, where Christ was born, and that of the cave where he was buried. . . . The holy table is the place where Christ was buried, and on which is set forth the true bread from heaven, the mystic and bloodless sacrifice, i.e., Christ. . . . It is also the throne upon which God, who is borne up by cherubin, has rested. At this table, too, he sat down at his last supper in the midst of his apostles and, taking bread and wine, said unto them, “Take, eat and drink of 4 C.  Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, 1972), 140–43, 185–86, 239–40, for the texts presented here.

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it: this is my body and my blood. It was prefigured by the table of the law, on which was the manna, which cometh down from heaven, i.e., Christ. The text continues to associate the ciborium (canopy) with the Crucifixion, the presbytery with Christ’s tomb, the bema with a footstool and a throne, the ambo with the stone rolled away at the Resurrection, and so on. While the symbolism might seem inconsistent and might not add up to a coherent whole, the text gives a sense of how architecture could resonate with and reinforce the ceremonies it housed. A different view of architecture is provided by the Inventory of the So-Called Palace of Botaniates, a legal document that records the contents of an estate in Constantinople, given to the Genoese in 1192. Its description of the palace church reads in part, The holy church is domed with a single apse and four columns—one of Bithynian marble. The frieze and the curve of the apse are revetted with marble, along with the vaults. The L-shaped spaces to the west are incrusted with Nikomedian tiles, along with the cornice. Above there are images in gold and colored mosaic, as with the dome and the four vaults— three with windows. The partition of the sanctuary consists of four posts of green marble with bronze collars, two perforated railings, a marble entablature, and a gilded wooden templon. As a legal document, the text says nothing of symbolism or sanctity but concentrates on the expensive materials and surface coverings, noting, later in the document, where the terrace is decayed and where window panes are missing. Curiously, it says nothing of the construction or the size of the church, and even some details of its plan remain unclear. A description in the form of an ekphrasis offers yet another perspective, one that is experiential and impressionistic, a rhetorical exercise known from classical antiquity.5 More than 5 See, among others, H.  Maguire, “Truth and Convention in Byzantine Descriptions of Works of Art,” DOP 28 (1974):

simply a literary description, an ekphrasis was a form of evocative writing, meant to conjure the image of its subject in the mind’s eye of the reader. The ninth-century patriarch Photios’s well-known ekphrasis of the Pharos Church at the Great Palace in Constantinople, for example, offers a visual experience that is both vertiginous and distracting: It is as if one has entered heaven itself, with no one barring the way from any side and was illuminated by the beauty in all forms shining all around like so many stars, so is one utterly amazed. Thenceforth it seems that everything is in ecstatic motion, and the church itself is circling round. For the spectator, through his whirling about in all directions and being constantly astir, which he is forced to experience by the variegated spectacle on all sides, imagines that his personal condition is transferred to the object. As Photios describes it, movement attributed to architectural features may be a way of suggesting the experience of the visitor, for whom the viewing of the church transforms the building into an intricate and ever-changing pattern of forms. While he says nothing about the plan or scale of the building, and elsewhere his description concentrates on selected details, he provides a sense of a viewer’s response to a work of architecture. We are much better informed about religious architecture, although recent decades have seen increased interest in secular architecture, with archaeological studies bringing a range of forms and new building types into the discussion: urban entities, fortification systems, fortresses, citadels, towers, palaces, houses, public buildings, public baths, and water supply systems. The state of research varies for these topics, and none of the secular examples is as well preserved as the churches. While archaeology has dramatically 113–49; R. Webb and L. James, “‘To Understand Ultimate Things and Enter Secret Places’: Ekphrasis and Art in Byzantium,” AH 14 (1991): 1–17; R.  Webb, “The Aesthetics of Sacred Space: Narrative, Metaphor, and Motion in ‘Ekphraseis’ of Church Buildings,” DOP 53 (1999): 59–74; R.  G.  Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium (Princeton, 1999), 33–38.

expanded our knowledge of aspects of daily life, urbanism, and military technology, there is a concomitant danger of Eastern medieval architecture becoming a subset of archaeology or of social history. To utilize the terminology of the Roman architectural theorist Vitruvius (first century bce), utilitas (function) becomes our main concern, with firmitas (structure) a distant second and venustas (aesthetics) not at all. As the texts often emphasize, a Byzantine viewer understood a great building as a work of art and responded to it accordingly. Thus, an emphasis on the aesthetics of architecture, an approach that has fallen out of favor, remains valid to our discussions. At the same time, new areas of investigation have considerably broadened the field of study, and they allow a discourse on architecture that addresses all levels of society. In short, a more integrated approach is necessary if we are to understand historical architecture in its many contexts. To this end, the book includes chapters with differing approaches, both those that discuss architectural developments by period or region and thematic essays on topics ranging from urbanism to ceremonies to construction technology. Finally, an examination of its architecture emphasizes that the Eastern medieval world was neither static nor isolated. It was both fluid and dynamic, regularly invigorated by the movement of people and ideas. Areas of cultural interchange are particularly instructive in this respect, as planning types, structural solutions, and architectural details were disseminated across great distances. The architecture of the Crusaders or of Norman Sicily, for example, makes no sense without an understanding of both regional and international architectural traditions. There is also the element of time to consider. In architectural studies, we tend to focus on the moment of inception, but most buildings have long histories, replete with additions, modifications, changes in function, or changes in demographics. Buildings are forever in the process of becoming. To isolate them at a single moment in their rich histories limits what we might learn from them. In sum, buildings have lives of their own, and taken together, Eastern medieval architecture has a fascinating story to tell.

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PART ONE

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LATE ANTIQUITY Third to Seventh Centuries

CHAPTER ONE

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ROME, THE DOMUS ECCLESIAE, AND THE CHURCH BASILICA

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et us begin with a few words on context and  terminology: first, the period we are considering in the first several chapters is often called “Late Antique” (roughly the third through seventh centuries), referring to a period of transformation marked by social, political, and religious upheaval across the Mediterranean. The same period is also termed “Early Christian,” referring specifically to the religious transformations of the Roman Empire, which lie at the heart of our study. The term “Byzantine” has also been used, since at least the seventeenth century, to refer to an empire with its capital in Constantinople (formerly known as Byzantium or Byzantion), thus spanning the epoch 324/330 ce (the refoundation of the city by Constantine) to 1453 ce (its fall to the Ottoman Turks). This period may be divided into early Byzantine (the fourth through seventh centuries), the transitional period (the seventh through ninth centuries), middle Byzantine (the late ninth through twelfth centuries), and late Byzantine (the thirteenth through mid-fifteenth centuries). Like the term “Eastern medieval,” none of these terms is very exact, and they depend on which specific historical events one takes as markers. In a broader perspective, we are tracking cultural change from the classical

world, through the medieval, and into the early modern. Second, change does not happen overnight. The Roman Empire did not suddenly become extinct with the introduction of Christianity. Rather, Christianity inserted itself into a wellestablished framework, characterized by urbanism, wide-scale trading networks, diverse belief systems, and—for our purposes—a thriving building industry, with large-scale construction and established building types to serve the utilitarian needs and pleasures of a thriving cosmopolitan population. Thus, how Christianity found its way into the existing Roman social and urban fabric is a fascinating story. Third, we must consider the nature of religion. Participation in a religion presupposes ritual acts of symbolic significance; architecture in the service of religion is similarly symbolically charged. More than simply functional (in the modernist sense), religious buildings stand as public markers in the landscape, signifiers of human activity at all levels. The dramatic changes in Roman belief systems during Late Antiquity find physical manifestations in the architecture of the period. Designing and planning a setting for worship demanded both theoretical and practical considerations: for the

Rome, Capitoline Museums, marble fragments from a colossal statue of Constantine found in the Basilica of Maxentius, early fourth century (author) 3

former, the nature of the divinity and the relationship between divinity and worshipper; for the latter, the existing architectural practices and building vocabulary. Rather than being characterized by an abrupt transition, however, the rise of Christianity is marked by a gradual transformation of both the society and its architecture—that is, more evolution than revolution. Religion was practiced on several levels within the Roman Empire. Partaking in official religion was both a personal manifestation of belief and a visible sign of allegiance to the state. Worship of the Greco-Roman pantheon, including sacrifices to the gods, was the duty of every Roman. Behind this official veneer, however, we find a variety of other religious practices emerging, those that served the spiritual needs of the individual. Private religion could take many forms, including personal devotion to a particular deity or the adoption of a foreign cult. By the second century ce, socalled mystery cults, often originating in the East, gained in popularity. This is dramatically evident from the late second century onward, with the construction of temples dedicated to Eastern deities in the Forum Romanum and by the often-bizarre religious practices of the Severan imperial family.¹ For the lower strata of society, however, these religions promised salvation in the next world to a select few who followed strict guidelines in their daily lives, professed their faith, and had undergone initiation rites; they offered comfort and reassurance to those living in difficult times; “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal,” instructs the Gospel according to Matthew (6:19 NRSV), for example, encouraging a shift of concern from this world to the next. How did the church building become sacred space? Early Christians understood two models of sacred presence.² In the first, perhaps following For the background, see, among many others, J. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century (Oxford, 2000). For the bizarre religious practices, see pp. 8–17.

1

2 P.  Corbey Finney, “Early Christian Architecture: The Beginnings,” HTR 81, no. 3 (1988): 319–39; L. M. White, The Social Origins of Christian Architecture (Valley Forge, 1996–97); L. M. White, Building God’s House in the Roman World: Architectural Adaptation among Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Baltimore, 1990); K. Bowes, Private Worship, Public Values, and Religious Change in Late

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Late Antique Judaism, sanctity was invoked by the congregation—the ecclesia—coming together in common prayer, symbolically representing the body of Christ. This form of worship was encouraged by the apostle Paul, among others, and was gradually formalized into the liturgy. With the recitation of prayers and reading of scripture, but no animal sacrifice, such a spiritualized ceremony required no special setting—or rather, its setting was not imbued with meaning. In the second model, more in line with older, pagan attitudes, sanctity was represented by physical presence, the sacralization of place and space, often through relics or the tombs of martyrs and saints. At Rome, the early churches reflect the distinctions between these two models: practices taking place inside the walls were primarily liturgical, for the regular gatherings of the ecclesia; those taking place outside the walls were commemorative, set in relationship to the tombs of Christian heroes and the surrounding catacombs and cemeteries—in accordance with Roman law, the dead were buried outside the pomerium (city limit).³ Subsequent centuries witnessed a collapsing of the two categories. The beginning of Christian architecture is usually assigned to Constantine’s recognition of Christianity, but the seeds for its development were sown at least a century before the Edict of Milan in 313 ce (discussed further below). Although limited physical evidence survives, a combination of archaeology and texts may help us to understand the formation of architecture in service of the new religion. The domus ecclesiae, or house-church, most often represented an adaptation of an existing Late Antique residence to include a meeting hall and perhaps a baptistery. Most examples are known from texts; while there are archaeological remains of such buildings in Rome, usually called tituli, most early sites of Christian worship were subsequently rebuilt and enlarged to give them a suitably public character, thus destroying much of the physical evidence of their original forms. Indeed, most of the churches of Rome have long and complex histories, as well as prehistories of archaeological complexity. Antiquity (Cambridge, 2008); A.  M.  Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces in the Late Antique Mediterranean: Architecture, Cult, and Community (Cambridge, 2009). J. M. C. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (Baltimore, 1971, 1996).

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FIGURE 1.1 Dura Europos, aerial view from the south, 1932. The Palmyrene Gate is at the center, left, with the residential areas discussed here immediately inside the wall, in the shadows (Yale University Art Gallery, Dura Europos Collection)

Synagogues and Mithraia (shrines for the mystery cult of the god Mithras) from the period are considerably better preserved. An exceptional area of survival has been studied at Dura Europos, on the banks of the Euphrates in Syria (Fig. 1.1). A prosperous town on the caravan route to the east, Dura was conquered by the Sasanians in 256 ce and subsequently abandoned, thus preserving in time capsule–like fashion the basic elements of a provincial town, which were rediscovered at the end of the nineteenth century and excavated in the 1930s.4 In addition to the various temples at the city center, representing official religion, assembly halls for several unofficial cults were discovered,  tucked away in residential neighborhoods. Converted from domestic complexes, they were inconspicuous but certainly not secret. Among 4 M.  I.  Rostovtzeff et al., eds., The Excavations at Dura Europos Conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters, Preliminary Reports (New Haven, 1928–52); and L. R. Brody and G. L Hoffman, eds., Dura Europos: Crossroads of Antiquity (Boston, 2011), for recent bibliography.

them, the Christian House was initially built ca. 200 on a typical courtyard plan, with rooms facing inward and a vestibule opening to the street.5 Modified ca. 230, two rooms were joined to form a longitudinal meeting hall; another was provided with a piscina (basin) to function as a baptistery for Christian initiation (Figs. 1.2 and 1.3). Since the early days of Christianity, baptism had marked the transition of the initiate, who entered the font of “living water” as if entering the tomb of Christ, to be cleansed of sin and spiritually reborn. At Dura, the rectangular basin is covered by an arched canopy and suggests the common form of the arcosolium tomb. This, along with the painting of the Holy Women at the Tomb of Christ on the flanking wall, indicates the symbolic association of baptism with the death and Resurrection of Christ, a theme further developed in monumental baptisteries after the official acceptance of Christianity, a subject discussed further in Chapter 3. 5 C. H. Kraeling, The Christian Building: The Excavations at Dura Europos Conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters, Final Report VIII, 2 (New Haven, 1967).

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FIGURE 1.2 Dura Europos, Christian House, ca. 200 and 230 ce, isometric cutaway (Yale University Art Gallery, Dura Europos Collection)

FIGURE 1.3 Dura Europos, Christian House, ca. 200 and 230 ce, reconstruction of the baptistery (Yale University Art Gallery, Dura Europos Collection)

The Dura Synagogue was situated nearby, in a residential block at the edge of the city. Tucked away within the insula, it was entered not directly from the street, but through the rear of a preexisting house (Fig. 1.4).6 Preceded by an atrium, the synagogue consisted of an oblong 6 C. H. Kraeling, The Synagogue: The Excavations at Dura Europos Conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters, Final Report VIII, 1 (New Haven, 1956).

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hall, with an elaborated niche to indicate the direction of Jerusalem. Designed to hold the Torah scrolls, the niche was decorated with images associated with the Temple. The Mithraeum was similarly located at the edge of Dura. Initially enclosed within a private residence, the Mithraeum was expanded to form a long hall, destroying much of the residence.7 All three—domus ecclesiae, synagogue, and Mithraeum—were decorated with painted programs of scenes that address specifically the belief systems of the respective congregations, who were quite possibly both familiar and in competition with one another. In Rome itself, remnants of tituli have been excavated beneath a variety of churches. Beneath San Clemente, for example, Roman houses of the first century are traditionally associated with a titulus Clementis, and it is only in the third century that the renovations indicate Christian usage. Similarly, the titulus Byzantis (or Pammachii), excavated in the nineteenth century beneath the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo on the Caelian Hill, displays adaptation from the late second or third century, as the Christian community took over the entire insula. Christian-themed paintings, with scenes of martyrdom, were added in the fourth century. Both of these tituli were replaced by basilicas in the fifth century, but the evidence at both sites indicates that the domus ecclesiae phase represented adaptation within the domestic sphere.8 The excavations at Dura and earlier discoveries in the East raised the tantalizing notion that Christian architecture had its beginnings in the Eastern Mediterranean, just as the religion had. But this has not been supported by archaeology. Christianity took hold only gradually, and our best early evidence comes from Rome, where the religion was introduced by the apostles Peter and Paul. The fundamental problem for the archaeologist is how to recognize an unofficial presence— that is, when is a house a domus ecclesiae? Without archaeological finds of a specifically Christian character, it may be impossible to determine, and rarely can we make a distinction on the basis of architecture alone. At Dura, for example, the baptistery clinches the deal; without it, we might have 7

White, Social Origins, 261–72.

8

White, Social Origins, 209–42, with additional bibliography.

FIGURE 1.4 Dura Europos, synagogue, before 256 ce; plan showing its insertion into a city block (Yale University Art Gallery, Dura Europos Collection)

overlooked the house altogether. At Rome, the continued layers of construction above specific domestic spaces speak to their early religious associations; without the later constructions, probably we would be in the dark there as well. Better evidence survives for burial customs, which were of prime concern to a religion that promised salvation after death. Unlike Roman polytheists, who practiced both cremation and inhumation, Christians insisted upon inhumation because of the belief in the bodily resurrection of the dead at the end of days. In addition to areae (sing. area: above-ground cemeteries) and catacombs (underground cemeteries), Christians required settings for commemorative banquets or refrigeria (sing. refrigerium), a carryover from pagan practices.9 The earliest Christian burials at the Roman catacombs were situated amid those of other religions on the main routes outside the city walls, but by the beginning of the third century, exclusively Christian cemeteries are known to have existed, beginning with the Catacomb of R. M. Jensen, “Dining with the Dead: From the Mensa to the Altar in Christian Late Antiquity,” in Commemorating the Dead: Texts and Artifacts in Context: Studies of Roman, Jewish, and Christian Burials, eds. L. Brink and D. Green (Berlin, 2008), 107–44.

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St. Callixtus on the Via Appia, ca. 230 ce (Figs. 1.5 and 1.6).¹0 Originally well organized with a series of parallel corridors carved into the tufa, the catacombs expanded and grew more labyrinthine over the subsequent centuries. Within, the most common form of tomb was a simple, shelf-like loculus cut into the walls of the corridors and organized in multiple tiers (Fig. 1.7). Small cubicula (chambers) surrounded by arcosolium tombs provided a setting for wealthier burials and reveal evidence of social stratification within the Christian community. Above ground, a simple covered structure provided a setting for the refrigeria, such as the triclia (pergola) excavated beneath San Sebastiano, by the entrance to the catacombs (Fig. 1.8). Little more than a simple picnic shelter opening onto an irregular courtyard, its painted walls bear graffiti invocations to G. B. de Rossi, Roma sottorranea (Rome, 1857); O. Marucchi, Le catacombe romane (Rome, 1933); A. Nestori, Repertorio topografico delle pitture delle catacombe romane (Rome, 1967); and more recently L.  Spera, “The Christianization of Space along the Via Appia: Changing Landscape in the Suburbs of Rome,” AJA 107, no. 1 (2003): 23–43; L.  Spera, Il paesaggio suburbano di Roma dall’antichità al Medioevo: il comprensorio tra le vie Latina e Ardeatina dalle Mura Aureliane al III miglio (Rome, 1999). 10

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FIGURE 1.5 Rome, city plan, showing the cemeteries along the major roads leading outside the city walls (after L. Reekmans, RAC, 1968; from R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 1980, with the author’s modifications)

Peter and Paul—dated ca. 258, when a festival commemorating the saints was instituted. The nearby triconch, or cella trichora, was similar in function and may also be pre-Constantinian (Fig. 1.9). Its triple-apsed interior repeats a common form of a Roman triclinium, or ceremonial dining hall, with apses to house the couches of the diners. The development of a cult of martyrs within the early church led to the development of commemorative monuments, usually called martyria (sing. martyrium), but also referred to in texts as tropaia (sing. tropaion: “trophies”) and heroa (sing. heroon: “heroes’ shrines”), which accom8

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modated veneration within close proximity of the deceased.¹¹ Although inconsistent in form, archaeological evidence abounds for simple martyria from the period after the persecutions of the 250s ce, ranging from expanded spaces in the Roman catacombs (the so-called Chapel of the Popes) to elaborate funerary installations, as in Bonn and Salona. Among those in Rome, the most important was the tropaion marking the 11 A.  Grabar, Martyrium: Recherches sur le culte des reliques et l’art chrétien antique, 2 vols. (Paris, 1943–46), remains fundamental; more recently, Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces.

FIGURE 1.6 Rome, Catacomb of St. Callixtus, plan and section of main passageway, showing loculi (author, redrawn after H. Gardner, Art through the Ages, 1975)

tomb of St. Peter on the Vatican Hill, identified by archaeologists in the mid-twentieth century (Fig. 1.10A).¹² Set within an upscale necropolis dating to ca. 120–160 on the Via Cornelia, across the Tiber and outside the walls of the city, the tomb of St. Peter lay in a small open area, close to the site of his martyrdom (ca. 64) at the Stadium of Nero. By 200, faithful Christians were visiting the modest tropaion that marked his tomb, a sort of table resting on colonnettes, about 1.5 meters tall, with a niched aedicula (small shrine) above it, set against a brick wall. A hole in its base allowed libations to be offered by the faithful, and graffiti prayers confirm Christian usage at least by the third century. The tropaion must date to the late second century. It was subsequently buried, as the

For a summary and assessment, see J. M. C. Toynbee and J. B. Ward Perkins, The Shrine of St. Peter (New York–London, 1956).

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site became the focus of Constantine’s monumental Basilica of St. Peter, to be discussed below. By the time of the governmental restructuring known as the Tetrarchy, established by Diocletian (293–313 ce), Christian buildings had become more visible and more public, confidently announcing their presence, but without the scale and lavishness of their official successors. In Rome, the meeting hall of San Crisogono seems to have been founded ca. 300 as a visible Christian monument. Similarly, in Nicomedia at the same time, the Christian meeting hall was prominent enough to be seen from the imperial palace and was destroyed by Diocletian in 303, at the beginning of  the last great persecution of the Christians. Clearly, the administrative structure of the church and the basic character of Christian worship were well established before the time of Constantine. These early buildings laid the groundwork for later architectural developments, housing the

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FIGURE 1.7 Rome, Catacomb of Priscilla, interior showing loculi and view into the gallery (G. Cargagna, De Agostini Picture Library, courtesy of AKG Images)

basic functions that would be of prime concern in later centuries: communal worship, initiation into the cult, burial, and the commemoration of the dead. In architectural terms, these early developments represent the adaptation of existing structures and practices, and they find useful contemporary parallels in the creation of synagogues and Mithraia.

FIGURE 1.8 Rome, San Sebastiano, reconstruction of the triclia excavated beneath the church, ca. 258 ce (after P. Styger, Römische Märtyrergrüfte, 1935)

, Diocletian’s idealistic and flawed attempt to restructure Roman rule across a sprawling and disjointed empire came to an end when Constantine arrived on the scene. Unlike the image of harmonious joint leadership portrayed by the art of the period (such as the statue group now in Venice), it was a period of mistrust, suspicion, and changing allegiances.¹³ Although Constantine was raised in the court of Diocletian in Nicomedia, he was more or less a political hostage to keep his father in line.

FIGURE 1.9 Rome, Catacomb of St. Callixtus, cella trichora, fourth century (?), view ca. 1850 (after G. B. de Rossi, Roma Sotteranea III, 1877)

13 J. Bardill, Constantine: Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age (Cambridge, 2015); D.  Potter, Constantine the Emperor (Oxford, 2012).

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FIGURE 1.11 Rome, Capitoline Museums, marble fragments from a colossal statue of Constantine found in the Basilica of Maxentius, early fourth century (author)

FIGURE 1.10 Rome, St. Peter’s, (A) Vatican Necropolis, Campo P with the aedicule marking the tomb of Peter, late second century, showing its relationship to the apse of the Constantinian basilica (after B. M. Apollonj Ghetti et al., Esplorazioni sotto la confessione di S.  Pietro, 1951); (B) reconstruction of the fourth-century canopy marking the tomb of St.  Peter (after J.  Toynbee and J. B. Ward Perkins, The Shrine of St. Peter, 1956)

And he was regularly overlooked for advancement. By 306 ce he had had enough, and with the death of his father, Constantine had the army proclaim him emperor. But his authority and his title were questioned by Galerius, Maximian, Maxentius, and the rest of the old guard. The subsequent decades of Constantine’s career may be seen as a gradual dismantling of the Tetrarchic system. Constantine’s early career had been devoted to maintaining Roman authority in the unruly provinces along the northern frontier, but by 310 ce Constantine was at war with his co-rulers. He marked this shift religiously as well by moving

away from polytheism. By 310 he had changed his religious allegiances to Sol Invictus as the supreme god—the unconquered sun, traditionally identified with Apollo, who continues to appear on Constantine’s coinage as late as 324 or 325. However, legend attributes Constantine’s victory over his rival Maxentius in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge of 312 to the miraculous intervention of the Christian God. In Constantine’s vision, he was instructed to “delineate the heavenly sign on the shields of his soldiers.”¹4 Placing the sign— probably the chi–rho monogram (☧), the first two letters of Christ’s name in Greek—on their armor, Constantine was rewarded by a total rout, the collapse of the bridge beneath the retreating army, and the drowning of Maxentius. Shortly afterward, in 313, Constantine met Licinius, his coemperor from the east, in Milan, and they jointly issued an edict of religious tolerance—in effect recognizing Christianity as an accepted religion within the Roman Empire (Fig. 1.11). 14

Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum (Oxford, 1984), 44.

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FIGURE 1.12 Rome, Arch of Constantine, ca. 315 ce (author)

The foregoing is a simplified and abbreviated history of a very complex period of political and personal history for Constantine, which scholars continue to debate and which we may never fully understand. Suffice it to say, Constantine used religion as part of his political identity to distance himself from the Tetrarchy, but his personal commitment is not entirely clear. He may have conflated the Christian God with Sol Invictus as the supreme deity—as we see occurring elsewhere, such as in the famous mosaic in the Vatican Necropolis—or perhaps he thought the solar theology would be attractive to the Christians, since it used much the same imagery. Or perhaps he continued to make a distinction between public and private religion as had been common in Rome—with worship of Sol Invictus to satisfy the needs of the state and worship of the Christian God to address his personal, spiritual concerns. In any case, by 314 ce at the latest, he was professing himself to be a Christian, but however he understood the religion, it was very different from how we understand Christianity today. 12

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Curiously, the Arch of Constantine in Rome (Fig. 1.12), raised by the senate in 315 ce to commemorate Constantine’s victory over Maxentius, makes no mention visually or verbally of his religious conversion. Among the various spolia (reused marble pieces) decorating the monument, the Hadrianic roundels depict pagan sacrifices, and the image of the sun god appears several times.¹5 The friezes that depict events from Constantine’s campaign against Maxentius are traditional in their themes, distinctive for the abstractness of their style. Taken together, the sculptural decoration emphasizes the emperor’s continued participation in official Roman ceremony and the gradual transformation of the Roman Empire. When Constantine accepted Christianity, he committed himself to the patronage of buildings meant to compete visually with the grandeur of their pagan counterparts. In major centers like Rome, this meant the construction of huge basiliE. Marlowe, “Framing the Sun: The Arch of Constantine and the Roman Cityscape,” ArtB 88, no. 2 (2006): 223–42.

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FIGURE 1.13 Rome, Lateran Basilica, ca. 313 ce, isometric reconstruction (after H. Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome, 2005, with the author’s modifications)

cas, capable of holding congregations numbering into the thousands. Although there is much variation in the building type, the basilica is essentially a large, longitudinal assembly room, or nave, usually terminating in an apse and flanked by side aisles, all covered by timber trussed roofs, with the nave lit by clerestory windows in the upper walls. Most familiar to the Roman viewer of the fourth century were forum basilicas, like the Basilica Ulpia at the Forum of Trajan, which came with the stamp of imperial presence, as well as the audience halls of the aristocracy, like that of Junius Bassus in Rome. Although the symbolic associations of the Christian basilica with its Roman predecessors have been debated, it represented power and opulence in ways comparable to well-known, imperially sponsored, public buildings.¹6 Formally, the basilica also stood in sharp contrast to the pagan temple, at which worD. Kinney, “The Church Basilica,” ActaIRNorv 15 (2001): 115– 35; R. Krautheimer, “The Constantinian Basilica,” DOP 21 (1967): 115–40.

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ship was conducted out of doors. The church basilica was essentially a meeting house, not a sacred structure; the people, not the building, comprised the ecclesia—although the two gradually became conflated. The Lateran Basilica, originally dedicated to Christ, was begun ca. 313 ce to serve as Rome’s cathedral (Fig. 1.13). Also known as the Basilica Constantiniana (and now dedicated to St. John the Baptist, St. John the Evangelist, and Christ), it was built on the grounds of an imperial palace, donated to be the residence of the bishop.¹7 Huge in scale, covering an area approximately 55 by 95 meters, it could have held a congregation numbering into the thousands. For the early churches of Rome, see the documentation in R.  Krautheimer et al., Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae: The Early Christian Basilicas of Rome (IV–IX cent.), 5 vols. (Vatican City, 1937–77); S. De Blaauw, Cultus et Décor. Liturgia e architettura nella Roma tardoantica e medievale. Basilica Salvatoris, Sanctae Mariae, Sancti Petri (Vatican City, 1994); H. Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome from the Fourth to the Seventh Centuries (Turnhout, 2005). 17

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Organized on a five-aisled plan, covered by wooden trussed roofs, it was entered from the east and terminated in a western apse. The basilica’s tall nave was illuminated by clerestory windows in the upper walls, which rose above doubled side aisles. Fifteen red stone columns supported a horizontal entablature on either flank of the nave, while the side aisles were divided by twenty-two smaller green marble columns on tall bases, supporting arcades. The side aisles terminated in low, projecting sacristies—sometimes mistakenly identified as a transept. Notably, many, if not all, of the marble pieces were spoliated, with the capitals mismatched, mixing Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite orders. Within the apse were seats for the bishop and the clergy, and before the apse, the altar was preceded by a fastigium—a magnificent silver façade, decorated with statues of Christ and the apostles. Parapets marked a ceremonial route down the center of the nave. Much of what we know about the church comes from either the archaeological record or the careful scrutiny of texts, as the Lateran continued throughout its history to be the cathedral, the administrative seat of the Bishop of Rome—that is, the pope—and was thus the site of repeated architectural investment. Dramatically remodeled in the seventeenth century, the present interior nevertheless gives a sense of the scale and ostentation, while the Liber Pontificalis (the collected biographies of early popes) enumerates the luxurious furnishings of the early church.¹8 The exterior was presumably plastered, covering the construction of opus listatum (alternating courses of brick and stone, facing on a concrete core), its plainness contrasting dramatically with the opulence and color of the interior. Simple, large basilicas were also erected at Aquileia in northern Italy (313–19 ce), at Trier in Germany (after 326), and elsewhere during the time of Constantine to serve as cathedrals for their respective communities—all known from texts or archaeology. Why was the basilica selected as a building type? Perhaps most importantly because it was not a temple and could never be mistaken for one. The basilica had no previous religious associations but provided a flexible form

that could expand or contract according to the functions it housed. Probably the best comparison in terms of scale and opulence for the Lateran Basilica is the Basilica Ulpia in the Forum of Trajan, completed before ca. 112, which was enveloped by double side aisles and terminated in exedrae. We might also consider the single-aisled Aula Palatina at Trier, built as an audience hall in  Constantine’s residence ca. 300 (Fig. 1.14).¹9 While both were imperial constructions, it was probably not the imperial associations of the architectural form that led to the selection, but rather that the building projected an image of authority, power, and opulence. We should also note that the basilica could be used for purely utilitarian functions as well—for example, the warehouses (horrea) at Trier.²0 In addition to congregational churches, among which the Lateran stands at the forefront, a second functional type of basilica appeared in Rome at the same time, set within the cemeteries outside the city walls, several of them associated with the venerated graves of martyrs, providing special places of veneration near their tombs in the catacombs. These cemetery basilicas (or  ambulatory basilicas) were also substantial constructions— between 80 and 100 meters in length—indicative of both their prestige and their popularity. San Sebastiano on the Via Appia is the best-preserved example (Fig. 1.15). It rose on the site of the earlier triclia, in which graffiti testify to the special veneration of Peter and Paul at the site. Although there is some suggestion that their graves may have been relocated here during a period of persecution, later traditions suggest that their residences were here. Originally known as the Basilica Apostolorum, it was begun ca. 312 or 313 ce. The opus listatum construction technique corresponds to buildings built by Maxentius and encourages an early dating, although probably not before the Peace of the Church. Essentially a covered burial ground, the floor was paved with graves, and the walls were lined with loculi and enveloped by mausolea. In plan, the nave is separated from the side aisles by heavy rectangu-

The Book of the Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis), trans. R.  Davis (Liverpool, 1989), 14–26; for Pope Sylvester (314–35).

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18

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19

Kinney, “Church Basilica.”

G. Rickman, Roman Granaries and Storage Buildings (Cambridge, 1971), 265.

FIGURE 1.14 Trier, Aula Palatina, exterior from the west (author)

FIGURE 1.15 Rome, San Sebastiano, ca. 312 ce, plan (after H. Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome, 2005)

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1.16 Rome, SS. Marcellino e Pietro with the Mausoleum of Helena, early fourth century, plan and elevation (after R. Bianchi Bandinelli, Rome: The Late Empire, 1971, with the author’s modifications) FIGURE

lar piers, with a clerestory zone above the arcades, beneath the wooden trussed roof. An altar was set up near the center of the nave, to accommodate eucharistic memorial liturgies, and the internal divisions allowed services of both public and private commemoration. Here and in the other cemetery basilicas, the aisle continued into an ambulatory surrounding the apse at the west end. To the east, an atrium originally joined the basilica to the Via Appia. Among the handful of other examples, the Basilica of SS. Pietro e Marcellino on the Via Labicana is the most important (Fig. 1.16). Built on land owned by Constantine’s mother, Helena, its narthex was joined to the Mausoleum of Helena, an enormous domed rotunda of heavy construction that may have originally been intended as the tomb of Constantine himself (see Chap. 3). The complex was completed by ca. 324–26 ce, when the mausoleum was decorated. In addition to cemetery basilicas, Constantine also supported the construction of monumental 16

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martyria, and these commemorations of the special dead often intersected with standard Christian burials. Most important in the west was St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, begun ca. 324 ce, originally functioning as a combination of cemetery basilica and martyrium, sited so that the focal point was the marker at the tomb of Peter (Figs. 1.17 and 1.18). The construction of the present St. Peter’s Basilica, which began in the sixteenth century, eliminated or obscured the evidence of the site’s first fourteen centuries of history, but it was shaped in scale, location, form, and meaning by its predecessor. The tomb of the apostle was the most popular pilgrimage destination in medieval Europe, and correspondingly the church enshrining it was the most important and influential work of architecture, which Petrus Mallius, a twelfth-century canon at St. Peter’s, described as “the source and mirror of all churches.”²¹

21

Petrus Mallius, Basilicae veteris vaticanae descriptio (Rome, 1646).

FIGURE 1.17 Rome, St. Peter’s, reconstructed plan and view, ca. 320 ce, showing adjacent mausolea and the postConstantinian atrium (after R. Krautheimer, ECBA, 1986)

Sometime presumably before 324 ce—the exact date is not recorded—Constantine decided to monumentalize the site of the heroon by adding an enormous five-aisled basilica, approximately 120 meters long, oriented with an apse and transept in the west, so that the building was aligned with the tomb. Larger by far than any of  the other Christian buildings in the city, the undertaking required the destruction of the necropolis, as well as the construction of massive substructures, up to 8 meters high along the south side, and earth removal along the north, to create

a level site. The nave followed the model established at the Lateran, with the 90-meter-long, 23.6-meter-wide central vessel flanked by doubled side aisles, illuminated by clerestory windows. On either side, twenty-two closely spaced columns supported an architrave, and another twenty-two smaller ones separated the aisles, those raised on pedestals and supporting an arcade. Shafts, capitals, and other marbles were spoliated, with both Corinthian and Composite capitals and shafts of different materials and hues (including green serpentine, giallo antico, and both red and gray

CHAPTER ONE: ROME, THE DOMUS ECCLESIAE, AND THE CHURCH BASILICA

17

FIGURE 1.18 Rome, St. Peter’s, reconstructed views of the nave, looking west, and the transept, looking north (T. Bannister, JSAH, 1968)

granite), and significant variations in size. Wall construction was of opus listatum, as at the Lateran. The transept—an unusual feature in Early Christian churches—formed a separate space, essentially a transversally positioned, single-aisled basilica, awkwardly juxtaposed with the nave. It also functioned separately as a martyrium, offering a special space for venerating the tomb of the  martyr, with separate entrances in its east wall. St. Peter’s tomb monument rose on the axis of the nave, at the entrance to the apse, covered by an open baldachin (canopy) supported by four spoliated columns with spiral shafts covered with vine scrolls; two additional columns extended the  baldachin’s architrave to frame the apse (see Fig. 1.10B). During commemorative services, an altar could have been set up beneath the baldachin, and the apse could have housed the clergy. Both clergy and congregation would have used the transept for all rites. As conceived in the fourth century, Constantine’s church was not a normal parish church for the regular celebration of the liturgy; it had no permanent clergy and no congregation and possibly no permanent altar. The nave functioned as a cemetery basilica, its floor paved with tombs, and its vast interior provided a setting for the refrigeria, commemorative banquets at the tombs of the deceased, while the transept functioned as the martyrium—that is, two distinct but connected architectural components housed two distinct 18

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but related functions, both with the tomb of the apostle as their visual focus. By the end of the fourth century, church fathers had suppressed the celebration of the refrigeria— which apparently had become more festive than spiritual in nature. They were celebrated in St. Peter’s as late as 396 ce, but with the increasing popularity of pilgrimage to the tomb, the building was equipped with a permanent altar, set above the tomb of Peter, and staffed by a permanent clergy. The combined focus on the altar/ tomb by both pilgrims and celebrants led to traffic problems within the transept, and ca. 590, Pope Gregory the Great reorganized the west end, with an elevated sanctuary above a crypt, so that pilgrims could visit the grave of the apostle without disturbing the liturgy. While unusual within an Early Christian context, both the transept and the two-level sanctuary were replicated in many medieval churches in Western Europe. Unlike most later churches, St. Peter’s had its focal point in the west, rather than the east, following the standard orientation of temples—and specifically the Temple of Jerusalem. This also facilitated access from the city, which lay to the east of the church. A colonnaded atrium, apparently not part of the original design, was added, providing a transition from exterior to interior. In subsequent centuries, a bronze pinecone-shaped fountain was added to the atrium, as well as reception rooms, oratories, a gatehouse, and a

belfry. Two Late Antique mausolea to the south of  the basilica were converted to chapels of St. Andrew and St. Petronilla. While there is quite a bit of variety in the design of the Christian building projects associated with Constantine in Rome, they share several common features, beyond the large-scale and basilican format. First, all were constructed on imperial properties, the Lateran even retaining the existing imperial palace as the episcopal residence. Second, they were located at the edge

of the city, with all but the Lateran lying outside the walls; the center of the city conservatively retained its pagan character, with its festivals and temples. In contrast, Constantine’s presence at the center—his triumphal arch and the appropriated Basilica of Maxentius—emphasized his right to rule in a traditional Roman visual and architectural vocabulary, with virtually no reference to Christianity. Thus, while Constantine had put Christianity on the stage in Rome, it was not at center stage.

CHAPTER ONE: ROME, THE DOMUS ECCLESIAE, AND THE CHURCH BASILICA

19

CHAPTER TWO

,

A TALE OF TWO CITIES Constantinople and Jerusalem in the Time of Constantine

I

n 313 ce, Constantine and his eastern coemperor Licinius issued jointly the Edict of Milan, recognizing Christianity as an official religion of the state. Soon, however, relations between the two rulers deteriorated, and they were at war with each other. By 320 Licinius had reneged on the edict and reinstituted persecutions of Christians. In the civil war of 324, the two met on the battlefield at Adrianople, in a pitched naval battle on the Hellespont, and ultimately at Chrysopolis on the Bosporus, from which Constantine emerged victorious, as the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.1 As a consequence, Constantine’s interests shifted eastward after 324, both politically and religiously, to the foundation of a new imperial capital, which he dedicated in 330, and to the commemoration of the sites associated with the life of Christ. Constantinople and Jerusalem (Figs. 2.1 and 2.2) loom large in the medieval Christian imaginary— so large, in fact, that it is difficult to realize what insignificant places they were at the beginning of the fourth century, immediately before Constantine came onto the scene. Both were provincial cities infused with a modicum of romanitas. Byzantion, 1

Bardill, Constantine, for a recent overview.

on the Bosporus, had been founded as a Greek colony a millennium earlier, and it had been destroyed and rebuilt in the late second century by Caracalla and Septimius Severus, who had realized its strategic location. But it had never figured prominently in the affairs of ancient Greece or Rome. While provided with a hippodrome, public baths, and other Roman amenities, it was, in effect, a city without a history. Jerusalem was the exact opposite—it was barely a city, but had too much history, which figured prominently in the religion of the Jews and Christians; it was a touchstone and a powerful symbol in their scriptures. But Jerusalem had also been destroyed in the rebellions of the first and second centuries ce and rebuilt as a Roman city by Hadrian, with a Roman name, Aelia Capitolina, and a Roman identity. Even its temple had been rebuilt and rededicated to the Capitoline Jupiter. In short, both cities were desperately in need of makeovers to situate them politically, religiously, and ideologically at the heart of Constantine’s evolving concept of empire. Recovering Constantine’s contributions to Jerusalem and Constantinople is not an easy task, for we have limited archaeological remains and contradictory written testimony. His contemporary

Istanbul (Constantinople), the historic peninsula seen from the north, with the Golden Horn in the foreground. Topkapı Palace and Hagia Sophia stand where once the center of Byzantion lay (author) 21

2.1 Istanbul (Constantinople), the historic peninsula seen from the north, with the Golden Horn in the foreground. Topkapı Palace and Hagia Sophia stand where once the center of Byzantion lay (author) FIGURE

FIGURE 2.2 Jerusalem, the old city, seen from the east, with the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif ) in the foreground, with the Dome of the Rock on the site of the temple. In the background, where the ground rises from the Tyropoeon Valley, lies the Holy Sepulchre (A. Shiva, Wikimedia Commons)

biographer Eusebius is often annoyingly unspecific or omits critical details for both cities, while later historians, writing after the fact, may give Constantine too much credit. This chapter attempts 22

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to clarify Constantine’s project to reinvent both cities. As the chapter argues, although his contributions were substantial, in the end they were more symbolic than actual.

FIGURE 2.3 Constantinople, plan of the fifthcentury city (author, based on Cyril Mango, Développement urbaine de Constantinople, 1985)

Constantinople. No contemporary description comes down to us of Constantine’s new city (Fig. 2.3). Its predecessor, Byzantion, was founded in 660 bce as a colony of the Greek city Megara, by the eponymous Byzas, and was known in antiquity for its bad wine. While Hadrian is credited with a water system and a bath complex, Septimius Severus added the Augustaion (a porticoed square), the Hippodrome (a chariot racecourse), the Baths of Zeuxippos, and the Basilica (a commercial and legal center)—that is, the beginning of an urban armature.2 C. Mango, Le développement urbain de Constantinople (Paris, 1985); G. Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale: Constantinople et ses institutions (Paris 1974); G.  Dagron, Constantinople imaginaire (Paris, 1984); W. Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls (Tübingen, 1977); T.  Mathews, The Byzantine Churches of Istanbul: A Photographic Survey (University Park, 1976).

2

As to Constantine’s contribution, his biographer Eusebius in the Life of Constantine is probably purposefully vague.3 What exactly did Constantine do? He expanded the old city, more than tripling its size, adding a new line of walls more than 2 kilometers beyond the old ones; he extended the main street system to meet the new walls. He enlarged and decorated the Hippodrome, adding a royal residence next to it and an imperial box. Where the old and new parts of the city came together, he constructed a grand circular forum, surrounded by two-storied colonnades, and at its center, he raised a colossal bronze statue of himself atop a porphyry column. At the junction of the main street he built the Capitol—that is, a temple to the Capitoline 3 Eusebius, Life of Constantine, trans. A.  Cameron and S.  Hall (Oxford, 1999).

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23

Jupiter. At the Basilica, he added temples to the goddesses Fortuna and Cybele. He decorated the colonnaded streets and public spaces with statues and works of art brought from all parts of the empire. All were necessary parts of the expression of romanitas. As Constantine was a professed Christian, we should expect churches as well, but only a few may be associated with his patronage. Hagia Eirene was the first cathedral, built on the location of a Christian house; St. Mokios outside the walls was a martyrium honoring an obscure local saint, set within a cemetery. There may have been another martyrium inside the walls dedicated to another local martyr, Akakios.4 The Church of the Holy Apostles was constructed at the highest point inside the walls, to serve as the mausoleum of Constantine. Hagia Sophia came later. Much of Constantine’s refounding of the city represented a symbolic expansion. Although he extended the urban armature, functional spaces were still concentrated in the old city. He left it to his successors to fill out the grand plan and to provide necessary amenities. It is worth emphasizing that the character of the city was not markedly Christian: Roman public buildings, statues, and even temples still dominate. But the city was  to be the imperial capital, not specifically Christian or pagan. It was important to establish its Roman identity in terms of appropriate monuments, civic décor, and ceremony, to ground the new city in the empire’s pan-Mediterranean cultural history. For Constantine, the new capital was important both for what it was and for what it was not. The city had no significant Roman history; more immediately, unlike imperial residences at Serdica, Thessalonike, or Nikomedia, it had no strong associations with the Tetrarchy, from which Constantine sought to distance himself. And unlike Ephesus, Alexandria, or Antioch, it had no previous Christian associations, no apostolic connections. The city was tabula rasa—a blank slate on which Constantine could inscribe his new vision of empire. But to be an imperial capital, the city had to participate in Roman history and legend. Most importantly, Constantinople was to be a New Rome or a Second Rome, and this idea was Mango, Développement; S.  Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge, 2004). 4

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expressed through mimesis—a combination of physical imitation and literary testimony.5 Like Rome, the city of Constantine was built on seven hills and divided into fourteen districts; its imperial palace lay next to its hippodrome, which was similarly equipped with a royal viewing box. As in Rome, there were a senate house, a capitol, great baths, and other public amenities; imperial fora provided its public spaces; triumphal columns, arches, and monuments, including a colossus of the emperor in the guise of the sun god, and a variety of dedications imparted mimetic associations with the old capital. Constantine’s mausoleum, a rotunda, lay inside the walls, on the main avenue leading out of the city to the north, just like Augustus’s mausoleum in Rome. And like Augustus, who celebrated bringing peace to the empire after a period of civil war by building the Ara Pacis (the altar of peace), Constantine built a cathedral dedicated to the Holy Peace (Hagia Eirene). As refounded by Constantine, the city was a new creation. Novelty allowed its founders freedom in the deliberate crafting of a ritual site, but at the same time, the city lacked the sort of significance that the resonance of old and new might provide. Physically, the armature did not connect in the same way Rome’s did; even its reliance on  colonnaded streets appeared very different. Symbolically, much of Constantinople’s identity was by necessity imported—in the form of statues and monuments and the legends that came with them. The collections of public sculpture, brought from all parts of the empire, were conceived largely in historical terms to express ideas of empire. At the Hippodrome, for example, the decoration emphasized the position of Constantinople as a successor to Rome (Figs. 2.4 and 2.5). A setting for both entertainment and imperial ceremony, the Hippodrome was the largest and most important place where the emperor and the people interacted. Thus, statues displayed at the Hippodrome would have had a particular resonance, reflecting both the spirit of the events that  took place there and ideas appropriate to 5 B. Ward-Perkins, “Old and New Rome Compared: The Rise of Constantinople,” in Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, ed. L. Grig and G. Kelly (Oxford, 2012), 53–80.

FIGURE 2.4 Constantinople, ruins of the Hippodrome in an engraving of ca. 1560, by Étienne Dupérac, for Onofrio Panvinio, De ludis circensibus, 1600, probably based on a late fifteenth-century drawing (Wikimedia Commons)

FIGURE 2.5 Constantinople, three monuments on the spina of the Hippodrome as seen in 1574. From left, the obelisk erected by Theodosius I; the Serpent Column; and the masonry obelisk, probably erected by Constantine. From the Freshfield Album, attributed to Lambert de Vos (Trinity College, Cambridge)

Constantinople. Although almost all have disappeared, the sources mention at least twenty-five statues or monuments. The collection included images of victory from the Roman past, both mythical and imperial, such as the Dioscuri,

Aeneas, the She-wolf, Augustus, Julius Caesar, and Diocletian.6 Taken together, these would 6 C.  Mango, “Antique Statuary and the Byzantine Beholder,” DOP 17 (1963): 55–75.

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25

have evoked memories of the golden age of imperial greatness. Two imported monuments are noteworthy in the context of the new capital: the Serpent Column from Delphi, formed by three intertwined serpents, and the statue group of the Ass and Its Keeper, taken from Nikopolis.7 The column, which survives as a brazen stub in a pit, celebrated the Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of Plataea in 479 bce; the statue group, known only from descriptions, was part of a monument that celebrated Augustus’s victory over Anthony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 bce. Both battles had been interpreted as the triumph of the civilized West over the barbaric East, and both monuments would have effectively reminded the spectator of Constantine’s recent victory over Licinius, while situating it within the millennial history of the Mediterranean. Of the public monuments erected by Constantine, the Column of Constantine was the most significant and is worth a short digression (Figs. 2.6 and 2.7).8 The centerpiece of a grand FIGURE 2.6 Constantinople, the Column of Constantine, now known as Çemberlitaş, ca. 1870 in a photograph by Pascal Sébah (Kıraç Foundation, Istanbul)

P. Stephenson, The Serpent Column: A Cultural Biography (Oxford, 2016).

7

R.  Ousterhout, “The Life and Afterlife of Constantine’s Column,” JRA 27 (2014): 304–26. 8

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circular forum, the column marked the point at  which the new city joined the old city. The column, originally topped by a colossal gilded bronze statue of Constantine, would have been one of the most visible monuments in the city and one that served to identify the city with the  emperor. Indeed, if we look for traces of Constantine in Istanbul today, this is just about all there is remaining. The column was the signature monument that established the city’s identity; its forum was the forum par excellence, the setting of civic rituals and a ceremonial setting for almost all stational liturgies. Many of the rites to inaugurate the new capital were held at the base of the column. The Column of Constantine still stands, known by its Turkish name, Çemberlitaş (“the banded stone,” referring to the rings added to stabilize the column’s shaft), although the forum that once surrounded it has disappeared completely. Similarly, the statue of Constantine has been lost, felled in a violent windstorm in 1105/6, after which it was replaced by a cross. The current bulbous base, like that of a minaret, was added following damage in 1779. The platform originally had a stepped stylobate topped by a pedestal, rising about 8.4 meters above the paved level of the Forum, above which the column itself had a separate base, with a shaft consisting of seven solid drums of porphyry, 2.9 meters in diameter, weighing about 63 tons each, banded with laurel wreaths at the joins. From the details of its base, the column was probably of the Corinthian order and thus should have had a Corinthian capital, on which or above which stood the colossal statue. With the tall base shaft and capital, the monument rose about 36 meters above the Forum. With its prominent position at the crest of a hill, it was the tallest and probably the most visible monument in the early city and is still prominent on the skyline. Unfortunately, we have no contemporary text to tell us about the monument from the time of Constantine. Eusebius mentions neither the statue nor the column, perhaps embarrassed by their odor of lingering paganism. While he notes that Constantine decorated the city with pagan statues, his pious perspective makes it difficult for him to explain why. His rather lame justification is that Constantine set them up so that the good

FIGURE 2.7 Constantinople, Forum of Constantine, hypothetical aerial view (reconstruction by Tayfun Öner) and a hypothetical reconstruction of the missing statue (author, based on Öner)

Christians could mock them; he could hardly have applied the same reasoning to the statue of his emperor. From the limited references to it, we can conclude that the colossal bronze statue was likely reused and represented Constantine, “shining like the sun god,” with the attributes of Sol Invictus, including a solar crown with seven rays. He carried a spear and orb. Most likely he was heroically nude—later commentators are oddly silent about dress (or lack of it), but they recognized the statue as Apollo and attributed it to Pheidias. They also report it was the object of a barely disguised pagan cult. Philostorgius wrote in the early fifth century, “Our enemy of God accuses the Christians of worshipping with sacrifices the image of Constantine set up on the porphyry column, of paying homage to it with lamp-lighting and incense or praying to it as to a god, and of offering to it supplications to avert calamities.”9 There were also attempts to reinterpret the monument in a Christian vein by associating Christian relics with it: pieces of the cross, the nails of the Crucifixion, a vial of myrrh, baskets from the Miracle of the Loaves, Noah’s axe; Philostorgius, Church History, II.17, trans. P. R. Amidon (Atlanta, 2007), 35.

9

but all of this comes later. More interesting is the only non-Christian relic enclosed within the monument, the Palladion, an ancient cult image of Athena. According to tradition, it was removed from the Temple of Athena at Troy by Aeneas at the end of the Trojan War and carried to the West, an emblem of the mythical foundation of Rome. In Rome it had been housed, or so we are told, in the Temple of the Vestals. Other relics mentioned are Christian, and these sorts of associations, whether real or imagined, may derive from the Christian practice of incorporating relics beneath the altar in the consecration of a church. Combined with the belief that the statue had been brought from Troy, the presence (real or imagined) of the Palladion participated in the construction of a legendary past for a city that had no significant prehistory. The intention was to situate Constantinople within the millennial narrative of Roman history, as the last link in a chain of destiny leading from Troy to Rome, and then back to its legendary birthplace in the East, as Constantinople was reimagined as the New Troy. The famous Colossus of the sun god in front  of  the Colosseum in Rome was probably Constantine’s point of reference for the monument. We know Constantine was interested in it, CHAPTER TWO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES

27

FIGURE 2.8 Jerusalem, plan in the fourth through seventh centuries ce (author, based on Yoram Tsafrir, in O. Grabar and B. Z. Kedar, eds., Where Heaven and Earth Meet, 2009)

since his triumphal arch framed the view toward it along the Via Triumphalis.10 While Constantine’s colossus was smaller, its column matched the height of the Roman Colossus. His colossal statue upped the ante, rising higher still. But like the Colossus in Rome, Constantine’s statue greeted the processions where its ceremonial route joined the Forum. Standing at the point where old joined new, Constantine’s statue faced his new city, along the axis that led ultimately back to Rome. Redolent with its multiple associations with Rome and Troy, with imperial greatness and legendary foundations, the column was a critical component in forging a new identity for Constantine’s capital city. 10

Marlowe, “Framing the Sun.”

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Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a different story, for it was there, and not in Constantinople, that Constantine affirmed the empire’s new Christian identity (Fig. 2.8). Dating back to the fourth millennium bce, ancient Jerusalem was at its height under Herod the Great in the early first century ce. Herod’s rebuilt temple dominated the skyline, standing atop a massive platform (Fig. 2.9).11 Following the great Jewish Revolt of 66–70 ce, however, the city was destroyed, the temple dismantled, and the surviving Jewish population expelled. A Roman garrison occupied the site, but until Hadrian’s interventions following the second Jewish revolt of 132–35 ce, there is little 11 O. Grabar and B. Z. Kedar, eds., Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem’s Sacred Esplanade (Austin, 2009).

FIGURE 2.9 Jerusalem, Temple of Herod, hypothetical plan (after Joan Comay, Temple of Jerusalem, 1975, with the author’s modifications)

evidence of cultural investment. As a Roman colony, the city was renamed Aelia Capitolina and provided with a few triumphal monuments, a colonnaded Cardo, and a Roman grid plan, although this was limited to the northwest part of the city. There is no evidence it was fortified. A Capitolium temple was built on the site of the Jewish Temple and a smaller Temple of Aphrodite was erected on the site of Christ’s tomb—although it is unclear if the latter siting was intentional. In short, despite its long history, at the time of Constantine, Jerusalem was a Roman provincial city of little consequence and no strategic value. Perhaps the theological discussions at the Council of Nicaea in 325 ce kindled Constantine’s interest in the Holy Land. His mother, Helena, had traveled there in 327–28, identifying a variety of holy sites, apparently initiating the construction of churches to commemorate Christ’s birth in Bethlehem (Figs. 2.10 and 2.11) and Ascension on the Mount of Olives.12 But Constantine alone is credited with the most important building project, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Figs. 2.12 and 2.13). Curiously, the earliest Christian sites officially recognized with the construction of churches are signaled by distinctive topographical 12

Bardill, Constantine, 338–95.

FIGURE 2.10 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity, interior looking east (author)

features, either natural or manmade: the rockhewn cave that formed the Tomb of Christ in the Holy Sepulchre; the natural cave on the Mount CHAPTER TWO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES

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FIGURE 2.11 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity, plan and isometric reconstruction, as of 333 ce (after J. W. Crowfoot, Early Churches in Palestine, 1937; and R. Krautheimer, ECBA, 1986)

of  Olives, where Christ instructed the Apostles; that of Bethlehem, where he was born; his footprints preserved in the rock on the site of the Ascension. Natural features testified to supernatural events. The initial construction of the Holy Sepulchre complex was undertaken in 326 ce, and the basilica was dedicated in 336, although construction continued long after Constantine’s death in 337.13 13 V. Corbo, Il Santo Sepolcro di Gerusalemme, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1981); C. Coüasnon, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

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Eusebius’s account of the project begins with the removal of the Roman temple, which he dismisses (London, 1974). For an analysis of their findings and brief discussion of methodology, see S. Gibson and J. E. Taylor, Beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem: The Archaeology and Early History of Traditional Golgotha (London, 1994); and J. Patrich, “The Early Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Light of Excavations and Restoration,” in Ancient Churches Revealed, ed. Y.  Tsafrir (Jerusalem, 1993), 101–17. V. Shalev-Hurvitz, Holy Sites Encircled. The Early Byzantine Concentric Churches of Jerusalem (Oxford, 2015), should be used with caution.

FIGURE 2.12 Jerusalem, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, restored plan and hypothetical section, as of ca. 350 ce (author and Tayfun Öner, with the author’s modifications) 1. Atrium; 2. Basilica, called Martyrion; 3. Inner Courtyard; 4. Calvary; 5. Anastasis Rotunda; 6. Tomb of Christ; 7. Patriarch’s residence; 8. Baptistery (?)

as “a terrible and truly genuine tomb, one for souls, for dead idols.” The site was cleansed of all its pagan defilement, and the subsequent excavation revealed the rock-cut tomb:14 As stage by stage the underground site was exposed, at last against all expectation the revered and all-hallowed Testimony (martyrion) of the Savior’s resurrection (anastasis) was itself revealed, and the cave, the holy of holies, took on the appearance of a representation of the Savior’s return to life. Thus after its descent into darkness it came forth again to the light, and it enabled those who came as visitors to see plainly the story of the wonders wrought there, testifying 14

Eusebius, Life of Constantine, III.27, 133.

by facts louder than any voice to the resurrection of the Savior. Constantine’s letter to Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, orders the construction to spare no expense so that it should surpass all other churches in the world in its beauty. What Eusebius describes actually sounds like a rather ordinary five-aisled basilica with galleries, dressed up with rhetorical flourishes. For example, Eusebius writes that its external surface shone “with polished stones exactly fitted together, exhibited a degree of splendor in no respect inferior to that of marble,” which is to say it was not marble. An atrium was connected to the Cardo, and the basilica had its apse in the west. He calls the latter the hemisphaeron (hemisphere) “which rose to the very CHAPTER TWO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES

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FIGURE 2.13 The Tomb of Christ, hypothetical plan, showing the process of isolation and monumentalization, as the original rock-cut tomb was freed from the living rock by quarrying around it, regularized and given an architectural form, and decorated with columns (after J. Wilkinson, Archaeology, 1978)

summit of the church,” encircled by twelve columns bearing silver bowls, splendid gifts of the emperor. What the hemisphaeron looked like is anyone’s guess—most scholars have tried to force too many columns into a rather ordinary apse, but it might have been some sort of ciborium.15 Further to the west was a paved courtyard surrounded by porticoes, with the isolated and embellished tomb monument at its center. Eusebius’s account is problematic, both for what it describes and for what it omits. He makes no mention of Calvary or the True Cross—both of which were certainly there and certainly important. The reason may be that Constantine’s mother, Helena, is reputed to have discovered the True Cross; she also goes unmentioned. Eusebius was writing to honor Constantine. Eusebius also fails to mention the Anastasis (Resurrection) Rotunda, which rose above the tomb. Most scholars now agree that this part of the Holy Sepulchre complex was constructed slightly later—presumably the completion of the project begun by Constantine. Like the church in Bethlehem, finished somewhat earlier, the Holy Sepulchre included a basilica for congregational worship and a centrally planned edifice that was primarily commemorative. The archaeological investigations of the 1960s and 1970s clarify Eusebius’s description.16 Perhaps most significant is the fact that the site was not level, extending over a quarry and rising from east G.  Downey, “On Some Post-Classical Architectural Terms,” TAPA 77 (1946): 22–34.

15

16

Corbo, Santo Sepolcro.

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to west. The original tomb was cut into the slope, and it had to be freed from the bedrock around it (Fig. 2.13). We can imagine the complex constructed from east to west, with the basilica under construction while the courtyard around the tomb was cleared—perhaps even using the stone quarried on-site in the construction. The excavators found no clear distinction between the two parts of the complex, and the rotunda may have been intended from the beginning. In the leveling of the area, however, the rocky outcropping identified as Calvary was left standing, and the basilica terminated where it rose, in a corner of the courtyard. The other noteworthy discovery of the excavators was the extensive reuse of older foundations and walls at the east and west ends of the complex, indicating that Constantine’s masons had not fully cleared the site before beginning the new construction, and the reused elements account for a variety of irregularities in the plan. The excavations confirmed the dimensions of the various components, as well as the changes of axis as one moved through the complex. The atrium was short and trapezoidal, while the basilica measured approximately 40 by 58 meters, its limited sized amplified by spacious galleries. As the limited excavations indicated, the original apse was semicircular but not expressed on the exterior. Similarly, space for the construction of the rotunda was limited, since the position of Christ’s tomb was fixed and immovable. Rather than being fully rounded, its plan is D-shaped, with the ambulatory terminating in transept-like wings to the sides. The tomb stood free within the fully rounded central area, separated from the

ambulatory by alternating columns and piers.17 Since at least the eleventh century, these were reused Roman columns cut in half, set on high pedestals, although the original building likely had tall, spoliated columns. Whether it had a gallery, as did its eleventh-century reconstruction, is unclear. The whole was covered by a wooden dome. In sum, the Holy Sepulchre was an awkward and irregular complex from the beginning, limited by its urban setting and by preexisting foundations, with spoliated architectural elements. Its walls were of local stone, not marble; Constantine’s gift vessels were silver, not gold. The reality stands at odds with Eusebius’s grandiose description. Nevertheless, the symbolic significance of the complex far outweighed its appearance, and here Eusebius got it right. He calls the Holy Sepulchre “the New Jerusalem, facing the far-famed Jerusalem of olden time,” and he calls the Tomb of Christ the “Holy of Holies.” He thus invites us to contrast Constantine’s new church complex to the ruins of the Temple.18 In the fourth century ce, the two stood in visual opposition, facing each other across the Tyropoeon Valley. An imposing new work of architecture could testify to the success of the New Covenant, just as the empty and abandoned remains of the Temple opposite it could represent the failure of the Old Covenant. Although it is easy in retrospect to jump to the conclusion that the Holy Sepulchre became the New Temple, Eusebius’s rhetorical strategy is a bit subtler, for he is simultaneously comparing and contrasting the two buildings. While the two buildings lacked almost all formal similarities, they shared a few common features. Both were oriented toward the east, with the entrance facing the rising sun, and according to the late fourth-century pilgrim Egeria, the dedications were related, as she explains:19 17 M. Biddle, The Tomb of Christ (Thrupp, 1999), 69; J. Wilkinson, “The Tomb of Christ: An Outline of Its Structural History,” Levant 4 (1972): 83–97.

R.  G.  Ousterhout, “New Temples and New Solomons: The Rhetoric of Byzantine Architecture,” in The Old Testament in Byzantium, P. Magdalino and R. Nelson, eds. (Washington, 2010), 223–53.

18

Egeria, Egeria’s Travels to the Holy Land, trans. J.  Wilkinson (Warminster, 1981), 48.1, 146; R. G. Ousterhout, “The Temple, the Sepulchre, and the Martyrion of the Savior,” Gesta 29, no. 1 (1990): 44–53.

19

The date when the church on Golgotha (called Martyrium) was consecrated to God is called Encaenia. . . . You will find in the Bible that the day of Encaenia was when the House of God was consecrated, and Solomon stood in prayer before God’s altar, as we read in the book of Chronicles. An association seems to have been formed on the basis of function; the timing and organization of the individual celebrations, as well as the ordering of the liturgical calendar, reflect Jewish worship. Parts of the early liturgical celebration at the Holy Sepulchre may have been structured following the model of the ceremonies at the Temple. A liturgical reflection of the Temple would accord with the exegetical emphasis of fourth-century Christian apologists; that is, it mirrors the desire of writers like Eusebius to ground the recently accepted faith on the signs and prophecy of the Old Testament. In fact, the symbolic association of the Temple and the Holy Sepulchre may have been initiated by Eusebius himself. His purpose was to demonstrate the continuity from temple to church and to show the fulfillment of Haggai’s prophecy that “the latter glory of this House shall be greater than the former” (Hag. 2:9). Moreover, the language used by Eusebius to describe the discovery of the site of the Tomb of Christ and the subsequent Constantinian building project at the Holy Sepulchre follows the same pattern. From the beginning, he refers to the site as the martyrion (the Greek form of martyrium) of the Savior’s Resurrection. By the end of the fourth century—and in modern scholarship—the term martyrion is used in a somewhat different sense. But Eusebius must have intended it in the same way St. Cyril explains a few decades later, namely, in reference to the prophecy of Zephaniah: “Therefore, says the Lord, wait for me at the martyrion on the day of my resurrection (anastasis).” The Tabernacle is called the skene tou martyriou in the Septuagint; the “place of witness” implying a witness to divine presence. While this verse could be translated in a variety of ways, Cyril has subtly altered its meaning to suit his own ends, as both Anastasis and Martyrion were toponyms at the Holy Sepulchre. Eusebius also preached at the dedication of the basilica at the Holy Sepulchre in 336. The sermon CHAPTER TWO: A TALE OF TWO CITIES

33

has not survived, although he noted in the Life of Constantine that he “endeavored to gather from the prophetic visions apt illustrations of the symbols it displayed.” Here and elsewhere, Eusebius interpreted the “martyrion of the Savior” as the New Temple of Jerusalem in the dedicatory sermon. The connection of the Holy Sepulchre with the Temple, then, seems to have existed from its inception, and it is seen most clearly in the shaping of the liturgy and in the language of Eusebius. Neither seems to have had a clear, architectural manifestation—except possibly in the articulation of the tomb aedicula, which looks suspiciously similar to the representations of the Temple on coins from the period of the independent Jewish state, following the Bar Kochba rebellion (132–35 ce). But verisimilitude was not critical here, for the Holy Sepulchre was replacing, not replicating, the Temple. What is fascinating about the early situation at the Holy Sepulchre is the combination of antithesis and assimilation. Eusebius clearly intends us from the beginning to contrast the two buildings—for the glory of one to stand in meaningful opposition to the ruin and abandonment of the other. At the same time, the repetition of keywords, such as Anastasis, Martyrion, and Holy of Holies, the ordering of the service, and the orientation of the building encourage a comparison. Moreover, with the possible exception of some details of the tomb aedicula, there seems to have

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been no attempt to replicate the forms of the Temple.

, It is unclear how much beyond church construction Constantine did in Jerusalem, but he did enough. With the construction of the Holy Sepulchre, he gave Jerusalem a visible Christian identity, both building upon the rich past of the city and standing in sharp opposition to it. As in Constantinople, the city was fleshed out by his successors, and even the centerpiece of his building program, the Holy Sepulchre complex, was completed after his death. Nevertheless, the symbolism, the Christian identity established by Constantine and Eusebius, persisted throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Constantinople, as New Rome and New Troy, was firmly grounded with a Roman imperial identity and a legendary past. The city gradually assumed a Christian character as well. But like its history and legend, its religious identity was imported, beginning with the translation of the relics of Andrew, Timothy, and Luke into the Church of the Holy Apostles. Ultimately, more than 3,600 relics are recorded, representing at least 476 different saints. To its epithets of New Rome and New Troy, Constantinople eventually added another—“New Jerusalem”—as a metaphor for the increasingly sacred character of the city. But that, as they say, is another story.

CHAPTER THREE

,

RITUAL SETTINGS I Liturgy, Initiation, Commemoration

A

rchitecture is often discussed according to the Modernist dictum “form follows function”— that is, buildings are shaped around and reflect human movement. To a certain extent, this is true for the periods we are discussing, but we should also consider the possibility that the interaction goes both ways: architecture can be an active agent in shaping human movement and behavior. A building does not simply house events; its form may amplify, sanctify, comment upon, and interact with the functions it houses, and both function and meaning may be empowered by the interaction.¹ This is particularly true of ritual settings, in which the architecture takes on symbolic significance. The shape of a church, for example, is usually analyzed in terms of the shape of the liturgy, and in this respect, we will find a very general correlation between ritual movement and architectural design. All the same, it is important to keep in mind that buildings have symbolic as well as functional purposes and that these purposes were expressed in the language of architecture. This is true for all ceremonial settings, not simply the church basilica, for in places of 1 See the essays in B. Wescoat and R. G. Ousterhout, Architecture of the Sacred: Space, Ritual, and Experience from Classical Greece to Byzantium (Cambridge, 2012).

initiation, commemoration, and other ritualized activities, architectural form took a largely symbolic role. The church basilica developed as a setting for the rituals of worship that we know as the liturgy. At the same time, the building vocabulary expanded and new planning types were introduced, with little impact on the shape of the liturgy. Functionally the vocabulary expanded as well: baptisteries developed as symbolic settings for the initiation rite; mausolea appeared as special settings for privileged burials; and shrines emerged for the commemoration of the saints and their relics, as the idea of pilgrimage took hold. We also find building complexes developed to house groups as monasticism grew in popularity. Thus, the official acceptance of Christianity demanded new building types, as well as the adaptation of older ones to suit the requirements—both functional and symbolic—of a Christian population. Liturgical Settings. Although reconstructing the detailed movements of the liturgical celebration is often a matter of guesswork, by the fifth century, the liturgy had become standardized, but with some regional variations, evident in the planning and furnishing of basilicas. In Constantinople, for example, the longitudinal axis of the nave framed a

Rome, Santa Sabina, view from the southeast (author) 37

FIGURE 3.1 Rome, Santa Sabina, view from the southeast (author)

service that was marked by processions, or “entrances,” of the congregation and the clergy, who would assemble in the atrium and pass through the narthex before entering the nave, where the congregation would assemble, with the men on one side and the women on the other.² In general, the area identified as the sanctuary, or bema, which contained the altar, was enclosed by a templon, or chancel barrier, that projected into the eastern portion of the nave, immediately before the apse, which was set aside for the seating of the clergy.³ As the focal point of the services, the altar could be marked by a canopy of sorts, called either a baldachin or a ciborium. Many of these features appeared already in the time of Constantine, according to early descriptions of the Lateran Basilica. But several differences emerge between the furnishings and liturgical practices of the East and West, and an 2 T. F. Mathews, “An Early Roman Chancel Arrangement and Its Liturgical Uses,” RACr 38 (1962): 71–95; T. F. Mathews, The Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy (University Park, 1977). 3 For terminology here and elsewhere, see the glossary at the end of the volume.

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examination of two representative examples should illustrate. In Rome, the three-aisled basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill stands as a remarkably well-preserved example of a fifth-century church (Figs. 3.1 and 3.2). Built in 422–32, between the two great sacks of the city—in 410 by the Visigoths and in 455 by the Vandals—there is little evidence of “decline” in the monument, carefully constructed of brickfaced concrete, with a tall apse and large windows in the clerestory.4 Although smaller than the great churches of Constantine—the nave measures a mere 46.8 meters in length by 14.3 meters across—the three-aisled basilica is nevertheless remarkably spacious and well illuminated. Remains of Roman buildings have been examined to the west and south of the church, although it is unclear if these represent a pre-existing titulus. The west wall of the narthex predates the basilica, the remains of an older domus. There was apparently no atrium, with the narthex entered laterally from streets to the north and south. While its columns and H.  Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome, 167–77; R. Krautheimer, CBCR 4 (1976), 69–94.

4

FIGURE 3.2 Rome, Santa Sabina, interior looking east (author)

capitals are spolia, they are carefully selected, late second-century pieces, twelve to each arcade. Inlaid marble work, or opus sectile, in the spandrels, gypsum window grilles (now replaced), traces of mosaic and wall painting, and even the wooden doors are preserved. The sanctuary furnishings, including the extensive schola cantorum, have been restored from ninth-century marbles, and while they might provide an impression of the original sanctuary, they represent later usage, as will be discussed shortly. A counterpart in the East is provided by St. John Stoudios, founded in the mid-fifth century by the Consul Stoudios in the Psamatia district of Constantinople, the oldest surviving church in the capital, which subsequently became the center of one of the city’s most important monastic communities (Figs. 3.3 and 3.4).5 Although in poor condition today, much of the basilica’s original appearance can be reconstructed. The central nave was flanked by side aisles and preceded by a narthex and atrium on the west side, providing a gradual transition from the street. Shorter in plan than Santa Sabina, the nave measures approximately 5 Mathews, Early Churches, 19–27; Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 147–52.

27 meters long, and the side aisles and narthex are surmounted by a U-shaped gallery, providing additional space for worshippers. The interior was similarly covered by a wooden trussed roof. Green marble columns supported a horizontal entablature rather than an arcade, with all marble components newly carved rather than reused. Windows opened on two levels into the side aisle and galleries, although it is unclear if the nave had a clerestory. In both churches, a longitudinal axis controls the space and reflects the patterns of movement during the worship service, terminating in the eastern apse, which forms the visual focus of the interior and the functional focus of the liturgy (Fig. 3.5). For most churches after the time of Constantine, the orientation is to the east, because Scripture tells us that Christ’s Second Coming will be from the east, and the altar represents the throne prepared for him. Like a throne, the altar was covered by a ciborium. Normally a relic was enshrined at the altar as part of the consecration ceremony.6 V.  Marinis and R.  G.  Ousterhout, “‘Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them’: Relics and the Byzantine Church Building (9th–15th Centuries),” in Saints and Sacred Matter: The  Cult of Relics in Byzantium and Beyond, eds. C.  Hahn and

6

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39

FIGURE 3.3 Constantinople, St. John Stoudios interior looking northeast (courtesy of Koç University Center for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies photographic archive)

FIGURE 3.4 Constantinople, St. John Stoudios plan (author, redrawn after T. F. Mathews, Early Churches of Constantinople, 1977)

FIGURE 3.5 (A) Diagram of an early Christian Roman sanctuary; (B) diagram of an early Christian Constantinopolitan sanctuary (after T. F. Mathews, RAC, 1962, and R. Naumann and H. Belting, EuphemiaKirche, 1966, with the author’s modifications)

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At the Stoudios, it was placed in a small, inaccessible cruciform crypt. Rather than being an object of special veneration, the consecration relic functioned to create a sacred presence within the church. Along the curvature of the apse was a bench for the seating of the clergy, with a centrally positioned throne for the bishop. In Rome and the West, this was usually referred to as the presbyterium—that is, where the presbyters, or priests, would sit. Known in the East as a synthronon, from the Greek syn (with) plus thronos (throne), this was often stepped, like an ancient theater, to provide greater visibility for the clergy, who sat on the uppermost step. The throne served as the symbol of the bishop’s office, and he would deliver his sermon from there, taking advantage of the acoustics provided by the curved surfaces of the apse and its conch. The bema was enclosed by the chancel barrier (later called the templon), usually Π-shaped, projecting into the eastern portion of the nave. In the West, this was often simply a low screen, but in the East, it was surmounted by an architrave or epistyle raised above columns or pier colonnettes. The openings below the architrave were not screened, so the congregation would have a good view of the parts of the service conducted in the sanctuary. A passageway called either a solea or schola projected into the nave, forming the final processional route for the celebrants entering the sanctuary. At the Stoudios, somewhere toward the middle of the nave, a raised pulpit or ambo was positioned, from which readings were conducted. Common in the East, the ambo seems to have been slowly introduced in the West. The liturgical ceremony began with the First Entrance, in which a procession of clergy, followed by the congregation, entered the nave from the narthex. Prayers and singing occurred throughout the ceremony.7 The clergy moved solemnly into the sanctuary, and the Gospels were ceremonially placed on the altar. Once everyone reached their proper positions, the Liturgy of the Word began, with readings from the Old and New Testaments H. Klein (Washington, DC, 2015), 153–72; R. Taft, The Byzantine Rite: A Short History (Collegeville, 1992); R. Taft, “Women in the  Byzantine Church: Where, When—and Why,” DOP 52 (1998): 27–87. 7

Mathews, Early Churches, 138–46.

and the singing of the Psalms, conducted by lectors and psalmists from the ambo. The bishop would normally deliver his sermon from his seat in the apse. In late fourth-century Constantinople, St. John Chrysostom chose to deliver his sermons from the ambo, in the midst of the congregation, although this was regarded as unusual.8 After the sermon, the catechumens (initiates) were dismissed, and the doors to the church were closed. The Liturgy of the Faithful began with the Great Entrance, or Entrance of the Mysteries, in which the bread and wine of the Eucharist were carried to the altar. Subsequently, members of the congregation joined in a recitation of the Nicene Creed, a profession of faith, followed by the Anaphora (Eucharistic prayer).9 The clergy and then the congregation partook of the sacrament, which was administered at the chancel barrier. In Rome, the barrier closed off areas to the ends of the side aisles, from which men and women were administered communion, on opposite sides. With a final prayer of thanksgiving, the congregation was dismissed. The ceremony ended with the clergy, followed by the congregation, exiting the nave in procession. The preceding description describes the liturgy in broad strokes, and there were many variations, regional and otherwise. For example, many basilicas across the empire had parapets closing off the side aisles, although it is unclear how to interpret this: was the congregation relegated to the side aisles and the nave set aside for the clergy? Or was the congregation divided in some way? St. John Studios had parapets while Hagia Sophia did not. In parts of Syria, a large platform, called a bema, or Syrian bema—not to be confused (although it often is) with the sanctuary proper, filled the center of the nave and was connected to the sanctuary by a ceremonial walkway (see Fig. 6.36). It seems to have functioned similar to the ambo described above, although its exact liturgical use remains disputed. Its presence would have certainly affected the shape of the liturgy. In Constantinople, the ambo was usually positioned on an axis, while in mainland Greece it was more often set to one side of the nave. In Syria and 8

Ibid., 13.

V. Marinis, Architecture and Ritual in the Churches of Constantinople: Ninth to Fifteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 2014), 209. 9

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Egypt, the main entrances were sometimes from the side, thus downplaying the longitudinal axis. What is apparent, in spite of regional variations in both the architecture and the liturgical practices, is a very general coherence between the church space and the ceremonies it housed. But this is not to say that one depended on the other. Rather, the liturgy could expand or contract to fit the spaces in which it was celebrated. A small village church and the great Hagia Sophia might have used the same liturgy, but the character of the space would have mediated its performance— shorter and more intimate in a village church, but slower, lengthened by the distances the celebrants must cover—and monumentalized in the great cathedral. Baptisteries and baptism. Necessary for the elaborate initiation rites, baptisteries also appear as prominent buildings throughout the empire in the fourth through sixth centuries.¹0 The ceremony as it was formulated was originally addressed to adult converts, who as catechumens had undergone a period of preparation. Baptism was performed at Easter time, to emphasize the association with Christ’s Resurrection, as the initiates were symbolically “reborn” in Christ. Because the initiate was “born again” and had all sins washed away, many chose to put off baptism until late in life. In major urban centers, hundreds of neophytes were initiated in ceremonies on Easter eve. The earliest baptistery buildings lay adjacent to the cathedrals, as the bishop performed the rite. Gradually, however, baptisteries were added to other churches, and the ceremony was performed on other feast days. In spite of variations, the basic elements of the baptismal ceremony appear relatively stable. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (374–97), composed a series of sermons that outline the ritual and its eschatological meaning. From his writings, as well as those of Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, and others, we can gain an impression of the ceremony. Enrollment took place at the beginning of Lent, after which the catechumens underwent a rigorous program of fasting, instruction, and exorcism. Ambrose compared R.  M.  Jensen, Living Water: Images, Symbols, and Settings of Early Christian Baptism (Leiden, 2011), esp. 127–78; S. Ristow, Frühchristliche Baptisterien, JbAC 27 (Münster, 1998), provides a useful catalog of known examples. 10

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the baptistery to the Holy of Holies at the Temple of Jerusalem, opened only once a year. The bishop and his staff would enter the baptistery on Holy Saturday to exorcize the font and sanctify the water in preparation for the arrival of the initiates. Before they entered the building, a priest would “open” them by touching their ears and nostrils, although not their mouths. Upon entering, the neophytes would reject Satan and bind themselves contractually to Christ. This could involve turning toward the west to renounce Satan and to the east to face Christ. The initiates would then take off their old garments and be anointed with exorcising oil, before entering the font naked (or perhaps minimally garbed). The officiant would then immerse the initiate in the font three times, recalling the three days Christ spent in the tomb. This was followed by a second anointing, sealing the initiate unto the Lord, with a cross marked on the forehead. The initiates would then put on a new white garment, “the chaste robes of innocence,” as  a symbol of their spiritual rebirth. Ambrose included a ritual foot washing as a part of the ceremony, although this does not seem to have been a universal practice. Presented with candles, the initiates would finally go in procession to the cathedral, where they would take communion for the first time. The light-filled procession in the predawn darkness of Easter morning must have been a particularly meaningful conclusion to the ritual. Most baptistery buildings were centrally planned and would have stood out in the civic landscape, emphasizing the bishop’s role in the community. Most common among the architectural settings was a symbolically resonant, octagonal building, with a font set into its floor, situated close to the cathedral. At the Lateran Basilica in Rome, it was an independent octagonal building to the north of the apse, connected to the church by ceremonial processions, but without a formal architectural relationship (Fig. 3.6).¹¹ The Liber Pontificalis (Book of the Popes) erroneously claims this to be the site of Constantine’s own baptism, although his biographer Eusebius relates that the event only occurred on his deathbed. Originally part of Constantine’s building program, the baptistery was 11 Brandenburg, Ancient Churches, 37–54; Jensen, Living Water, 184–88.

FIGURE 3.6 Rome, Lateran Baptistery, reconstruction, ca. 1650 (engraving A. Lafréry, from R. Krautheimer, Rome, 1980, fig. 46)

expanded in the early fifth century under Pope Sixtus III, with an ambulatory separated from the central structure by eight porphyry columns, apparently donated by Constantine. A lengthy inscription on the marble architrave emphasized the meaning of the ceremony, through which the initiate was spiritually reborn. It reads, in part, You who wish to be innocent, wash in the bath, Whether you are burdened by ancestral sin or your own. This is the fountain of life, which cleanses the whole world.¹² At the Cathedral of Santa Tecla at Milan, the baptistery, added by Ambrose ca. 380, lay to the east and was set at a slightly different angle (Fig. 3.7).¹³ 12

Liber Pont. 46.7.

Jensen, Living Water, 195–98; R. Krautheimer, “Introduction to an ‘Iconography of Medieval Architecture,’” JWarb 5 (1942), 1–33; reprinted in Studies in Early Christian, Medieval, and Renaissance Art 13

Known only from excavations, the building was octagonal, with niches set into the thickness of the wall and covered by a dome. The inscription that once decorated the interior may have been composed by Ambrose himself; it clarifies the symbolism of the building in its opening lines: The eight-sided temple has risen for sacred purposes The octagonal font is worthy for this task. It is seemly that the baptismal hall should arise in this number By which true health returns to people By the light of the resurrected Christ.¹4

(New York, 1969), 115–50; more recently, Markus Löx, Monumenta sanctorum: Rom und Mailand als Zentren des frühen Christentums: Märtyrerkult und Kirchenbau unter den Bischöfen Damasus und Ambrosius (Wiesbaden, 2013). 14 Opera omnia di sant’Ambrogio. Inni, iscrizioni, frammenti, ed. S. Banterle et al. (Milan, 1994), 145–66.

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FIGURE 3.7 Milan, Santa Tecla and baptistery, plan (after R. Krautheimer, ECBA, 1986, with the author’s modifications)

The form of the building drew its symbolic meaning from two sources: numerology and building typology, as Ambrose’s text suggests. Christians associated the number eight with rebirth, renewal, and resurrection: Christ was resurrected on the eighth day after his entry into Jerusalem; and on the eighth cosmic day, creation will be renewed: it is the number “by which true health returns.” The baptistery’s form also may be associated with Late Roman mausolea (although not directly with the mausoleum of Christ, the Anastasis Rotunda). Emphasizing the typological relationship, the mausoleum (now the Chapel of Sant’Aquilino) attached to San Lorenzo in Milan has a plan identical to the Santa Tecla Baptistery, similarly octagonal with alternating rectangular and semicircular niches set into the thickness of its walls (see Figs. 6.24 and 6.25); there were also Tetrarchic-era mausolea of similar design in Milan, Split, and elsewhere. For baptistery design, symbolic form takes precedence. The Orthodox (or Neonian) Baptistery at Ravenna, begun at the end of the fourth century or beginning of the fifth, lay immediately to the north of the cathedral (Figs. 3.8 and 3.9).¹5 It was subS.  Kostof, The Orthodox Baptistery of Ravenna (New Haven, 1965); A. J. Wharton, “Ritual and Reconstructed Meaning: The Neonian Baptistery in Ravenna,” ArtB 19 (1987): 358–75; Jensen,

15

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stantially remodeled in the middle of the fifth century by Bishop Neon, with a dome of light construction inserted into the octagonal structure. The walls are constructed of reused brick, while the dome is formed by layers of hollow ceramic tubes (for the technology, see Chap. 5). Its elaborate decorative program in opus sectile, stucco, and mosaic is substantially preserved and has attracted considerable attention. Hindering a full appreciation of the interior, the floor level has been raised about 3 meters above the original; the raised font is not original, and the external walls and roof have also been raised—all in response to the subsidence of the building. The octagonal plan alternated niches and doorways on the lowest level, with engaged columns at the corners, suggesting a remarkable degree of openness. The interior is a mere 12 meters wide, with the vault rising 14.6 meters high. The dome mosaic dominates the interior impression—a magnificent stage set for a ceremony of both civic and religious significance. Here and elsewhere we must ask, how much of the decoration would the initiate have underLiving Water, 198–204; D.  Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010), 88–100. Fifth-century Ravenna had both Orthodox and Arian congregations and, thus, two cathedrals and two baptisteries.

FIGURE 3.8 Ravenna, Orthodox Baptistery, interior view (Mark J. Johnson)

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3.9 Ravenna, Orthodox Baptistery, plan at ground level and section, showing gradual raising of the floor level and roof (after W. Deichmann, Ravenna, 1976; and S. Kostof, Orthodox Baptistery, 1965, with the author’s modifications) FIGURE

stood? Normally closed, the interior would have been seen only fleetingly during the rite. On a basic level, however, the luxurious interior would have called to mind the heavenly reward promised to the faithful, while the superimposed zones of the decorative program would reflect the hierarchical structure of Christian belief: Old Testament figures below, New Testament above, and Christ’s divinity recognized at the crown. Individual images might have found a more specific resonance as well: verses and scenes of watery salvation would emphasize that the living waters of baptism were the fountain of life; an image of Christ trampling the basilisk might underscore the renunciation of Satan. But there were also mimetic resonances: a nude Christ stands in the waters of baptism immediately above the head of the initiate in the font; the ceremonial foot washing would take place before the image of Christ washing the feet of the apostles; the candlelit procession that culminated the ceremony resembled the procession of white-garbed apostles in the dome. Variations abound in both architectural form and decoration: at the sixth-century baptisteries of Canosa and Butrint, for example, the central space is enveloped by multiple ambulatories.¹6 In North Ristow, Frühchristliche Baptisterien, 175, 186; J. Mitchell, The Butrint Baptistery and Its Mosaics (London, 2008); D. de Bernardi Ferraro, “Il 16

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Africa, the architecture framework remained simple and usually rectangular, while the form of the font was elaborated. The sixth-century Vitalis Baptistery at Speitla, Tunisia, for example, is undulating and lip shaped, covered with mosaic decorations and originally surmounted by a canopy (Fig. 3.10).¹7 The Baptistery of Clupea, Kébilia, Tunisia (now in the Bardo Museum), is similar in date, with a fourlobed, stepped font encrusted with colorful mosaics, which include an elaborate dedicatory inscription.¹8 In all, the splendid decoration, sparkling beneath the rippling water and the feet of the initiates, would have emphasized that the font was indeed “living water.” With the gradual change to infant baptism, however, the ceremony was simplified, and monumental baptisteries ceased to be constructed after the sixth century. Burials. The desire for privileged burial perpetuated the tradition of Late Antique mausolea, which were often octagonal or centrally planned, and the setting for commemorative services.¹9 At an imperial mausoleum, the ceremony of consecratio would Battistero di Canosa nel quadro dell’archittetura dell’Europa bizantina,” Puglia Paleocristiana 3 (1979): 163–76. 17

Jensen, Living Water, 211–12.

18

Ibid., 213–16.

M. J. Johnson, The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2009). 19

FIGURE 3.10 Sbeitla, Vitalis Basilica Baptistery, baptismal font (author)

FIGURE 3.11 Rome, Mausoleum of Helena, exterior view (Mario1952, Wikimedia Commons)

have honored the apotheosis of the emperor; in Christian terms, this became the commemoration of the dies natalis or the day of death, when the deceased was born into a new life. And unlike pagan mausolea, which relegated the burials to a crypt level, Christian mausolea were single storied. In Rome, several imperial mausolea were constructed connected to the cemetery basilicas outside the

walls. Two early examples are particularly significant: the Mausoleum of Helena at the cemetery basilica of SS. Pietro e Marcellino on the Via Labicana is an enormous, domed rotunda, its thick walls lined with niches, joined nearly axially to the narthex of the basilica (Fig. 3.11; and see Fig. 1.16).²0 20

Ibid., 110–18; Brandenburg, Ancient Churches, 55–60. CHAPTER THREE: RITUAL SETTINGS I

47

FIGURE 3.12 Rome, Sant’Agnese site plan: cemetery basilica with attached Mausoleum of Constantina (S. Costanza); medieval Basilica of Sant’Agnese above the catacombs (in gray) (author, redrawn after A. Frutaz, Complesso monumentale di Sant’Agnese, 1969; A. Grabar, Early Christian Art, 1969; M. J. Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum, 2009)

Measuring just over 20 meters in diameter, the upper walls opened with eight large windows. In ruins today, there is evidence of lavish decoration, and the Liber Pontificalis mentions a silver altar. Moreover, the original porphyry sarcophagus survives, now in the Vatican Museums. Decorated with scenes of military conquest—odd for a saintly empress—it has been argued that the mausoleum was originally intended for Constantine, but following his move to the East it was used to inter his mother, who died ca. 327.²¹ Most likely, the sar21 F. W. Deichmann and A. Tschira, “Das Mausoleum der Kaiserin Helena und die Basilika der Heiligen Marcellinus und Petrus an der Via Labicana vor Rom,” JDAI 72 (1957): 44–110.

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cophagus was positioned in the axial niche, with the altar at the center of the rotunda. The Mausoleum of Constantina (S. Costanza), Constantine’s daughter, was built ca. 350, shortly after the construction of the cemetery basilica of St. Agnes (S. Agnese) on the Via Nomentana, attached to its side (Figs. 3.12–3.14).²² Circular in plan, the building originally included both an exterior colonnade and an interior ambulatory, the latter with twelve sets of coupled columns enveloping the domed central space 11.5 meters in diameter. The ambulatory, covered by an annular Johnson, Mausoleum, 139–56; Brandenburg, Ancient Churches, 69–86.

22

FIGURE 3.13 Rome, S. Costanza, interior, looking south (Michael Waters)

barrel vault, is interrupted by a baldachin-like bay on the axis. A porphyry lozenge set into the floor of the axial intercolumniation may mark the site of Constantina’s sarcophagus and, as at St. Helena’s mausoleum, the building likely had an altar at the center. The overall design is considerably more sophisticated, however, with the layering of spaces culminating at the central dome, which rises above a clerestory of twelve large windows. Once he shifted the capital eastward, Constantine constructed the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople as his mausoleum. The building is of utmost significance as the first (and unprecedented) mausoleum of a Christian emperor.²³ Constructed to be both a church dedicated to the apostles and an imperial mausoleum, its intended function as a mausoleum was not immediately evident, according to Eusebius. It has disappeared without a trace, save the collection of porphyry sarcophagi that once filled it, and is known only from textual references, whose interpretation continues to be hotly contested. Perhaps similar in design to Santa Costanza, it held both the altar and the emperor’s tomb at its center, enveloped by twelve thekai (stelae or markers of 23

some sort), thus apparently equating the first Christian emperor with the apostles, or possibly with Christ himself. At the same time, in a culture brimming with solar symbolism, burying the emperor at the center of the twelve apostolic cenotaphs would have brought to mind the image of the unconquered sun surrounded by the signs of the zodiac or the months of the year. In 336, relics of Andrew, Luke, and Timothy were brought into the church, in effect transforming the building into a full-fledged martyrium. Constantine’s son Constantius II added a cruciform church, into which the relics of the apostles were transferred, leaving the rotunda to function as an imperial mausoleum, probably moving his father’s sarcophagus to the axial niche to allow room for his and his successors’ burials. As it developed, the combination of buildings serving two separate but related functions followed Constantinian precedents. Whatever its exact form, Constantius’s addition seems to have introduced a new building type that was imitated in subsequent decades for both mausolea and martyria. In Ravenna, the Empress Galla Placidia (392– 50) constructed the Church of Santa Croce ca. 425, along with a mausoleum, connected to the

Johnson, Mausoleum, 119–29, with a survey of older literature. CHAPTER THREE: RITUAL SETTINGS I

49

FIGURE 3.14 Rome, S. Costanza, plan and section (after Mark J. Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum, 2009)

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FIGURE 3.15 Ravenna, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, view from the southwest (Megan Boomer)

south end of the narthex (Figs. 3.15–3.17).²4 It is unclear if it was intended to house her mortal remains, for she died in Rome and was buried in St. Peter’s. Dedicated to the Holy Cross, both the church and the mausoleum are cruciform, perhaps reflecting the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. But it is constructed of brick, its exterior façades detailed with blind arcades, all in line with northern Italian architecture. Most of the original mosaic and marble decoration is preserved in the minuscule interior, centered on the apparition of a golden cross in a starry sky at the crown of the dome. Entered from the north, the interior measures approximately 10 by 12 meters overall, the cross arms each outfitted with a marble sarcophagus—not unlike a cubiculum in the catacombs. At the crossing, a domical vault (or pendentive dome) rises 10.7 meters above a

space close to 4 meters square. The floor level has been raised more than 1.4 meters in the sixteenth century to compensate for the rising ground level, and this alters the appearance of the interior. At the opposite end of the social spectrum, the dead were also commemorated. The catacombs and above-ground cemeteries of Rome, already discussed, continued to be used for Christian burials and refrigeria. A parallel example is found at Bagawat in the Kharga Oasis of Egypt.²5 A necropolis of predominately Christian burial preserves 263 mudbrick tomb chapels, dating from the second through the seventh century, as well as hundreds of humbler graves (Figs. 3.18 and 3.19). Most of the chapels are relatively simple rectangular rooms with architectonically decorated façades; many are domed or barrel vaulted, with P.  Grossmann, “Bagawat, al-,” The Coptic Encyclopedia, ed. A.  S.  Ativa (New York, 1991), 2:326–27; A.  Fakhry, The Egyptian Deserts: The Necropolis of El-Bagawat in Kharga Oasis (Cairo, 1951).

25

Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010), 70–84, M. David, ed., La basilica di Santa Croce. Nuovi contributi per Ravenna tardoantica (Ravenna, 2013).

24

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51

FIGURE 3.16 Ravenna, Church of S. Croce, reconstructed plan and view ca. 450 (after D. Deliyannis, Ravenna, 2010; and M. David, La Basilica di Santa Croce, 2013)

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FIGURE 3.17 Ravenna, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, interior looking south (from M. David, Eternal Ravenna, 2013)

FIGURE 3.18 Bagawat Necropolis, Kharga Oasis, general view (Elizabeth Bolman)

CHAPTER THREE: RITUAL SETTINGS I

53

3.19 Bagawat Necropolis, Kharga Oasis, Chapel 180, plan of the first two phases (after P. Grossmann, Coptic Encyclopedia, 1991) FIGURE

painted interiors. Some are preceded by a courtyard or portico. Tombs were cut into the floor, some with a low superstructure. The chapels were used for the funerary meals and other rites commemorating the dead. Many were equipped with klinai, or semicircular couches, with masonry tables. One chapel (no. 180) was expanded into a three-aisled basilica and enveloped by a peristyle with multiple klinai apparently for use by those who could not afford their own chapel. Monasticism. By the fifth century, monasticism began to play an increasingly important role in society, but from the perspective of architecture, early monasteries lacked systematic planning and were dependent on site-specific conditions. Two systems of organization prevailed: the laura (or lavra) was a community of monks, each living in a separate cell or cave, who spent most of the week in solitude but came together for common worship, while the coenobium had monks living a communal life, with a shared daily routine of prayer, work, and meals. Not surprisingly, the laurae left little of architectural distinction, while the order of the coenobitical system found architectural expression, with cells for the monks, as well as a refectory for common dining and a church 54

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or chapel for communal worship. Evidence is preserved in the desert communities of Egypt and Palestine, where monasticism had its roots.²6 Leading figures for Egyptian monasticism came from Upper Egypt, but our best evidence for early monastic communities comes from the northern desert, west of the Nile, near Alexandria, at Nitria, Kellia, and Scetis.²7 Here early hermit monks found the solitude to encourage their spiritual practices, without being entirely cut off from civilization. The solitaries gradually attracted an early form of faithbased tourism, and some were simply overrun by well-meaning outsiders. This resulted in either the abandonment of the early settlements or reorganization into a more communal form of monasticism. Nitria, founded in 330, attracted thousands of aspiring hermits but has left few remains. Kellia, founded toward the middle of the fourth century, attracted similarly large crowds. Initially a random grouping of isolated cells and communal dwellings, archaeologists have identified more than 1,500 individual structures covering an area of 125 square kilometers (Fig. 3.20). Many of the eremitic habitations were equipped with painted chapels or oratories. The White Monastery (Dayr al-Abiad) at Sohag, with its fortified church complex, reflects the greater organization of a male ascetic community of the fifth century (Figs. 3.21 and 3.22).²8 Best known for its third leader Shenoute (ca. 348– 465), it was part of a larger monastic federation, including the smaller men’s monastery (the Red Monastery) to the north and a nunnery to the south in the village of Atripe, as well as cave hermitages in the nearby cliffs, comprising several thousand monastics. Built ca. 440, with battered walls of limestone, the church resembles an ancient pylon temple and in fact reused a variety of D.  J.  Chitty, The Desert a City (Oxford, 1966); A.  Veilleux, “Monasticism, Pachomian,” The Coptic Encyclopedia 5:164–66; A. Guillaumont, “Monasticism, Egyptian,” The Coptic Encyclopedia 5:161–64.

26

D.  L.  Brooks Hedstrom, The Monastic Landscape of Late Antique Egypt: An Archaeological Reconstruction (Cambridge, 2017).

27

R.-G.  Coquin et al., “Dayr Anba Shinuda,” The Coptic Encyclopedia 3:761–70; J.  McKenzie, The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt 300 BC—AD 700 (New Haven, 2007), 271–79. 28

FIGURE 3.20 Kellia, aerial view of the site (Geo24, Wikimedia Commons)

FIGURE 3.21 Sohag, White Monastery, view from the south (Elizabeth Bolman)

inscribed pharaonic stones in its construction. The building proudly announces its presence in the landscape in a monumentality unknown to early monasticism. The three-aisled nave, with tra-

beated colonnades and galleries and now unroofed, originally terminated in a triconch sanctuary, now walled in (discussed further in Chap. 6). It was preceded by a narthex with stairs leading to CHAPTER THREE: RITUAL SETTINGS I

55

FIGURE 3.22 Sohag, White Monastery, plans of (A) White Monastery and (B) Red Monastery churches, to scale (Nicholas Warner, courtesy of the American Research Center in Egypt. Reproduced by permission of the American Research Center in Egypt. This project was funded by U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID])

the gallery, flanked by a long apsed hall. Other monastic buildings, including residences, kitchen, refectory, and tomb structures, stood independently outside the main block. In Palestine, monasticism also developed early in both urban and rural locations, often associated with holy sites. It flourished in the area of the Judean Desert, immediately to the east of Jerusalem, extending toward Jericho.²9 Neither as harsh nor as isolated as the Egyptian setting, most communities were within a day’s walk of Jerusalem. Because of regular contact with outsiders—particularly pilgrims—a cenobitic model was favored, often with the care of pilgrims as part of the monY.  Hirschfeld, The Judean Desert Monasteries of the Byzantine Period (New Haven, 1992); J. Patrich, Sabas, Leader of Palestinian Monasticism: A Comparative Study in Eastern Monasticism, Fourth to Seventh Centuries (Washington, DC, 1995). 29

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astery’s duties. Many began as the simple hermit’s cave of a revered monk who attracted a following, who also settled into caves and were gradually formalized. The Great Lavra of St. Sabas developed in this way from his cave hermitage in the Wadi Kidron after 483, when he began to attract disciples (Figs. 3.23 and 3.24). Another cave was converted to a church; by the end of the century it had a hospice, bakery, and reservoir. By the sixth century it had as many as three hundred monks. While the architecture was without distinction and the monastery grew in a haphazard way, the Rule (or Typikon) composed by Sabas, meant to regulate the activities of the monks and prescribe the order of worship services, proved highly influential for later Byzantine monasticism. In contrast to the ad hoc laurae and reflecting the growing desire for formal organization evinced by Sabas’s Typikon, the Monastery of Martyrius,

FIGURE 3.23 Wadi Kidron, Great Lavra of St. Sabas, aerial view (Hedva Sanderovitz, Israeli PikiWiki)

founded ca. 478–86, exhibits a systematic architectural arrangement, within a walled enclosure roughly 70 square meters. Known from excavation, the site preserves the ground plan almost in its entirety (Fig. 3.25).³0 The church and chapels, refectory, kitchen, storerooms, a residential area, cisterns, bathhouse, and a burial cave were organized around a central courtyard, while the stables and a pilgrims’ hostel lay outside the walls, near the gatehouse. The architectural forms are relatively simple—the main church is a single-aisled basilica—but many of the spaces were enlivened with floor mosaics.

, Y.  Magen and R.  Talgam, “The Monastery of Martyrius at Maale Adumim (Khirbet el-Murassas) and Its Mosaics,” Christian Archaeology in the Holy Land: Essays in Honor of Virgilio  C.  Corbo, eds. G.  C.  Bottini, L.  di Segni, E.  Alliata ( Jerusalem, 1990), 91–152. 30

Once recognized as an official religion, Christianity rapidly developed a vision of the sacred presence that could be manifest both in architectural form and in the ceremonies it housed. At the same time, a standardization of the liturgy and initiation rites (and their settings) placed the profession of faith within a larger community and its social hierarchy. Commemoration of the special dead adapted traditional Roman practices to the new religion, with the expanded presence of Christianity as a public religion. At the same time, it recognized the potent force of holy places and persons, something that developed into the notion of “pilgrimage.” With the latter, we begin to move into the realm of the private—that is, aspects of Christianity that addressed the spiritual needs of the individual, as will be discussed in the next chapter.

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57

FIGURE 3.24 Wadi Kidron, Great Lavra of St. Sabas, Complex 45 (“Tower of Arcadius, son of Xenophon”), reconstructed exterior, plan, and cross-section looking north (after L. Ritmeyer, from J. Patrich, Sabas, Leader of Palestinian Monasticism, 1995)

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FIGURE 3.25 Maale Adumim, Monastery of Martyrius, plan and hypothetical reconstruction (after Y. Magen and R. Talgam, “Monastery of Martyrius and Its Mosaics”)

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59

CHAPTER FOUR

,

RITUAL SETTINGS II Pilgrimage, Relics, and Sacred Space

T

he popularity of the refrigerium in the fourth century provides ample testimony to the attraction of the tombs of saints and martyrs to the early church. And although the official celebrations ad sanctos were terminated by the end of the century, the cult of saints continued, finding an outlet in the practice of pilgrimage and the veneration of relics. While both were accepted customs, neither was officially sanctioned by the church. They may be best understood as manifestations of popular piety or of private devotion, satisfying the spiritual needs of the individual. The concept of pilgrimage is based on the assumption that there is a relationship between the physical world and the spiritual world—that these two worlds come together at special nodal points, holy sites or loca sancta, where the powers of heaven were more immediately accessible for aid in salvation or for benefit upon this earth.¹ At these sites, the numinous spiritual presence was G. Vikan, Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, rev. ed. (Washington, DC, 2010); Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces; R. G. Ousterhout, ed., The Blessings of Pilgrimage (Urbana, 1990), among others.

1

believed to become concrete in the form of holy persons, places, and objects. The tomb or relic of a saint could thus provide the faithful a direct access to heaven, for the saint was believed to be simultaneously present in both places, and thus prayers at holy sites could be expedited to their ultimate destination. At the same time, the powers of heaven could be channeled, as the inscription at the tomb of St. Martin of Tours (d.  ca. 397) indicated: “Here lies Martin the Bishop, of holy memory, whose soul is in the hand of God; but he is fully here, present and made plain in miracles of every kind.”² Similarly, the image of the translation of the relics of St.  Luke into the Church of the Holy Apostles depicts him in the fullness of flesh, rather than as a casket of bones (Fig. 4.1).³ A holy site, or locus sanctus, could also offer confirmation to the validity of the events that had once occurred there. St. Jerome told of the efficacy of worship within the holy places of Jerusalem, P.  Brown, The Cult of Saints: Its Rise and Function in Early Christianity (Chicago, 1981), 4.

2

3

Menologion of Basil II, Bib. Vat. Ms. gr. 1615, f. 121 r.

Translation of the relics of St. Luke to the Church of the Holy Apostles, Constantinople, from the Menologion of Basil II, ca. 1000. NB: the image shows the five-domed Justinianic church in the background, Vatican ms. gr. 1613, f. 121 r, © 2018, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (by permission of Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved) 61

FIGURE 4.1 Translation of the relics of St. Luke to the Church of the Holy Apostles, Constantinople, from the Menologion of Basil II, ca. 1000. NB: the image shows the fivedomed Justinianic church in the background, Vatican ms. gr. 1613, f. 121 r, © 2018, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (by permission of Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved)

where the events commemorated could be made spiritually present through ritualized veneration: “Whenever we enter [the Tomb of the Lord],” he wrote, “we see the Savior lying in the shroud. And lingering a little we see again the angel sitting at his feet and the handkerchief wound up at his head.” Similarly, when Jerome’s friend Paula came before the relic of the True Cross at Golgotha, “she fell down and worshipped . . . as if she could see the Lord hanging on it.” As Jerome relates, following Psalm 132, it is the Christian obligation to worship “where his feet have stood.”4 Although a holy site could provide the direct link between the ritual of veneration and the historical event it commemorated, the architectural formalization of the holy site was another matter. Although novelty may not have been possible in terms of the locations or distinctive natural features of the loca sancta, their architecture Jerome, Ep. 46 and 108; R. G. Ousterhout, “Architecture as Relic and the Construction of Sanctity: The Stones of the Holy Sepulchre,” JSAH 62, no. 1 (2003): 4. Jerome implies a strong connection between the biblical text and the site; one reinforces and validates the other through the religious imagination.

4

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displays remarkable resilience and variety, as monumental churches were constructed, embellished, reconstructed, and changed over time— that is, architecture was part of the political construction of sanctity. This may be better understood from site-specific examples, rather than in the development of a recognizable typology. The term martyrium or martyrion is used in modern scholarship to denote sites that bear witness to the Christian faith, following the pioneering study of André Grabar, who borrowed the term from Early Christian texts.5 Martyrion derives from the Greek martys, meaning “witness” or “evidence” in a legal sense. By the second century, the term martyr came to denote someone whose testimony of faith was sealed with suffering and death, and by ca. 350, martyrion or martyrium was commonly used to refer to a martyr’s tomb or the commemorative shrine constructed over it. Broadly speaking (and in Grabar’s terminology), a martyrium could mark a significant event in the life of Christ or the 5 Grabar, Martyrium; and Ousterhout, “The Temple, the Sepulchre, and the Martyrion of the Savior,” 44–53.

Theotokos, the tomb of a saint or a martyr, or the place of his or her suffering or testimony. As with pilgrimage architecture in general, the designation of a building as a martyrium is functional rather than typological, encompassing a great variety of architectural plans and building types. Monuments housing holy sites underwent an almost constant process of elaboration and modification throughout the Middle Ages. The dynamic interplay between place and architecture speaks of more than just changes in the liturgy, devotional practices, or architectural styles. Ultimately, the medieval understanding of the sanctity of the site and the shaping of the ritual experience may have been as much a matter of the formal character of its monumental setting as of the fundamental associations of the place itself. The vibrant interaction of site and setting must be understood on a symbolic level: in the imaginations of the faithful, the architectural frame became identified with and thus interchangeable with the site itself. The site of the Tomb of Christ in Jerusalem illustrates the complex role played by architecture throughout the Middle Ages. The fourth-century Holy Sepulchre complex, begun by Constantine ca. 326, was introduced and described in Chapter 2 (see Figs. 2.12 and 2.13). In its fourth-century architectural configuration, the primary setting for the liturgical service (the basilica) and the primary commemorative space (the rotunda) were distinct, although, to be sure, the distinctions were by no means absolute. The basilica, courtyard, and rotunda all played special roles in the Jerusalem liturgy, as the late fourth-century pilgrim Egeria explains, with the congregation moving between spaces in stational services. However, although originally it had no special commemorative associations, the basilica (and not the rotunda) was known as the Martyrion. In this instance, the term must come from Old Testament references to the Temple, and this is how the term was understood by Eusebius and St. Cyril (see Chap. 2). The name may have been given to the basilica because this was where the congregation gave testimony of their faith. By the end of the fourth century, the pilgrim Egeria explains the application of the term to the basilica because the site of Calvary lay at its head, where Christ’s martyrdom had occurred.6 But the

commemoration of the Crucifixion took place in the courtyard, not in the basilica, and the relic of the wood of the True Cross was kept at Calvary. Gradually the basilica came to be associated with the place where Helena had discovered the True Cross. Calvary and the life-giving tomb remained the foci of pilgrims’ devotions. Visitors to the Holy Sepulchre took home souvenirs in the form of ampullae of oil taken from a lamp burning inside the Tomb of Christ; these flasks were subsequently touched to the relic of the wood of the True Cross for a doubled blessing. Often the ampullae were decorated with images of the holy women at the tomb, with the biblical event set against the backdrop of the contemporary building—attesting to the fundamental role the architectural setting played in the pilgrims’ experience.7 The distinctions evident at the fourth-century Holy Sepulchre—two architectural elements constructed to house two different functions, separating the sites of regular worship from those set aside for special commemoration—have been noted at other Constantinian sites as well. At Bethlehem (completed ca. 333), for example, a five-aisled congregational basilica was joined by a great octagon at its head, enshrining the cave of the Nativity, set at a lower level but apparently visible through a wide circular opening in the floor (see Fig. 2.11). In Rome, the Basilica of St. Peter (begun ca. 320) joined a huge five-aisled basilica to a transept at its western extreme, with the tomb monument at its center.8 In both building complexes, the significance of the holy site and its ritual veneration led to notable modifications by the sixth century. At St. Peter’s, the transformation of the building to a congregational church, with permanent clergy and a permanent altar fixed within the tomb enclosure, created functional conflicts, as the goal of pilgrims’ visits intersected the path of liturgical processions. By the end of the sixth century, the sanctuary floor had been raised, giving the liturgical performance greater visibility, with an annular crypt beneath it providing the pilgrims access to the tomb, out of sight of the liturgy. Throughout the transformations of St. Peter’s, the site of the tomb remained 7

Vikan, Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, 36–40.

B. M. Apollonj Ghetti et al., Esplorazioni sotto la confessione di San Pietro in Vaticano (Vatican, 1951), fig. 141. 8

6

Egeria, 30.1; Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, 132.

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FIGURE 4.2 Rome, St. Peter’s, reconstruction of the late sixthcentury state of the sanctuary, with a raised floor above an annular crypt (after B. M. Apollonj Ghetti et al., Esplorazioni sotto la confessione di S. Pietro, 1951)

fixed and immutable as the focal point of activity, while the architectural framework around it was transformed as the special requirements of veneration demanded (Fig. 4.2). The rearrangement of St. Peter’s set the model for subsequent centuries of pilgrimage churches in Western Europe, with tombs or relics isolated in a crypt beneath the high altar, although this configuration was rare in the Eastern Mediterranean. At Bethlehem, the building was transformed in the sixth century, with the octagon replaced by a triconch termination to the basilica. In this arrangement, the altar  was positioned directly above Cave of the Nativity, which was still accessible but no longer visible, as at St. Peter’s, isolated in a crypt.9 At other sites, a less formal approach was adopted, with a basilica of standard design situated in relationship to the sacred topography. At Constantine’s Eleona on the Mount of Olives, for example, a simple basilica was constructed above the cave where Christ had taught the apostles.¹0 A similar arrangement appeared in the martyrium of St. Thekla at Meryemlik in Asia Minor, ca. 480, with a great three-aisled basilica added above her holy cave (see Fig. 6.15).¹¹ At Sinai, the sixthcentury basilica was augmented by subsidiary chapels along its sides, but the holy site—the 9 M. J. Johnson, San Vitale in Ravenna and Octagonal Churches in Late Antiquity (Wiesbaden, 2018), 26–31; D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus (Cambridge, 1993), 1:137–57.

H. Vincent and F. M. Abel, Jérusalem: Recherches de topographie, d’archéologie, et d’histoire (Paris, 1912–26), 337–60. 10

S.  Hill, The Early Byzantine Churches of Cilicia and Isauria (Aldershot, 1996), 208–34. 11

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Burning Bush—lay outside, immediately to the east of its apse.¹² Once the bush had been plucked out of existence by souvenir-seeking pilgrims, however, a chapel was built over the site. In these and other examples, there is virtually nothing in the architectural form to signal the special status of the building as a pilgrimage church. By the later fourth century, the custom of the translation of relics had developed. The Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople played a critical role in the process, although both its early architectural history and the date of the arrival of relics at the site are highly contested. By mid-century, the church consisted of a cruciform basilica, added after the death of Constantine, adjoining the older, centrally planned mausoleum containing the tomb of Constantine (see Chap. 3).¹³ The mortal remains of Timothy, Andrew, and Luke, brought in from different locations, lay close to the altar within the cruciform basilica. Although the basilica was rebuilt under Justinian and destroyed in the fifteenth century, one important message of the early building remains clear: with the possession of relics, any church could be a martyrium; any church could become the goal of pilgrimage—a point to which we shall return. The influence of the great Constantinian complexes, centrally planned martyria, and of the cruciform Church of the Holy Apostles is almost immediately evident. At Qausiyeh (Kaoussié) outside Antioch, the remains of St. Babylas were translated ca. 351–54, and a cruciform church was built ca. 379 at his tomb, with four single-aisled arms of equal length converging on a ciboriumlike square at the center (Fig. 4.3).¹4 A similar building appeared above Jacob’s Well at Shechem. The tomb of St. John the Evangelist at Ephesus was similarly monumentalized on a cruciform plan. Apparently, before 300, a large tetrapylon was built above his grave, on a hill outside the ancient city, and this was extended ca. 400 with four basilican halls (with side aisles) to create a cruciform plan, with the altar set above the G.  H.  Forsyth, “The Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Church and Fortress of Justinian,” DOP 22 (1968), 1–19.

12

13

Johnson, Mausoleum, 119–29.

J. Lassus, “L’église cruciform de Antioche-Kaoussié,” in Antioch on the Orontes, vol. 2, ed. R. Sitwell (Princeton, 1938), 114–56. 14

M. Duncan-Flowers, “A Pilgrim’s Ampulla from the Shrine of St. John the Evangelist at Ephesus,” in The Blessings of Pilgrimage, ed. R. G. Ousterhout (Urbana, 1990), 125–39.

patron of the monumental pilgrimage complex.¹8 But this was not begun until long after Symeon’s death in 459—and after his mortal remains had been forcibly removed to the Cathedral of Antioch. The ambitious design combined a great octagon, originally covered by a wooden dome, with four three-aisled cross arms, the complex measuring ca. 80–90 meters overall. The column stood at the center of the octagon, and only the eastern basilica was equipped for the liturgy, terminating in three apses, while the other three basilicas accommodated the hordes of visiting pilgrims. The church itself was entered through the south basilica, with its façade treated like a three-arched triumphal arch. In addition to a monastery southeast of the church, a village of pilgrims’ hostels developed at the base of the hill, with a ceremonial route leading up the hill from it, marked by a triumphal arch at its base and a second arch and the baptistery at the entrance to the complex (Fig. 4.8). The saint’s asceticism was celebrated in the visual language of imperial victory. The tremendous scale of the undertaking required leveling of the ridge on which it was constructed, as well as the construction of artificial terracing for the western basilica. The stone was quarried locally, with evidence of quarrying still visible to the north of the complex. While the architectural details accord with the stylistic developments in Syrian architecture (discussed further in Chap. 6), much in the design of the complex recalls Constantinian precedents: the separation of the center of veneration from the liturgical center (as at the Holy Sepulchre); the combination of cruciform (as at Holy Apostles) and octagon (as at Bethlehem). Even the leveling of the site has reminiscences of the foundation of St. Peter’s in Rome. The complex seems to have grown incrementally, beginning with the cruciform and the baptistery, followed by the U-shaped monastery and cloister, with its own chapel, to the south of the eastern basilica; annexes to the baptistery were also built, with construction in other parts of the complex extending into the sixth century. The roof of the octagon seems to

17 See most recently J.-P. Sodini, “Saint Syméon, lieu de pélerinage,” Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa 38 (2007), 107–20; G. Tchalenko, Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord: le massif du Bélus à l’époque romaine, 3 vols. (Paris, 1953), I: 223–76; Johnson, San Vitale, 78–83.

The patron might have been his predecessor Leo I; see R. L. Fox, “The Life of Daniel,” in Portraits: Biographical Representation in the Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire, eds. M. J. Edwards and S. Swain (Oxford, 1997), 175–225, esp. 193–95.

FIGURE 4.3 Antioch-Kaoussié (Kapısuyu), Church of St. Babylas, recontructed plan (after J. Lassus, Antioch-onthe-Orontes II, 1933)

tomb  (see Fig. 8.26).¹5 Like its prototype in Constantinople, the Church of St. John was rebuilt by Justinian, its crossing and cross arms covered by domes. According to tradition, John was sleeping in his tomb, and on his feast day, a holy dust, called manna, was blown up from his resting place and collected by pilgrims.¹6 A similar monument developed around the column of the stylite St. Symeon at Qal’at Sem’an, atop a hill in northwest Syria, ca. 480–90, in the hinterland of Antioch (Figs. 4.4–4.7). Its focus was the 40-foot column upon which the eccentric hermit spent the last thirty-three years of his life in one of many increasingly bizarre acts of ascetic piety, as he was determined to become a martyr by choice.¹7 During his lifetime, and long after, the site attracted pilgrims, just as the saint attracted a variety of imitators. Both the ascetic and the pilgrimage center found imperial support from Constantinople, probably as a way to counter the non-Chalcedonian leanings of the Antiochene Church; the emperor Zeno (r. 474–91) likely was N. Karydis, “The Evolution of the Church of St. John at Ephesos during the Early Byzantine Period,” ÖJh 84 (2016): 97–128.

15

16

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FIGURE 4.4 Qal’at Sem’an, Church of St. Symeon, view from the northeast (Frank Kidner, Frank Kidner Photographs 1983– 1999, Dumbarton Oaks Image Collection and Fieldwork Archives)

FIGURE 4.5 Qal’at Sem’an, Church of St. Symeon, plan and reconstruction (redrawn after G. Tchalenko and J.-C. Biscop)

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FIGURE 4.6 Qal’at Sem’an, Church of St. Symeon, south façade (Bernard Gagnon, Wikimedia)

FIGURE 4.7 Qal’at Sem’an, Church of St. Symeon, interior of the octagon with the remains of the column (Bernard Gagnon, Wikimedia)

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FIGURE 4.8 Plan showing the relationship of Deir Sem’an settlement (Telanissos) and Qal’at Sem’an (author, redrawn after G. Tchalenko and J.-P. Sodini–J. C. Biscop)

have been short lived, probably destroyed in the earthquakes of 526–28 and never replaced. Thus, when the complex was imitated by St. Symeon the Younger at Samandağ, just south of Antioch, after 541, the central octagon was left unroofed (Figs. 4.9 and 4.10).¹9 One difficult-to-explain component of the complex is the baptistery. Why would a pilgrimage complex need a baptistery, and why is it so prominently positioned? A cursory glance at other pilgrimage sites indicates that baptisteries are common, if not standard, components: for example, Samandağ and Alahan also have baptisteries near their entrances; St. John at Ephesus and Abu Mena have baptisteries connected to the main church. Although a second baptism was against church doctrine, one wonders if the faithful were engaged in this practice as part of the A. Henry, “The Pilgrimage Center of St. Symeon the Younger: Designed by Angels, Supervised by a Saint, Constructed by Pilgrims” (PhD diss., University of Illinois, 2015); W. Z. Djobadze, Archeological Investigations in the Region West of Antioch-on-theOrontes (Stuttgart, 1986); Johnson, San Vitale, 83–85.

19

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pilgrimage experience—that is, as part of personal devotion rather than official religion. The nearby pilgrims’ village, now known as Deir Sem’an, ancient Telanissos, was originally a small agricultural establishment, to which a monastery was appended toward the beginning of the fifth century (see Fig. 4.8).²0 St. Symeon the Elder joined its community in 412, but seeking a more rigorously ascetic lifestyle, by 425 he had established himself on a small platform atop a column, set up on the neighboring hill. Almost immediately he began to attract pilgrims: as a living saint, he could quite literally answer their prayers, often sending them away with clay tokens made from the dirt of the hilltop and imprinted with his image.²¹ As the hilltop shrine was monumentalized after his death, so too was the village below, with three pilgrims’ hostels constructed ca. 470–90, as well as a large basilican church and a second monastery; expansion continued into the sixth century. 20

Tchalenko, Villages, I:205–22.

21

See Vikan, Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, 45–58.

FIGURE 4.9 Samandağ (Wondrous Mountain, near Antioch), complex of St. Symeon the Younger (after Ayşe Henry)

As at Qal’at Sem’an, large complexes developed at other sites to accommodate the throngs of pilgrims. An entire city, with church architecture of increasing complexity, grew around the venerated tomb of St. Menas in the Libyan Desert of Egypt, 46 kilometers southwest of Alexandria.²² A martyr under Diocletian, Menas’s tomb was forgotten until miracles began to occur, and a small memorial structure was added (Figs. 4.11 P.  Grossmann, “The Pilgrimage Center at Abu Mina,” in D. Frankfurter, ed., Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt (Leiden, 1998), 281–302; McKenzie, The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, 288–95.

22

and 4.12). The first small pilgrimage church was built in 363 (or perhaps in the early fifth century), and the bones of the martyr were transferred to its crypt. The hypogeum under the socalled Martyr Church was the center of the cult, although its access and the building above it were altered several times. The church expanded from a three-aisled to a five-aisled basilica, with an extension to the east to accommodate the older entrance to the crypt, as well as a baptistery to the west. By the end of the fifth century it was decided to transform the site and expand its scale. The Great Basilica—three aisled with transept— extended the complex to the east; the baptistery CHAPTER FOUR: RITUAL SETTINGS II

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4.10 Samandağ (Wondrous Mountain, near Antioch), complex of St. Symeon the Younger, view of central octagon with the remains of the column (author) FIGURE

was renovated in the sixth century with an octagonal plan. With the completion of the Great Basilica, the Martyr Church was replaced by a tetraconch after 528, which joined to the narthex of the Great Basilica. This was replaced in turn by a five-aisled basilica in the mid-eighth century. One gets a sense of constant construction and transformation at the site, as the cult of Menas flourished and the local population responded to the growing demands of pilgrims. The expansion of the church complex was paralleled by the growing settlement around it. A large colonnaded courtyard to the north of the church complex connected to the xenodochia or pilgrims’ hostels, further to the north. Access to the courtyard and church complex came from the north, along a processional way, lined with shops, storehouses, and bathhouses. To the south of the Martyr’s Church, a large semicircular colonnaded courtyard may have provided spaces for the incubation of infirm pilgrims seeking a cure from the saint. The settlement included secular residential neighborhoods, several other churches, and a small community of hermits, although no monasteries have been identified. By the end of the sixth century, a fortification wall was begun to surround 70

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the entire settlement. This proved ineffective in the Persian invasion of 619, when much of the church complex was destroyed. With the arrival of the Arabs two decades later, much of Abu Mena was abandoned, and the church complex was reduced to a single basilica. Several pilgrimage sites adopted octagonal plans, as at the site of the Nativity in Bethlehem.²³ Gregory of Nazianzus describes an octagonal martyrium he constructed to commemorate his saintly father.²4 Another was constructed at Capernaum in the Galilee, marking the house of St. Peter, which was visited by early pilgrims (Fig. 4.13).²5 Sometime in the mid-first century ce, the main room of a simple house of the first Johnson, San Vitale, passim, emphasizes the martyrial associations of the octagonal church type. 23

24

Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 26–27.

V. Corbo, The House of Saint Peter at Capharnaum (Jerusalem, 1969); B.  Arubas and R.  Talgam, “Jews, Christians, and ‘Minim’: Who Really Built and Used the Synagogue at Capernaum—A Stirring Appraisal,” in Knowledge and Wisdom: Archaeological and Historical Essays in Honour of Leah di Segni, eds. G.  C.  Bottini, L.  D.  Chrupcala, and J.  Patrich (Milan, 2014), 237–73; Johnson, San Vitale, 63–66.

25

FIGURE 4.11 Abu Mena (St. Menas), plan of the town with the main pilgrimage complexes (after P. Grossmann, “Pilgrimage Center,” 1998)

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FIGURE 4.12. Abu Mena (St. Menas), development of the main church complex: (A) Martyr Church (late fourth or early fifth century); (B) Martyr Church expanded (fifth century); (C) Martyr Church enlarged (fifth century); (D) Great Basilica added (before ca. 475); (E) Great Basilica enlarged; tetraconch replaced the Martyr Church; baptistery added (late fifth–early sixth centuries); (F) Martyr Church rebuilt as a five-aisled basilica (mid-eighth century) (after P. Grossmann, “Pilgrimage Center,” 1998)

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FIGURE 4.13 Capernaum, synagogue, and martyrium at the House of St. Peter, showing site development, fourth through sixth centuries (redrawn after B. Arubas and R. Talgam, “Jews, Christians, and ‘Minim,’” 2014)

century bce was plastered, floor to ceiling, to be used for communal gatherings, and subsequent modifications indicate it was converted to a small domus ecclesiae. Dozens of graffiti confirm its Christian usage from an early date. In the fifth century, an octagonal martyrium was built on the site and subsequently expanded, with the plastered room its central focus. Believed to be where

Jesus resided, its conversion to special use is thus slightly different from that of the standard domus ecclesiae. More interestingly, the site developed in concert with the nearby synagogue, and by the sixth century, the insula between them was cleared so that the two were in visual relationship with each other. Another octagon (or perhaps rotunda), known only from description, marked CHAPTER FOUR: RITUAL SETTINGS II

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the Tomb of the Virgin at Gethsemane; yet another containing the Seat of the Virgin (the Kathisma Church), between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, had at its center the exposed rocky seat where the Virgin allegedly rested (see Fig. 8.1).²6 Probably all of these churches were equipped for the celebration of the liturgy, although the physical accommodation of both liturgical and extraliturgical worship—that is, where the altar stood in relationship to the pilgrims’ goal—is not always clear. Outside Hierapolis (Pamukkale) in western Asia Minor, a large, well-planned complex has been associated with the tomb of St. Philip, a huge octagon set within a square, much of it dating from a single construction period, probably early fifth century (Figs. 4.14 and 4.15). The central octagon measures 20.7 meters across and was probably covered by a wooden dome, expanded by deep, barrel-vaulted niches, with evidence of a sanctuary before the eastern niche and with entrances from four sides. The octagon was set within a huge square, approximately 60 by 62 meters, with low rooms opened to the exterior and perhaps quarters for visiting pilgrims. Recent excavations indicate this was part of a larger development, including a monumental staircase and bridge leading from the city gate, an octagonal bath building at the bottom of the stairs, and a hagiasma at the top.²7 Most important was an older basilica, which lay to the east of the octagon. This had been built to include a first-century tomb in its north side aisle, which the archaeologists would like to see as the tomb of Philip. This complicates the traditional view that the octagon was the martyrium, as well as the motivation for its construction. Perhaps it was constructed to mark the site of the saint’s martyrdom (as seems

likely) or perhaps to provide additional space for incubation. Seen in a larger context, the developments at Hierapolis may parallel those at St. Menas. The mysterious octagon might also represent an unsuccessful attempt to upgrade and regularize an older venerated site. In many examples, the relationship between the architectural setting and the position of the venerated tomb it housed remains uncertain. At the popular pilgrimage sites of St. Demetrius at Thessalonike and St. Nicholas at Myra, the architectural forms were monumental and unique, expanded and elaborated over a period of several centuries, but the location of the holy graves is not entirely clear. At the Church of St. Demetrius, the vivid accounts of pilgrims tell of incubation inside the church, through which miraculous cures were effected by the appearance of the saint (Figs. 4.16 and 4.17).²8 The major undertaking in fifth-century Thessalonike, the basilica honored the patron saint of the city. Built on the site of a bath where the Roman soldier met his martyrdom, the church was apparently begun in the second half of the century, with an elaborate plan, measuring 55 meters in length. A reconstruction is recorded following a fire in the seventh century, but it does not seem to have affected spatial organization. Devastated again by fire in 1917, much of the present superstructure derives from the subsequent “scientific” rebuilding. The plan is five aisled, with galleries above the aisles and an alternating support system of piers and columns in the nave, calling attention to the central square, where the hexagonal ciborium of the saint is positioned. Floor levels varied, although the reason for this remains unclear; perhaps the side aisles were closed off for the incubation of the infirm. The floor of the side aisles was close to 0.5 meters below that of the nave, separated from it by a stylobate-like wall, approximately 0.8 meters high.²9 Thus, movement between the nave and

R.  Avner, “The Recovery of the Kathisma Church and Its Influence on Octagonal Buildings,” in One Land—Many Cultures: Archaeological Studies in Honor of S. Loffreda, eds. G. C. Bottini, L. di Segni, and L. D. Chrupcala (Jerusalem, 2003), 173–88; R. Avner, “The Kathisma: A Christian and Muslim Pilgrimage Site,” ARAM 19 (2007): 541–57; Shalev-Hurvitz, Holy Sites, passim, muddies the evidence; Johnson, San Vitale, 67–70.

28 F. A. Bauer, Eine Stadt und Ihr Patron: Thessaloniki und der Heilige Demetrios (Regensburg, 2013); G.  Sotiriou and M.  Sotiriou, He Vasilike tou Hagiou Demetriou Thessalonikes, 2 vols. (Athens, 1952).

F.  D’Andria, “Il santuario e la tomba dell’apostolo Filippo a Hierapolis di Frigia,” Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 84 (2011–2012): 1–52; F.  D’Andria, “Saints and Pilgrims in the Lykos Valley (Asia Minor),” DChAE 38 (2017): 35–55; Johnson, San Vitale, 47–51.

29 See U. Peschlow, “Dividing Interior Space in Early Byzantine Churches: The Barriers between the Nave and the Aisles,” in Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical, and Theological Perspectives on Religious Screens, East and West, ed. S. Gerstel (Washington, DC, 2006), 53–71.

26

27

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FIGURE 4.14 Hierapolis (Pamukkale), martyrium and burial church complex of St. Philip (redrawn after d’Andria, DChAE, 2017)

aisles was restricted, as was the view from the aisles. The floor levels of the galleries were staggered, with that above the outer aisle considerably lower than that above the inner aisle, so that the worshippers standing there could see into the

nave through the openings in the nave arcade. The roofline of the building also reflected this staggered arrangement of levels, stepping down from the nave roof and clerestory to the shed roof  over the inner gallery, which had its own CHAPTER FOUR: RITUAL SETTINGS II

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4.15 Hierapolis (Pamukkale), martyrium and burial church complex of St. Philip, interior of octagonal martyrium, as in 1983 (author) FIGURE

clerestory, to the shed roof over the outer gallery—all perhaps intended to reflect the multiple functions of the interior. Elsewhere the building is just as complicated. The narthex and north aisles are asymmetrical, apparently to incorporate remnants of the bath, while the eastern end has a tripartite transept enveloped by an aisle. The altar was positioned above a small, inaccessible cruciform crypt, which contained blood-soaked cloth from the martyrdom of Demetrius—presumably the dedication relic. Beneath the eastern end is an extensive crypt level with a central water feature that may also be a remnant of the bath. How all these spaces related to the cult of the saint is still contested. What is clear, however, is that the center of devotion was the hexagonal ciborium on the left-hand side of the nave. Whether or not this contained Demetrius’s remains, the ciborium was regarded as the site of his holy presence and was represented in the church’s mosaics. In one panel, for example, the saint, dressed as a civic magistrate, appears in orans pose, his healing hands made of golden tesserae (Fig. 4.18). He stands before his ciborium, while a father presents a young son to him. The setting of the scene is not 76

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the church’s interior, however, but a verdant paradise, visually suggesting the bilocation of the saint—who is both in heaven and fully present within his martyrium. In later centuries, Demetrius was known as a myrobletes: an aromatic oil (myrrh) miraculously exuded from his tomb and was collected by pilgrims in small ampullae.³0 The cult of Demetrius remained active through the Byzantine period. The organization and history of the Church of St. Nicholas at Myra (Demre), on the south coast of Asia Minor, is similarly complicated (see Figs. 11.2 and 11.3).³¹ The origins of the cult of the fourth-century bishop-saint remain obscure, although his church became one of the most popular pilgrimage destinations in the Eastern Mediterranean and a favorite stop for sailors. By Ch. Bakirtzis, “Byzantine Ampullae from Thessaloniki,” in Blessings of Pilgrimage, ed. R.  G.  Ousterhout (Urbana, 1990), 140–49.

30

31 U. Peschlow, “Die Architektur der Nikolaoskirche in Myra,” in Myra: Eine lykische Metropole, ed. J.  Borchhardt (Berlin, 1975), 303–59; amplified by the excavations of S.Y. Ötüken, “2005 Yılı Aziz Nikolaos Kilisesi Kazısı,” Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı 28 (2006), II:157–74, and older reports in the same annual.

FIGURE 4.16 Thessalonike, Church of St. Demetrius, interior of the nave looking east, before the fire of 1917 (British Institute of Archaeology, Athens)

the sixth century, a martyrium stood on the site of his tomb, a basilica that was rebuilt as a domed church in the eighth century and subsequently expanded with lateral aisles and annexed chapels. Where the tomb of Nicholas was located within this complex is not clear, although a reused Roman sarcophagus in one of the southern aisles is often said to be his, but without any definite

proof. Like Demetrius, Nicholas was a myrobletes, and his tomb produced miraculous, sweet-smelling oil. In 1087, his relics were stolen by Italian sailors from Bari who, however, had to  ask directions because it wasn’t immediately apparent which tomb belonged to Nicholas. At Bari, he continued to exude myrrh from his tomb, set in the broad crypt of a large Romanesque CHAPTER FOUR: RITUAL SETTINGS II

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FIGURE 4.17 Thessalonike, Church of St. Demetrius, plan and reconstructed elevation (after G. Soutiriou and M. Sotiriou, He Vasilike tou Hagiou Demetriou, 1952)

basilica.³² Even without the relics, however, Myra continued to function as a pilgrimage destination. As should be clear from the above discussion, there was no fixed architectural typology for a pilgrimage site. Without a text or significant archaeological evidence, it may be difficult to identify a  pilgrimage site on the basis of architecture alone—and even with a text, as at Thessalonike, it remains unclear how the various spaces related to the cult. While many centrally planned buildings might have served as pilgrimage sites, there were many that did not. The famed (and now lost) Golden Octagon in Antioch, for example, was 32 R. Krautheimer, “S. Nicola di Bari und die apulische architekur des 12. Jahrhunderts,” WJKg 9 (1934): 5–42.

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built to be a cathedral and not a martyrium, although it came to hold the relics of St. Symeon after they were removed from his column. As discussed in Chapter  2, Constantinople became the capital of a Christian empire, although it had no significant Christian history and no previous sacred associations. This was obviously a matter of some concern and was compensated in several ways—most notably by the acquisition of relics, for which the city became famous. We can trace the beginnings of the city’s imported sanctity to the Church of Holy Apostles, as noted above. As the mid-fourth-century translations of relics to the church indicate, holy sites and venerated tombs, whose locations may have been originally fixed and immutable, could be relocated to

the enkainia—the consecration rite—a small reliquary would be sealed into a cavity beneath the altar, either in the floor or in the altar table itself. But these relics were never intended to be the objects of devotion: access to the sanctuary was restricted, and in most instances, the reliquary would have been small, sealed, and out of reach. The prayers in the enkainia rite stress the role of the martyrs as mediators for the congregation, and they provided a concrete element of sanctity to the church. After the consecration rite, they would have been all but forgotten.³4 But there was no fixed setting for those who were venerated.

, 4.18 Thessalonike, Church of St. Demetrius, mosaic detail: a father presents his son to St. Demetrius in front of his shrine (courtesy Ch. Bakirtzis) FIGURE

more advantageous situations. The importation of apostolic remains signals the beginning of a flood of holy relics into Constantinople. More than 3,600 relics are recorded, representing at least 476 different saints, most of which were imported.³³ Where relics were housed within the church varied considerably. The most common setting for relics was at the altar. Relics of martyrs played a fundamental role in the rite of consecration from early times. The Second Council of Nicaea (787) stipulated that all church altars must be consecrated with remains of martyrs. As part of 33 J. Wortley, “Iconoclasm and Leipsanoclasm: Leo II, Constantine V, and the Relics,” ByzF 8 (1982): 253–79.

Pilgrimage was very much a phenomenon of the Late Antique centuries. Following the economic decline, retrenchment, and religious controversy that marked the Transitional Period of the seventh through early ninth centuries, long-distance pilgrimage became considerably less common in  Byzantium than in the medieval West. Even the Byzantine terminology marks the process as something different from the familiar Western medieval concept. The English word pilgrimage derives from the Latin peregrinus, meaning stranger or foreigner, and thus peregrinatio implies travel to foreign lands. The equivalent Greek word for pilgrimage is proskynesis, meaning obeisance or adoration. There is ample evidence for veneration of relics, healing shrines, miraculous interventions of saints, and the like, but in the later Byzantine centuries, site-specific veneration became almost entirely a local phenomenon. Marinis and Ousterhout, “‘Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them.’”

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CHAPTER FIVE

,

MAKERS, METHODS, AND MATERIALS

E

arly Christian architecture inherited a wellestablished building industry and followed in the tradition of Roman architecture, as defined by Vitruvius in the first century bce. In terms of both architectural design and construction techniques, builders followed long-established traditions. With the social changes of Late Antiquity and the official acceptance of Christianity, the church became the most significant form of public building. As a consequence, much of the surviving architectural evidence comes from the religious sphere. The emperor or the state took a leading role in sponsoring church construction, although there was also significant private patronage from an early date. The role of the architect also follows the Roman model. For example, writing in the court of Theodoric in sixth-century Ravenna, the statesman Cassiodorus provides a formula for the palace architect that is not significantly different from what Vitruvius prescribed centuries earlier:1

1 Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, esp. 1.1–1.2, trans. I. Rowland and T.  N.  Howe (Cambridge, 1999), 21; Cassiodorus, The

When we are thinking of rebuilding a city, or founding a fort or a general’s quarters, we shall rely on you to express our ideas on paper. The builder of walls, the carver of marbles, the caster of bronzes, the vaulter of arches, the plasterer, the worker in mosaic, all come to you for orders, and you are expected to have a wise answer for each. . . . Study Euclid—get his  diagrams well into your mind; study Archimedes. The emphasis on Euclid and Archimedes indicates the continued importance of geometry and mathematics—and thus measurement and proportion—to architectural design. Like Vitruvius, Cassiodorus viewed the architect as someone well educated, of high stature, and in charge of the other artisans. Terminology is also significant, for Cassiodorus is thinking only of the upper end of the profession. Throughout the Late Antique period, the Letters  of  Cassiodorus, Variae, trans. T.  Hodgkin (London, 1886), 7.5, 323.

Ravenna, San Vitale, apse mosaic showing Bishop Ecclesius presenting the church to Christ, who in turn offers a crown of martyrdom to St. Vitalis (Petar Milošević, Wikimedia Commons) 81

Greek term mechanikos or mechanopoios was used to denote an architect of high stature—usually translated “engineer,” but indicating someone with an education in mechanike theoria and thus possessing a theoretical background.2 For example, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, the architects in charge of Justinian’s Hagia Sophia (532–37), bore the professional title mechanikos, following in the tradition of the Roman architect: they had both a liberal arts education and a theoretical approach to design. Anthemius was also a professor of geometry and author of a treatise on conic sections, while Isidorus was a teacher of physics and a mathematician. In the same period, the term architekton denoted someone with a technical education but without an academic or theoretical background—a master builder, or director of works. Either a mechanikos or an architekton could have designed buildings and directed major construction projects. Between the patrons and the architect, however, a variety of other people were involved. Quite a bit of information comes from the Nea Ekklesia (“New Church”) in Jerusalem, built toward the middle of the sixth century. An inscription found in the impressive substructures of the ruined building records those involved in the patronage and oversight:3 And this is the work which our most pious Emperor Flavius Justinianus carried out with munificence, under the care and devotion of the most holy Constantinus, Priest and Hegumenos, in the 13th year of the indiction. To this we can add the record of Cyril of Scythopolis, which gives us a sense of the chain of command: The imperial couple Justinian and Theodora were the patrons, sending funding from

G.  Downey, “Byzantine Architects: Their Training and Methods,” Byzantion 18 (1946): 99–118; Ousterhout, Master Builders, 39–85; E. Zanini, “Technology and Ideas: Architects and Master-Builders in the Early Byzantine World,” in Technology in Transition A.D. 300–650, eds. L. Lavan, E. Zanini, and A. Sarantis (Leiden, 2007), 381–5.

2

3 N. Avigad, “A Building Inscription of the Emperor Justinian and the Nea in Jerusalem (Preliminary Note),” IEJ, 27, no. 2/3 (1977): 145–51; the indiction year should be either 534/35 or 549/50.

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Constantinople.4 The architect was a mechanikos named Theodore, who was responsible for the building. Finances were handled by tax clerks (trakteutai) at the Praetorian prefect’s office. Final authority was given to Peter, the archbishop of Jerusalem; and Barachos Bishop of Bakatha was charged with supervising the construction. Presumably the Constantinus mentioned in the inscription succeeded Barachos, overseeing the completion of the project. Of those named, however, only Theodore was directly involved in the construction process, while the others served in various bureaucratic capacities. Those who labored on-site are passed over in silence. Other Greek terms related to the building industry appear as well. Oikodomos denotes a builder, presumably without the education of the mechanikos and architekton; the term technites indicates a skilled worker, while ergates designates an unskilled worker. An ergolabos was a project manager. The term ergasterion is used for the masons’ workshop, with the same double meaning as the English, indicating the collection of workers and the building in which they labored. Occasionally one finds terms for specialized workers, such as lithoxoos for a stoneworker or tekton or leptourgos for a carpenter. Apprentices are also mentioned, either misthioi or, in later times, mathetades. Unless the individuals are named with their technical titles, sorting out their roles in an architectural endeavor may be difficult.5 The same language may refer to patrons, project managers, architects, or masons (“x built y” or “x directed the construction of y”). Normally if a name is mentioned, if not that of a mechanikos, it is that of the supervisor, who would have had a higher social standing and, as a bureaucrat, would have been literate. But many of our better-known writings about architecture are poetic and not technical in nature. Many of these take the form of an ekphrasis, a rhetorical exercise that is more evocative than descriptive and thus easily misunderstood by the present-day reader. These usually assign authority to the patron. Following the classical 4 Cyril of Scythopolis, “Life of Sabas,” in The Lives of the Monks of Palestine, trans. R. M. Price (Kalamazoo, 1991), Chap. 73, 185–87; J.  P.  Thomas, Private Religious Foundation in the Byzantine Empire (Washington, DC, 1987), 45. 5

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 39–57, for much of what follows.

FIGURE 5.1 Ravenna, San Vitale, apse mosaic showing Bishop Ecclesius presenting the church to Christ, who in turn offers a crown of martyrdom to St. Vitalis (Petar Milošević, Wikimedia Commons)

model, it is a topos in Byzantine literature that a work of architecture should reflect the character of the patron: piety, magnanimity, or even extravagance and imprudence may be related through descriptions of architectural patronage. In the words of Cassiodorus, “As is the house, so is the inhabitant.”6 In his sixth-century account of the construction of Hagia Sophia, Justinian’s court historian Procopius credits architectural decisions to the emperor himself, guided by his divinely inspired wisdom. Thus, at least in the fiction of the ekphrasis, Justinian was able to solve structural problems when the builders’ expertise failed them (see Chap. 9).7 The importance of the patron is something that is translated into visual terms as well. In the apse mosaic at San Vitale in Ravenna, for example, Christ appears centrally, offering a crown of martyrdom to Vitalis on one side, while accepting a scale model of the church from its patron 6

Cassiodorus, Letters, 7.5, 323.

Procopius, On Buildings, trans. H.  B.  Dewing and G.  Downey (Cambridge, 1940) 1.1.66–78, 38–33; C.  Mango, “Byzantine Writers on the Fabric of Hagia Sophia,” in Hagia Sophia from the Age of Justinian to the Present, eds. R.  Mark and A.  Çakmak (Cambridge, 1992), 41–56, esp. 43–45. 7

Bishop Ecclesius on the other (Fig. 5.1).8 As a pendant to the martyr, the bishop is situated within a chain of gift-giving, sanctioned by heavenly authority. In illustrations of construction, often the donor appears directing the builders. In illustrations of the building of Hagia Sophia, as for example in the Chronicon Sanctae Sophiae, Justinian dominates the image, directing an anxious builder atop a ladder, putting the final touches on a Hagia Sophia that is considerably smaller than the image of its patron (Fig. 5.2).9 While scholars have attempted to mine Procopius’s ekphrasis for technical information on the original building—and certainly Procopius provides a fairly accurate description of the building—like the illustration just noted, the text is more about Justinian than it is about architecture. Throughout the Byzantine period, a patron could be granted the legal status of ktetor as founder or re-founder of a religious establishment, along with which came certain proprietary rights: care in old age, a privileged place of burial, and prayers on behalf of one’s soul. The motivations for such an undertaking were many: fame in this 8

Deliyannis, Ravenna, 237–43.

9

Vatican Ms. Lat. 4939, fol. 28v.

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FIGURE 5.2 Chronicon Sanctae Sophiae, Vatican Ms. Lat. 4939, fol. 28v, showing Justinian directing the construction of Hagia Sophia, © 2018 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (by permission of Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved)

world, salvation in the next; perhaps as an act of penance or thanksgiving or hope of intercession.10 In the centuries under discussion here, with the increasing importance of the individual and the family, commemoration played a critical role. Scholars have emphasized the significance of memoria because of the need for continuing prayers, in perpetuum, for the salvation of the benefactors’ souls, as well as for those of their relatives and their descendants.11 Architectural design could have been based on either theory or practice, depending on the training of the architect in charge, whether a mechanikos or an architekton. The former set the standards for the period and provided a constant source of inspiration, with new design concepts, new decorative systems, and new structural systems that could have been imitated and adapted by builders with more practical backgrounds. Because of its relatively simple form, a wooden-roofed basilica would not have posed significant design problems, although its large scale may have required a A.  Cutler and A.  Kazhdan, “Patrons and Patronage,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 3rd vol., ed. A. Kahzdan (Oxford, 1991), 1602–1604.

good deal of coordination of workers and materials, but this may have fallen under the oversight of the project manager and not the architect. At least until the seventh century, patterns of trade and networks of exchange continued across the Mediterranean as they had in earlier centuries, with luxurious marbles and other building materials transported great distances. As the famous description of Hagia Sophia by Paul the Silentiary indicates (see Chap.  9), the marbles that decorate the building had been gathered from across the empire. The same holds true for architectural ideas, particularly at the highest levels of production. Similar architectural forms may be found in far-flung locations: the aisled tetraconch church plan of San Lorenzo in Milan, for example, is remarkably similar to that of the church at Seleucia-Pieria, near Antioch, and other Syrian examples (Fig. 5.3).12 Perhaps architectural designs were disseminated through imperial circles or by traveling architects in imperial service. While architectural ideas could be communicated by human means, they could also be transmitted by remote control, through the use of drawings. Architectural drawings were regularly used in the preparatory phase, again following the Roman model: Vitruvius writes of plans, elevations, and perspectival views. Similarly, Cassiodorus’s palace architect lays out his ideas on paper and is thoroughly steeped in geometrical theory. In a like manner, Paul the Silentiary praises the architect Anthemius the Younger (who rebuilt the dome of Hagia Sophia) as “skilled to draw a circle and set out a plan.”13 A plan is called a skariphos, as opposed to a thesis, which was marked on the site, as noted in a document concerning the plan for a church in Gaza sent from the imperial court. The project was overseen by Bishop Porphyry, as Mark the Deacon wrote in his Life of the bishop:14

10

J. P. Thomas, “In Perpetuum. Social and Political Consequences of Byzantine Patrons’ Aspirations for Permanence for Their Foundations,” in Stiftungen in Christentum, Judentum und Islam vor der Moderne. Auf der Suche nach ihren Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschieden in religiösen Grundlagen, praktischen Zwecken und historischen Transformationen, ed. M. Borgolte (Berlin, 2005), 123– 35. Note also P. Horden, “Memoria, Salvation, and Other Motives of Byzantine Philanthropists,” in the same volume, 137–46. 11

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W.  E.  Kleinbauer, “The Origin and Functions of the Aisled Tetraconch Churches in Syria and Northern Mesopotamia,” DOP 27 (1973): 89–114.

12

13 M.  S.  Briggs, The Architect in History (Oxford, 1927), 48; M. L. Fobelli, Un tempio per Giustiniano: Santa Sofia di Costantinopoli e la Descrizione di Paolo Silenziario (Rome, 2005), 50–51. 14 Mark the Deacon, Vita Porphyrii, eds. H.  Grégoire and M. A. Kugener (Paris, 1930), 59–79; translated by Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 30–32.

FIGURE 5.3 Plans of aisled tetraconch churches, to scale: (A) Seleucia Pieria; (B) Milan, San Lorenzo; (C) Athens, Library of Hadrian; (D) Resafa (after W. E. Kleinbauer, DOP, 1973)

The holy bishop had engaged the architect Rufinus from Antioch, a dependable and expert man, and it was he who had completed the entire construction. He took some chalk and marked the outline (thesis) of the holy church according to the form of the plan (skariphos) that had been sent by the most pious Eudoxia. While Rufinus is credited as the architect in charge of the building project, the actual design was produced by someone else entirely, unnamed, in the court of Eudoxia, in faraway Constantinople. The empress subsequently sent green marble columns from Euboea to decorate the church. Why is drawing a circle so important? A circle is relatively simple to draw, either on paper with a compass or on-site with a rope and stake. The new dome Isidorus the Younger designed was circular in plan. Moreover, a circle could be easily subdivided to form a hexagon or an octagon, from which both a system of proportional measurements and basic elements of design could be determined. While Byzantine writers fail to provide specific ratios or dimensions, the

ekphraseis regularly emphasize proper proportions. Describing another church in Gaza, the sixth-century St. Stephen’s, for example, Chorikios writes,15 Starting at this colonnade, the church stretches far to the east. Its width is such as the length requires, its length is dictated by the width, and the height of the roof proportionate to both. This, namely the proportion of the fabric, is its first and greatest glory. A circle could also form the basis for the plan of a centralized building, whether octagonal, hexagonal, or round. In an intriguing illustration, the Chorikios, “Encomion of Marcian,” in Choricii Gazaei, Opera, eds. R. Foerster and E. Richsteig (Leipzig, 1929), 2.31–35, 36–37; translated by Mango, Art of Byzantine Empire, pp. 68–69; see A. Papaconstantinou, “Divine or Human? Some Remarks on the Design and Layout of Late Antique Basilicas,” in The Material and the Ideal: Essays in Medieval Art and Archaeology in Honour of JeanMichel Spieser, eds. A. Cutler and A. Papaconstantinou (Leiden, 2007), 31–48.

15

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FIGURE 5.4 Dioskorides, De Materia Medica, dedicatory frontispiece with Juliana Anicia, Codex Vindobonensis med. gr. 1, fol. 6v (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna)

frontispiece of a manuscript of Dioskorides’s De Materia Medica, now in Vienna, the noblewoman Juliana Anicia appears seated with personifications of Magnanimity, Prudence, and Gratitude of the Arts, framed by a circle within which two rotated squares form an octagon (Fig. 5.4).16 The Vienna Dioskorides, Codex Vindobonensis med. gr. 1, fol. 6v; L. Brubaker, “Vienna Dioskorides,” 209–13.

16

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geometrical figure is painted as if made of ropes, and within the outermost blue triangles are tiny putti engaged in building activities. In fact, the manuscript was presented to Juliana by the citizens of Honoratai, a suburb of Constantinople, to thank her for building a church. While Juliana was a noted patron of architecture (discussed further in Chap.  8), the rope-like frame repeats a pattern found in the sort of geometrical treatise

FIGURE 5.5 Page from a treatise on land measurement, the Codex Arcerianus, showing how to inscribe an octagon within a circle (Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, Cod. Guelf. 36.23)

a mechanikos might have at his disposal. The sixthcentury Codex Arcerianus now in Wolfenbüttel, for example, includes an intriguing diagram as part of a series of explanations about how to lay out multisided polygons, beginning with the octagon, showing it as an octagram, two rotated squares inscribed within a circle (Fig. 5.5).17 Although the church in Honoratai no longer survives, the diagram enveloping its patron compares favorably to the near-contemporary Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople. A square or a gridded square could also establish a proportional system. For example, Vitruvius

17

Cod. Guelf. 36.23, fol. 135v.

suggests three ways to determine the proportions of an atrium:18 The length and breadth of the atrium is planned in three ways. The first arrangement is to divide the length into five parts, and to give three of these to the width; the second divides the length into three parts and assigns two to the width; in the third arrangement, a square is described upon the width, and the diagonal of the square is drawn: whatever is the size of the diagonal supplies the length of the atrium.

18 Vitruvius, Architecture, 6.6.3; discussed in Papaconstantinou, “Divine or Human?”

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The last would result in a ratio of 1:√2. Using a compass, the diagonal measurement can be added to the square, and the process can be repeated to determine 1:√3, 1:√4 (= 1:2), 1:√5. The squareroot rectangles correspond to proportions commonly found in early basilican church plans. Measurements are also important. Although there are a variety of regional and temporal variations, the Byzantine foot measured between 0.312 and 0.327 meters, slightly longer than the Roman foot, which measured 0.296 meters. Byzantine builders seem to have preferred round numbers in the design.19 The internal diameter of the dome of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, for example, was 100 Byzantine feet, while smaller dimensions in the building’s design were calculated also in round numbers, fractions of 100; the domes of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus and of Hagia Eirene are 50 Byzantine feet in diameter. Earlier centralized buildings in Rome are similarly calculated in round numbers: Santa Costanza has an internal diameter of 75 Roman feet, with an external diameter, including the outer colonnade, of 100 feet. Santo Stefano Rotondo has an internal diameter (inner ring) of 75 Roman feet and an external measure of 225 feet.20 The nave of the  Lateran Basilica measured 64 Roman feet across internally, while the whole, including the side aisles, measured 180 feet across. Its overall length was 360 Roman feet, including the apse— evidence that the architects took into consideration both measurements and proportions in its design. Building materials depended to a large extent on local or regional availability. Following established practices, the walls of the early churches of Rome were constructed sandwich-like, with brick facing on a concrete core (Fig. 5.6).21 While brick construction persisted in Italy, during Late Antiquity mortared rubble gradually replaced P.  A.  Underwood, “Some Principles of Measure in the Architecture of the Period of Justinian,” CahArch 3 (1948): 64.74; E. Schilbach, Byzantinische Metrologie (Munich, 1970), 13–16.

concrete, and opus mixtum (also called opus listatum) became more common, with a wall construction of alternating layers of brick and stone.  In this system, stone—either rough or squared—faced a rubble core, while the brick courses normally extended through the thickness of the wall to form leveling courses, which also served to bind the wall together (Fig. 5.7).22 This  is the standard construction technique in Constantinople throughout its history, and variations of the system appear in many other regions as well. In many areas of the Byzantine Empire, the mixture of brick and stone facing is less regular, without leveling courses, sometimes prone to shear away from the rubble core. Variations abound: the alternating courses of brick and stone can vary in number, mortar beds can vary in thickness, and decorative patterns may be introduced into the wall construction. In Syria, the Caucasus, and parts of Anatolia, where good building stone was plentiful, ashlar construction predominates, often with elaborately carved architectural sculpture. Frequently stone quarries were located close to the building site. In the Limestone Massif of northern Syria, for example, the quarries were often quite literally at the threshold of the building (Fig. 5.8).23 In larger urban centers, they would by necessity be located outside the walls. At Constantinople, the quarries of sandstone and limestone used in the Land Walls have been identified in the region of Hebdomon, immediately to the west of the city.24 In contrast to the local availability of standard construction materials, luxurious finishing materials were often transported great distances from quarries across the empire. Ideally, as at the islands of Proconessus (in the Sea of Marmara) or Thasos (in the north Aegean), marble quarries were at or near the seashore, so that columns, capitals, and other decorative elements could be shipped easily, often roughed out at the quarry and finished

19

M.  W.  Jones, Principles of Roman Architecture (New Haven, 2000), 177–97.

20

21 J.-P.  Adam, Roman Building: Materials and Techniques (Bloomington, 1994); L. Lancaster, Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome: Innovations in Context (Cambridge, 2005).

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J.  B.  Ward-Perkins, “Notes on the Structure and Building Methods of Early Byzantine Architecture,” in The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors, Second Report, ed. D.  Talbot-Rice (Edinburgh, 1958), 52–104.

22

23

Tchalenko, Villages, I: 42–44.

24

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 136–45.

FIGURE 5.6 Rhegion, wall construction in alternating bands of brick and stone (author)

FIGURE 5.7 Drawing showing wall construction of brick and stone, with scaffolding supported on putlogs (author)

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FIGURE 5.8 Mushabbak (Syria), basilica, seen from the southwest, with the limestone quarry in the foreground (Frank Kidner, Frank Kidner Photographs 1983–1999, Dumbarton Oaks Image Collection and Fieldwork Archives)

on-site (Fig. 5.9).25 The wide-scale distribution of Proconessian marble capitals of identical forms indicates that pan-Mediterranean commerce in architectural elements survived as late as the sixth century, with the names of the quarries remembered long after they had ceased operation. Brick production relied on both good sources of clay and kilns. Texts mention both ostrakarioi (clay workers) or keramopoioi (brickmakers).26 A single kiln could produce up to fifty thousand bricks per season, allowing four thousand to five thousand bricks per firing, and the process of loading, firing, 25 N.  Asgari, “The Proconnesian Production of Architectural Elements in Late Antiquity Based on Evidence from the Marble Quarries,” in Constantinople and Its Hinterland, eds. C. Mango and G.  Dagron (Aldershot, 1995), 263–88; N.  Asgari, “Roman and Early Byzantine Marble Quarries of Proconnesus,” in Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of Classical Archaeology, I (Ankara, 1978), 467–80; T.  Kozelj, A.  Lambraki, and J.–P.  Sodini, Les carrières à l’époque paléochrétienne, Aliki I (Paris, 1980).

K.  Theocharidou, “Symbole ste Melete tes Paragoges Oikodomikon Keramikon Proionton sta Byzantina kai Metabysantina Chronia,” DChAE 13 (1988): 97–112; Ousterhout, Master Builders, 128–32.

26

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cooling, and unloading could take two to three weeks (Fig. 5.10). There is considerable variation in the size of Byzantine bricks. Bricks were formed in square or rectangular molds but they would shrink up to 10 percent when fired. Standard examples measure 32–36 centimeters square and 3.5–5 centimeters thick. Following the Roman model, brick stamps were used to regulate production; they appear in Constantinople during the fourth through seventh centuries, as well as in Thessalonike, but they are rare elsewhere (Fig. 5.11). In Constantinople, up to half of the bricks were stamped during this period.27 The earliest stamps, probably from the period of Constantine, are in Latin and seem to follow the systematization known from Roman imperial brick production, suggesting a transfer of technology as the capital was moved eastward. By the fifth century, the stamp inscriptions are in Greek; many provide a name (in the genitive if fully spelled out), probably that of the contractor or landowner, and an indiction date, based on a fifteen-year taxation cycle. Sometimes symbols or monograms are introduced. The decipherment and exact dating 27

J. Bardill, Brickstamps of Constantinople (Oxford, 2004).

FIGURE 5.9 Thasos, Aliki quarries, general view, showing areas of stone removal (author)

FIGURE 5.10 Detail of an illuminated manuscript showing the firing of brick in a kiln, Vatican Ms. Gr. 746, fol. 61r, © 2018, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (by permission of Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved)

of Byzantine brick stamps remain problematic, although in general, simple bar-shaped stamps with formulaic, single-lined inscriptions belong to the fifth century, while sixth-century stamps are more varied in both the information they provide and their shapes—often round or cruciform. A critical ingredient in most construction was lime mortar, with quicklime used as an active agent that could be mixed with sand, broken brick, or rubble.28 The recipe would have been

similar to that of Roman concrete, but without the volcanic sand, or pozzolana, that allowed it to set underwater and gave it a stone-like hardness. Lime mortar behaves somewhat differently than concrete and is more resilient. When used in large quantities, however, lime mortar could take months to achieve its ultimate hardness, long after it appears firm, and it could deform when pressure is exerted on it. In Justinian’s Hagia Sophia, the phenomenon of “plastic flow of mortar”

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 133–36; J.  Bardill, “Building Materials and Techniques,” in Oxford Handbook of Byzantine

Studies, eds. R.  Cormack, J.  F.  Haldon, and E.  Jeffreys (Oxford, 2008), 335–36.

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FIGURE 5.11 A late fifth- or early sixthcentury Byzantine brick, probably from Hagia Sophia, stamped +KOCTAN, probably Konstantinos (Jonathan Bardill)

caused the building to deform because of the unequal pressures exerted by the first dome, leading to its collapse in 557. However, in smaller buildings the resilience of lime mortar could be advantageous, allowing the building to settle without severe cracking. Under pressure, a nonhydraulic lime mortar will suffer microcracks, but upon exposure to air, they will recrystallize and mend. Wooden reinforcement also appears commonly in Byzantine construction. Wooden beams were set within the thickness of the wall, nailed or toggled together at the corners (Fig. 5.12).29 These beams would be inserted at several points in the rising walls and appear commonly behind cornices. With the introduction of vaulting, they could also be joined to the tie beams that spanned arches and vaults. While the wood may have deteriorated over time, during its early years the internal skeleton would have stabilized the construction as the building settled and the lime mortar set. In areas susceptible to earthquakes—and that includes much of the Eastern Mediterranean— the system provided additional stability. For present-day scholarship, dendrochronology (based on a careful analysis of the tree ring patterns) may help to provide a date for the building in which the wood survives.30 Reuse of building materials was common throughout the period. In the early centuries of Christianity, spoliation often had symbolic overtones, as sculptural elements were reemployed as 29

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 192–94.

P. I. Kuniholm, “Dendrochronology and Other Applications of Tree-Ring Studies in Archaeology,” in The Handbook of Archaeological Sciences, eds. D.  R.  Brothwell and A.  M.  Pollard (London, 2001), 1–11.

30

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part of a visual engagement with the past.31 In the great basilicas of Rome, the columns and capitals are all spolia, often mismatched. However, it is easier to reuse squared stone than it is to quarry it afresh. With the transformation of cities, the grand marble piles of antiquity became the quarries for later construction. Brick was similarly reused, and thus stamped bricks of the fifth and sixth centuries often found their way into later construction. Byzantine churches were roofed with lead sheeting or tiles of slate, cut stone, or ceramic. Most common throughout the period were ceramic tiles of semicylindrical, slightly conical form, with the same used both for the pan and the cover tiles (Fig. 5.13).32 More expensive and more durable was lead sheeting, applied to the roof in rectangular panels with the joints folded and hammered together. The malleability of the material allowed lead sheeting to conform to the irregular and undulating forms of Byzantine vaults. Constructed of either brick or stone, Byzantine foundation systems were dug to bedrock if possible and occasionally cut from the bedrock, often stepped in profile to create a solid base for the walls above them. At Old St. Peter’s in Rome, this required enormous foundations on one side and earth removal on the other (Fig. 5.14). Because of the irregularity of the terrain, the foundations for the churches of Constantinople required extensive vaulted substructures to create a level platform for the superstructure. Sometimes these served utilitarian purposes; occasionally they were used for burials. Because of the lack of a good natural supply of water within the city, the substructures almost invariably included cisterns. In the area of Topkapı Palace alone, a recent study has counted more than forty cisterns—all substructures for

31 See, among others, D. Kinney, “Rape or Restitution of the Past? Interpreting Spolia,” in The Art of Interpreting, ed. S.  C.  Scott (University Park, 1995), 52–67; B.  Brenk, “Spolia from Constantine to Charlemagne: Aesthetics versus Ideology,” DOP 41 (1987): 103–09; H.  Saradi, “The Use of Spolia in Byzantine Monuments: The Archaeological and Literary Evidence,” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 3 (1997): 395–23; Ousterhout, Master Builders, 140–45. 32

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 147–51.

FIGURE 5.12 Diagram showing the methods of connecting wooden reinforcement beams at Hagia Eirene, Istanbul (from C. Striker-P. Kuniholm in U. Peschlow, Irenenkirche, 1977)

lost buildings.33 Of the building known as the Basilica in Constantinople, which housed the courts of law, only the vaulted substructures (the so-called Basilica Cistern) survive today. It was common in Greek and Roman architecture to connect the bases, shafts (or drums), and capitals of columns with bronze pins set into lead, and this practice continued into the Byzantine period. Molten lead was poured into a carved channel in the upper surface of the base to secure the pin as the column was erected. The cuttings for pins may be observed in the once-joined surfaces

of both columns and bases. Occasionally the pins are still preserved (Fig. 5.15). Wooden trussed roofs were common in the great basilicas of the Early Christian period.34 Renaissance views of the interior of Old St. Peter’s in Rome show the trussing system, with smaller beams that reinforce both the bottom chord to prevent it from sagging at the center and the top chords against the weight of the roof, which spanned the nave width of approximately 24

A.  K.  Orlandos, He xylostegos palaiochristianike basilike tes mesogeiakes lekanes, 2nd ed. (Athens, 1994), 386–98 (in Greek); Bardill, “Building Materials,” 343–44.

34

H. Tezcan, Topkapı Sarayı ve Çevresinin Bizans Devri Arkeologisi (Istanbul, 1989). 33

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5.13  Alakent, Byzantine church, with original roof tiles in place (Myra-Andriake Excavations Archive) figure

figure 5.14  Rome, Old St. Peter’s, transverse section of the nave foundations (after B. M. Apollonj Ghetti et al., Esplorazioni sotto la confessione di S. Pietro, 1951)

meters.35 Similar images are preserved for the roofing system of San Paolo fuori le mura in Rome, before its destruction by fire in 1823, which, however, had undergone more than twenty recorded restorations from the fifth to the nineteenth century.36 The only surviving roofing system of this type is that of the sixth-century R.  Mark, Architectural Technology up to the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, 1993), 186; also R. Meiggs, Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford, 1982), 255.

35 

N. Camerlenghi, “Interpreting Medieval Architecture through Renovations: The Roof of the Old Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura in Rome,” in Approaches to Byzantine Architecture and Its Decoration: Studies in Honor of Slobodan Ćurčić, eds. M. J. Johnson, R.  G.  Ousterhout, and A.  Papalexandrou (Aldershot, 2012), 259–76.

36 

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Church of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai, which braces only the top chords against the weight of the heavy lead sheeting on the roof, but its span— slightly more than 5 meters—is considerably less than St. Peter’s (Fig. 5.16).37 Finding wood of sufficient length for roof construction seems to have been a concern for builders and is occasionally mentioned in texts. In the sixth-century vita of St. Nicholas of Sion, for example, the saint adds three cubits to the length of a broken cypress log so that it can be used as a roof beam. For the large scale of early buildings, structure was a primary concern, particularly when vaulting was employed. The repertory of vault forms remained relatively simple: barrel vaults, groin 37 

Forsyth, “The Monastery of St. Catherine,” 8–9 and fig. 21.

vaults, domes, and occasionally cloister vaults. All follow established Roman forms.38 Commonly, these rise above cornices—marble bands that form a level platform from which the vaults spring. Adorned with carving and paint, cornices are usually discussed as part of the decorative system of the building, but they also played a critical role in the construction. In fact, many cornice systems were joined together by metal pins, forming tension rings to counter the thrusts of the vaults.39 Affected by the dead weight of materials, the downward pull of gravity, and earth movements, traditional building materials worked well in compression (pushing forces) but not in tension (pulling or bending forces). In Roman architecture, structural problems were overcome by increasing the mass and dead weight of the construction—thicker walls can bear heavier loads. By the third century, more economical structural systems emerged that reduced the mass, relying on point support rather than wall support—concentrating loads at critical points rather than on thick, solid walls. At the Pavilion in the Licinian Gardens in Rome (ca. 300), for example, a dome approximately 80 feet in diameter is supported above ten piers with either open arches or arched niches in between (Fig. 5.17). A very similar system appears at the hexagonal triclinium in the Palace of Antiochos in Constantinople (early fifth century), later converted into the Church of St. Euphemia (see Fig. 8.10). At Justinian’s Hagia Sophia, loads are concentrated at twelve points, allowing large areas of wall to be opened as windows (Fig. 5.18). All the same, arches and vaults required sufficient buttressing at the haunches to compensate for the outward thrust caused by the dead weight and the downward pull of gravity, even when their forms were reduced in mass.40 At  Hagia Sophia, the arches of the dome bay measure slightly more than 100 feet across—a greater span than any existing Roman arch—and 38 Adam, Roman Building; Lancaster, Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome.

L.  Butler, “Hagia Sophia’s Nave Cornices as Elements of Its Design and Structure,” in Hagia Sophia from the Age of Justinian to the Present, eds. R. Mark and A. Çakmak (Cambridge, 1992), 57–77.

39

R. J. Mainstone, Hagia Sophia: Architecture, Structure, and Liturgy of Justinian’s Great Church (New York, 1988), 159–17.

40

FIGURE 5.15 Column base with setting pin and poured lead still in place, Thessalonike, excavation near the Rotunda (author)

FIGURE 5.16 Sinai, Church of St. Catherine, view of timber trussing over nave (George H. Forsyth Jr., Michigan– Princeton– Alexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai)

they experienced structural problems even before the dome was added (see Chap. 9). The great buttresses that rise above the north and south galleries may seem poorly positioned with respect to the dome, but they were essential to brace its east and west arches. There was no such thing as structural theory in the Byzantine period; vaulting systems were based on trial and error and the success or failure of previous examples. Centrally planned buildings like Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople provided even support on all sides of the dome with galleries and buttresses. More problematic was the introduction of vaulting into the basilica, a building type

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FIGURE 5.17 Rome, Pavilion in the Licinian Gardens, drawing showing the original structural system (Lynne Lancaster)

FIGURE 5.18 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, diagram of the structural system (after R. Mainstone, Hagia Sophia, 1988)

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traditionally covered by a wooden trussed roof. At Hagia Sophia and Hagia Eirene in Constantinople and Basilica B at Philippi, pendentives (spherical triangles) were employed to make the transition from the rectilinear geometry of the nave to the round plan at the base of the dome. The critical points in this system were the crowns of the four arches of the domed bay, where the loads were most concentrated. All three of these sixth-century examples lacked bilaterally symmetrical buttressing for their domes, and all experienced structural failure (discussed further in Chaps. 8 and 9).41 Concrete vaults, common in Roman architecture, were gradually abandoned, while stone construction persisted, particularly in the East. In western Asia Minor, brick was the most common material for vaulting, and this is what was adopted in Constantinople and much of the heartland of Byzantium. Rather than as facing for concrete or rubble, as it was used in Roman vaults, the Byzantines used brick to construct thinner vaults. As vaulted buildings became the norm after the sixth century, arches and vaults were usually of brick and normally had wooden tie beams at their springing. These would secure the vault until the mortar dried to its ultimate hardness, but the beams were normally left in place and decorated with paint or carved. Occasionally there were additional structural measures: at Justinian’s Hagia Sophia, iron tie rods are used (Fig. 5.19). At the Red Church at Sivrihisar (central Turkey), rings of tie beams appear on the interior and exterior of the dome base (Fig. 5.20).42 Marble cornice blocks also could be connected with metal pins or secured with a system of wooden beams immediately behind them, so that they could act as structural stabilizers, as was done at Justinian’s Hagia Sophia and in many later examples. Byzantine vaults could have been constructed with or without formwork, depending on their 41

Krautheimer and Ćurčić, ECBA, 4th ed., 249–54.

R. G. Ousterhout, “The Red Church at Sivrihisar (Cappadocia): Aspects of Structure and Construction,” in Against Gravity: Building Practices in the Pre-Industrial World, eds. R. G. Ousterhout, L.  Haselberger, R.  Holod, and P.  Webster (Philadelphia, 2016), 1–11, online publication of papers from the 2015 Penn Center for Ancient Studies Conference: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/ ancient/publications.html.

42

FIGURE 5.19 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, northeast exedra, with tie rods connecting the arches (author)

scale.43 A large barrel vault, for example, would have required substantial formwork, and the work of carpenters would have been critical, even if no trace of their work survives today. Large vaults, like those of Justinian’s domed churches, must have required massive support during construction, with bracing extending to the floor level. The formwork for smaller vaults could have been supported from cornices or tie beams (Fig. 5.21). In some examples, as at the Red Church at Sivrihisar, ashlar construction continues several courses beyond the springing of the vault, with the courses corbelled inward, above which the vault was constructed of rubble laid on formwork (see Fig. 5.20). Occasionally, as with the vaulted cisterns of Constantinople, the pattern of the wooden formwork is preserved in the mortar of the vault’s intrados. While arches invariably required formwork, many smaller vaults could be built without it, Ousterhout, Master Builders, 216–33; A.  Choisy, L’art de bâtir chez les Byzantins (Paris, 1883), 32–47.

43

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FIGURE 5.20 Sivrihisar, Red Church, interior looking east, showing the change from ashlar to mortared rubble several courses above the springing of the nave barrel vault (in the foreground) and a view into the dome with a wooden reinforcement beam at its base; another timber chain enveloped the exterior of the drum (author)

FIGURE 5.21 Reconstruction of formwork necessary for supporting a Roman arch construction (A. Leger, Les travaux publics, 1875, reproduced in Lynne Lancaster, Concrete Vaulted Construction, 2005)

simplifying and expediting the construction process. The simplest form was of pitched brick, set upright and angled, rather than radial voussoirs, with each course leaned against the previous one (Fig. 5.22). The technique may have had its roots in the domestic mudbrick architecture of Egypt. A pitched brick sail vault, built up from four sides or four corners simultaneously, could be laid without wooden centering, while a dome or semidome could be subdivided into small segments of pitched brick. Bricks could also be laid vertically, with or without formwork, a technique 98

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that may have had its origins in Parthia.44 In some barrel vaults, we find a combination of vertical and radial courses of brick. In these cases, the vertical brick may have strengthened the vault against radial cracking. In Italy and North Africa, Roman imperial builders experimented with tubi fittili—lightweight, interlocking terracotta tubes (Fig. 5.23).45 In areas without a plentiful supply of wood, these tubes could be laid without formwork—or rather, they could be the formwork, with mortared rubble packed above them. Often in North African vaults, the tubes have broken and fallen away, leaving little trace, while the rubble vault is preserved. In the fully preserved system, however, the layers of tubi fittili could have done double duty— providing a vapor barrier between the vault and the decorated interior surface. Tubi fittili appear in many of the vaulted buildings of Ravenna, as L. Lancaster, Innovative Vaulting in the Architecture of the Roman Empire 1st to 4th Centuries ce (New York, 2015).

44

45 R. J. A. Wilson, “Terracotta Vaulting Tubes (Tubi Fittili): On Their Origin and Distribution,” JRA 5 (1992): 97–129; Lancaster, Innovative Vaulting, 99–128.

FIGURE 5.22 Sivriada (near Istanbul), tunnel with a barrel vault constructed of pitched brick (author)

in the Orthodox Baptistery and at San Vitale.46 Here, however, they form lightweight domes, their intrados covered with mosaic, and rather than supporting rubble vaulting, they form a thin membrane, protected by a wooden roof. This sort of lightweight shell vault is found in both Rome and North Africa, notably in Christian constructions, by the early fourth century. 46

Kostof, Orthodox Baptistery, 35–43.

FIGURE 5.23 Carthage, Damous el-Karita, martyrium, vault of tubi fittili (Lynne Lancaster)

The formal and structural experiments of the fourth through sixth centuries set the standard for later architectural developments. All the same, later medieval architecture in the East saw no major structural innovations after the sixth century. With changes in society and worship practices, most buildings were reduced in scale. As a consequence, later builders are more concerned with construction than with structure (as will be discussed in Chap. 16).

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,

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A

fter the time of Constantine, a standardized church architecture gradually emerged, with the basilica as the customary setting for congregational worship. Despite the continuation of pan-Mediterranean commerce through the sixth century and contacts brought about by imperial patronage and pilgrimage, distinctive styles developed in the different regions of the empire. This chapter examines architectural developments of the West—Italy and North Africa—and those of the East—Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and inland Asia Minor. Both stand in contrast to developments in the central areas of the empire: Constantinople, Greece, and the Aegean coastlands. To a large extent, however, a shared culture continued, despite political disruptions and religious dissention among the Christian communities. Within this picture, Christian architecture is surprisingly slow to take root—or perhaps it is surprising how little evidence remains for the decades immediately after Constantine. While we can track developments in Italy, particularly following the movement of the imperial residence to Milan and subsequently Ravenna, with concomitant imperial patronage, developments elsewhere are more difficult to track. Despite its founder’s intentions, for example, Constantinople was slow

to take hold as an architectural or cultural center, and Constantine’s successors were happy to reside elsewhere—Antioch in particular. All the same, frustratingly little is preserved for the major cities of the East: virtually nothing remains of Late Antique Alexandria or Antioch, and there are only paltry remains for early Constantinople. Across the empire, in fact, our evidence for the first century of official Christian architecture is limited, although from the mid-fifth century onward, the evidence steadily mounts. By the fifth century, the liturgy had become standardized, but, again, with some regional variations that are evident in the planning and furnishing of basilicas.1 But the shape of the liturgy probably had less effect on the creation of new architectural designs than the increasing symbolism and sanctification of the church building—that is, although form, function, and meaning were closely related, they were not mutually interdependent. Some new building types emerge, such as the cruciform church, the tetraconch, octagons, and a variety of centrally planned structures. Such forms may have had symbolic overtones; their 1 For numerous variations, see Orlandos, He xylostegos palaiochristianike vasilike, 438–556.

Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore, interior, looking east (Michael Waters) 101

unusual form connoted prestige, elegance, or sophistication in general terms—as, for example, the design of the aisled tetraconch, which appears in a variety of centers, that may derive from palatial buildings. In more specific terms, the cruciform plan, for example, may either be a reflection of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople or be associated with the life-giving Cross, as at Santa Croce in Ravenna or the Church of the Holy Apostles in Milan, where dedications and inscriptions make the association explicit. Religious and political background. It is tempting to think of the early centuries of official Christianity as a time of unity, a new Golden Age, as reflected in the writings of the church fathers: notably Ambrose and Augustine in the West and Basil, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa in the East, who sought to articulate what an official Christianity actually meant, in terms of both beliefs and behaviors. Far from unified, however—indeed, disagreements about beliefs and practices are evident as early as the writings of Paul—the period was marked by increasing political and religious strife.2 The return to paganism under Julian the Apostate (r. 360–63) may have had little long-term effect, but it reflects the reluctance in many circles for the whole-hearted adoption of Christianity. Only under Theodosius I (r. 379–95) did Christianity become the official religion, rather than an official religion of the empire. Moreover, the growing difficulty of administering far-flung territories led ultimately to the renewed partition of the empire under Theodosius in 395 (see Map 1). Intended to stimulate cooperation, the division actually led to the severing of the Eastern and Western spheres. The western portions of the empire suffered from repeated invasions by migratory tribes, from the north and east. Rome, once thought eternal and divinely protected, was sacked by the Visigoths in 410. While perhaps less destructive than the response to it suggests, the fall of Rome led to a crisis of confidence. How could the eternal city fall to barbarians? Who was to blame—the Christians, who had abandoned the old gods, or the

pagans, who refused to accept the true divinity? Perhaps the most important outcome of the crisis was Augustine’s massive tome, The City of God, completed ca. 426, the greatest apologia (that is, a defense, not an apology) for the new religion, which set the tone for the development of Christianity through the Western Middle Ages.3 Meanwhile, the Vandals crossed into North Africa, where they established an independent kingdom in 429. The Visigoths eventually settled in southern France and Spain, but Rome was plundered again by the Vandals in 455. Italy finally fell to the Herulians in 476, and imperial administration in the West ceased, although Ravenna was subsequently ruled by the Ostrogoths, who saw themselves as continuators of Roman traditions.4 Surprisingly, through all this disruption, architecture continued, often with invaders replacing Romans as patrons, with little visible difference. In the East, however, with the exception of the northern and eastern frontiers, political unity was maintained, although the period was marked by religious dissension and theological debate. If Christianity was to be the official religion, what did that actually mean? The Bible is woefully short on specifics. Central to the discussion was the nature of Christ: was he God or a human being? If he was both human and divine, how should these two terms be understood to combine in Jesus? Debates were heated; ecumenical church councils sought to establish consensus in matters of dogma but more often divided opposing groups more sharply. The Council of Nicaea of 325 asserted that Christ was both divine and human and condemned the followers of Arius who asserted that Christ was a superman but not God. The Council of Ephesus in 431 condemned the followers of a certain Nestorius, who objected to calling the Virgin Mary the Mother of God (Theotokos). This controversy eventually generated a separate Christian polity, mostly within the Persian Empire to the east (now termed the Church of the East). The Council of Chalcedon of 451 generated a further schism among Christians

P.  Brown, The World of Late Antiquity (London, 1971); G. W. Bowersock, P. Brown, and O. Grabar, eds., Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Harvard, 1999).

S.  J.  Barnish and F.  Marazzi, eds., The Ostrogoths from the Migration Period to the Sixth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Woodbridge, 2006).

2

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3 4

P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley, 1967, 2000).

CHAPTER SIX: REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS, EAST AND WEST 103 [Map 2]

Justinian’s empire in 565 (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 52)

by declaring as official doctrine a Dyophysite (or Chalcedonian) position (i.e., Christ has two natures). Those holding a Miaphysite or Monophysite position (i.e., that Christ has a single, hybrid nature), although they were condemned at the council, found continued support, particularly in Egypt and Syria. This division persisted particularly after these regions were separated from Byzantine rule by the Arab conquests and generated Syrian and Coptic Orthodox churches. While theological divisions and their polities often fell along ethnic and eventually regional lines, the controversies found their way into the capital and into the court. That said, the architectural reflection of the controversy was minimal, with no clear distinctions evident between Miaphysite and Dyophysite (i.e., Byzantine Orthodox, or Chalcedonian) places of worship. Stylistic transformations. In The City of God, Augustine championed Christianity by retelling the history of Rome, detailing the repeated errors of the pagans, and insisting Christians must fully commit themselves to the new religion: our allegiance should not be with the earthly city (represented by Rome) but to the heavenly city (represented by Jerusalem). Augustine and the other church fathers, East and West, were university educated and fully versed in classical culture. In the East, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa were trained in the Academy of Athens. The subtlety of their theology was probably lost on much of their audience, who would have failed to realize that their communication skills depended directly on the rhetorical tradition of their pagan predecessors and teachers. This raises an important issue for our architectural analyses: how dependent was Christian architecture on the classical tradition? Although this question may have been more central to an earlier generation of scholars, who cut their teeth on the classics and were quick to spot renaissances or classical revivals, it still merits consideration.5 E. Kitzinger, “Mosaic Pavements in the Greek East and the Question of a ‘Renaissance’ under Justinian,” in Actes du VIe Congrès International d’Etudes Byzantines, Paris 1948 (Paris, 1951), 209–23; K. Weitzmann, Greek Mythology in Byzantine Art (Princeton, 1951); E. Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (Stockholm, 1960); R.  Krautheimer, “The Architecture of Sixtus III: A FifthCentury Renaissance,” in Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, ed.

5

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While building technology continued unabated, as discussed in the previous chapter, a gradual stylistic change was evident, with a movement away from traditional, classical forms. And although this change cannot be directly attributed to Christianity, we nevertheless find our best evidence of it in church construction. Perhaps most obvious are the changes in the use of the classical orders. In the period of Constantine, use of spolia was standard practice, resulting in colorful and varied interiors, with colonnades of mismatched columns and capitals. Even in a building as significant as the Lateran Basilica, different orders appear side by side in the nave colonnades. Gradually, we see a greater uniformity to the interiors, as in San Paolo fuori le mura or Santa Sabina in Rome. While the reuse of column shafts remained relatively common, a variety of new forms of capitals emerged. In this development, the central areas of Constantinople, Greece, and the Aegean may have led the way, although we find the new forms across the empire, perhaps as a result of the marble trade. The transformation is evident in the ubiquitous Corinthian capital. Its common shape has an inverted bell of acanthus leaves, rising with calyxes on the diagonals to support a four-cornered abacus— effectively making a transition from circle to square.6 By the early fifth century, although a traditional vocabulary of forms was preserved, the carving had become sharp, spiky, and flattened, emphasizing the contrasts of dark and light, which read more as an abstract pattern than as natural forms, as seen in the misnamed “Theodosian” capitals (compare Figs. 6.1A and 6.1B).7 M. Meiss (New York, 1961), 291–302; E. Kitzinger, “The Hellenistic Heritage of Byzantine Art,” DOP 17 (1963), 95–115; W. Treadgold, Renaissances before the Renaissance: Cultural Revivals of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Stanford, 1984); B. Kiilerich, Late Fourth Century Classicism in the Plastic Arts: Studies in the So-Called Theodosian Renaissance (Odense, 1993); and more recently, A. Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition (Cambridge, 2007). E.  Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the Making (Cambridge, 1977), 76–80; R. Kautsch, Kapitellstudien: Beiträge zu einer Geschichte des spätantiken Kapitells im Osten vom vierten bis ins siebente Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1936).

6

A recent discussion of this transformation is found in D. Kinney, “Architectural Sculpture,” in The Red Monastery Church: Beauty and Asceticism in Upper Egypt, ed. E. S. Bolman (New Haven, 2016), 79–94.

7

FIGURE 6.1 Transformation of the classical orders: (A) Corinthian capital from Ostia; (B) so-called Theodosian capital from the Achieropoiitos Basilica, Thessalonike; (C) two-zoned capital with griffins and impost block, from the Basilica Eufrasiana, Poreč; (D) wind-blown capital from Qal’at Sem’an; (E) wind-blown capital with impost from Sant’Apollinare in Classe; (F) Corinthian capital with impost, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna (author, Wikimedia Commons, and Michael Waters)

While nevertheless maintaining the transition from round base to square abacus, many variations enter the formal vocabulary. Spiky acanthus leaves may be organized rigidly into two zones; animal-headed protomes—bulls, lions, eagles, griffins—might replace the upper zone, while retaining the basic structure—for example, diagonal heads replace the calyxes and axial heads replace the bosses (Fig. 6.1C). By the second half of the fifth century, a curious variation, the wind-blown capital, appears, detailed as if the acanthus leaves had been hit by a sudden gust of wind (Figs. 6.1D and 6.1E). Many of these variations appear inventive, if not mannered. In other examples, the acanthus leaves were reduced and simplified to leather-like forms, sometimes losing their natural appearance completely, transformed from something organic and resilient into something abstract and blocky (Fig. 6.1F). The latter may be

the result of a loss of understanding of the transitional function of the capital in the classical elevation. Perhaps indicative (or a result) of this is the emergence of the impost block, which sits above the capital. Already in Santa Costanza, the coupled columns support radial entablatures, from which the arches spring—that is, adding an extra element between the capital and the arch (see Fig. 3.13). Perhaps there was some reluctance to have the arches spring directly from the capital and the impost block represents a vestige of the traditional entablature. Whatever the reason for its introduction, the impost block effectively replaced the capital as the transitional element, reducing the capital to mere decoration. As it became an area of carved decoration, the impost block gradually fused with the capital proper. By the fifth century we find the Ionic impost capital in a variety of locations; here the

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FIGURE 6.2 Transformation of the classical orders, continued: (A) Ionic impost capital, Katopoliani, Paros; (B) Ionic import capital, Lechaion Basilica, Corinth; (C) Ionic impost capital, gallery of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, Constantinople; (D) so-called melon capital, lower level, Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, Constantinople; (E) Composite impost capital, Hagia Sophia, Constantinople; (F) impost capital with impost, San Vitale, Ravenna (author and Michael Waters)

structure of the Composite capital seems somehow inverted, with the volutes at the bottom, rather than the top. Nevertheless, the Ionic impost capital proved popular and was commonly used in gallery colonnades (Figs. 6.2A–C). Ultimately, by the early sixth century, as in the lower register of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, we find the impost capital introduced, whose melon-like shape is flattened, abstracted, and heavily undercut, but nevertheless still recalls the classical Corinthian capital’s transition from circular base to square abacus (Fig. 6.2D). At Hagia Sophia, impost capitals featured the details of the Composite order, with the basket of spiky acanthus leaves topped by emphasized volutes (Fig. 6.2E). Elsewhere we find impost capitals illogically topped by imposts (Fig. 6.2F). In short, if we can take the parts to represent the whole, it would appear that within the course of the fifth into the 106

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early sixth century, architecture has moved well beyond the classical vocabulary. Along with the changes in architectural vocabularies came the development of regional idioms across the Mediterranean. What follows is intended as a survey of the regional characteristics of architecture in the fifth century. Constantinople and Greece. Little remains of the churches of Constantinople before the sixth century. The Church of the Theotokos of Chalkoprateia, just west of Hagia Sophia, founded sometime in the fifth century and famed for housing the girdle of the Virgin, is known from limited remains.8 It was similar in most details to St. John Stoudios, including its construction technique and even a cruciform crypt below the altar. An octagonal chapel off the atrium is usually identi8

Mathews, Early Churches of Constantinople, 28–33.

FIGURE 6.3 Constantinople, pre-Justinianic Hagia Sophia, reconstruction of propylon (A. M. Schneider, Die Hagia Sophia zu Konstatinopel, 1939)

fied as a baptistery. The most important of the churches dedicated to the Theotokos, the Church of Blachernae, located in the northern corner of the city, is known only from descriptions, but it must have been similar.9 The pre-Justinianic Hagia Sophia, founded ca. 360, subsequently rebuilt after a fire of 404 and rededicated in 415, seems to have been a large, five-aisled basilica, of which only elements of the monumental propylon (entry gate) remain (Fig. 6.3).10 Much more is preserved in mainland Greece, which reveals affiliations with both Constantinople and the West. At Epidauros, a five-aisled basilica was built, ca. 400 (Fig. 6.4). The construction technique is poor—only the foundations survive— but the scale is large, approximately 60 by 46 meters. Preceded by an atrium and propylon, it terminates in a divided transept that frames the bema. C. Mango, “The Origins of the Blachernae Shrine at Constantinople,” in Acta XIII Congressus Internationalis Archaeologiae Christianae, eds. N. Cambi and E. Marin (Vatican City and Split, 1998), 61–76. 9

10 W. Kleiss, “Beobachtungen in der Hagia Sophia in Istanbul,” IstMitt 15 (1965): 168–85; Mathews, Early Churches of Constantinople, 11–19.

FIGURE 6.4 Epidauros, basilica, plan (redrawn after R. Krautheimer, ECBA, 1986)

Although it is enveloped by subsidiary structures, including a baptistery, forms remain relatively simple. Perhaps most impressive in southern Greece is the great three-aisled Basilica of St. Leonidas at Lechaion, the western port of Corinth and the metropolitan see of Greece, built ca. 450–60 (Fig. 6.5). In many ways, it recalls the architecture of Constantinople, both in its opus mixtum construction technique and in its opulence, with marble paving, revetments, and elegant capitals. Its plan is elongated, however, perhaps reflecting Corinth’s connections to the West, as it was under the jurisdiction of the pope in Rome. The complex

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FIGURE 6.5 Corinth-Lechaion, basilica, aerial view from the northwest (Ephoreia of Antiquities of Corinthia, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Fund of Archaeological Proceeds)

includes a forecourt and a semicircular atrium preceding the basilica, measuring 186 meters overall. It is unclear if it had a gallery. A tripartite transept frames the bema, similar to Epidauros but on a larger scale, with great piers at its corners, and evidence of its furnishings is preserved. The bema included both thrones in the curvature of the apse and lateral benches for the clergy. The baptistery was part of a freestanding complex to the north. In the north of Greece, Thessalonike emerged as a major center, with close connections to Constantinople. For example, the well-preserved Church of the Acheiropoietos, built ca. 450–70, shares many similarities with the Stoudios basilica: three aisled with a broad nave and short proportions, with a gallery above the side aisles and narthex, with marble pavements and mosaic decoration and broad windows (Figs. 6.6–6.8).11 Construction is of brick, mixed with bands of rough stone. The lower columns have spiky acanCh. Papakyriakou, “Acheiropoietos,” in Impressions: Byzantine Thessaloniki through the Photographs and Drawings of the British School at Athens (1888–1910), ed. A. Mentzos (Thessalonike, 2012), 64–80. 11

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thus capitals surmounted by impost blocks; the gallery has Ionic impost capitals. Although the roof has been altered, investigations indicate that there was originally a clerestory. The sanctuary has lost its original furnishings, while cuttings in the nave colonnades indicate the side aisle was closed off by parapets—suggesting that the nave was reserved for the clergy, with the congregation relegated to the side aisles and gallery—or possibly the congregation was subdivided for reasons that are unclear. The major undertaking in fifthcentury Thessalonike was the Basilica of St. Demetrius (discussed in Chap. 4). Built on the site of a bath where the Roman soldier was said to have met his martyrdom, the church was apparently begun in the second half of the century, closely contemporaneous with the Acheiropoietos, but with a more elaborate plan, measuring 55 meters in length. Several early basilicas are preserved on the Greek islands. At Mastichari on Kos, a small but elegant three-aisled basilica of the fifth century was dedicated to St. John, its nave measuring 15.5 by 30.5 meters (Fig. 6.9). While it is best known for its floor mosaics, it preserved much information about its liturgical usage: the eastern portion

FIGURE 6.6 Thessalonike, Acheiropoietos, view from the southeast (author)

of the nave formed the sanctuary, isolated by a templon, with a ciborium above the altar and a three-stepped synthronon in the apse. An ambo stood at the center of the nave. To the north, an anteroom with benches (probably a waiting room for catechumens) led to an octagonal baptistery. Rooms to the south seem to have had liturgical functions as well, equipped with benches and an offering table.12 Other sites in Greece are also well represented in fifth- and early sixth-century architecture, with churches almost exclusively of the basilican type, although most are little more than excavated foundations. Nikopolis, Nea Anchialos, and Amphipolis all preserve significant remains, with evidence of liturgical furnishings, including the synthronon, templon, and ambo, with slight variations (Fig. 6.10). Basilica A at Philippi measured 29 by 44 meters overall, with a transept framing the sanctuary and barriers isolating the side aisles. It was preceded by a double atrium and nymphaeum; stairs connect to the main overland route, the Via

S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans from Diocletian to Süleyman the Magnificent (New Haven, 2010), 163–65.

12

Egnatia, immediately to the south (Fig. 6.11).13 Unusually, the cathedral at Philippi, rebuilt in the early fifth century, is octagonal. Dedicated to St. Paul, who preached at Philippi, it was preceded by a small church built in the early fourth century, added immediately adjacent to a pagan heroon, whose platform was apparently transformed into a Christian cult building, perhaps associated with Paul’s presence in the city (Fig. 6.12). A large complex grew around the heroon, including a baptistery, the bishop’s residence, a bath building, and a guesthouse.14 More unusual is a centrally planned church at Amphipolis, with a hexagonal core, probably from the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century (Fig. 6.13). Asia Minor. The coastal cities of Asia Minor are equally productive in this period. At Ephesus, the Church of St. Mary reused substantial portions of the walls and foundations of an older 13 P. Lemerle, Philippes et la Macédoine Orientale à l’époque chrétienne et byzantine (Paris, 1945), 281–412; Ch. Koukouli-Chrysanthaki and Ch. Bakirtzis, Philippi (Athens, 1995), 29–32. 14 Koukouli-Chrysanthaki and Bakirtzis, Philippi, 49–57; see also analysis by Johnson, San Vitale, 51–59.

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FIGURE 6.7 Thessalonike, Acheiropoietos, plan and elevation (redrawn after R. Krautheimer, ECBA, 1986)

forum building in a three-aisled basilica of substantial length, approximately 85 meters. Usually dated to the early fifth century, this is thought to be where the Ecumenical Council met in 431 to declare the Virgin Mary Theotokos, or “she who begets God,” recognizing the hypostatic union of human and divine in Christ.15 Preceded by an atrium with an octagonal baptistery attached, the church was substantially rebuilt in later centuries (Fig. 6.14). Construction is of coursed brick and ashlar, with brick vaults over the minor spaces. See most recently N. Karydis, Early Byzantine Vaulted Construction in Churches of the Western Coastal Plains and River Valleys of Asia Minor (Oxford, 2011), 4–8.

The Church of St. John the Evangelist (discussed in Ch. 4) is similar in its construction. A number of substantial basilicas are found along the south coast of Asia Minor as well. Little remains of the Basilica of St. Thekla at Meryemlik, built ca. 480, other than a section of the apse, built of neatly squared ashlar. In addition to marking the cave of the saint, the church included two annexed chapels flanking the apse, joined by an eastern wall (Fig. 6.15).16 How these rooms functioned remains unclear. A number of other sites in the region similarly elaborate the eastern end, although the function of the chapels is also un-

15

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16

Hill, Early Churches, 208–25.

FIGURE 6.8 Thessalonike, Acheiropoietos, nave looking north (author)

clear. The well-preserved basilica at Cambazlı, near Olba, probably dates from the second half of the fifth century and has asymmetrical chambers flanking the sanctuary (Fig. 6.16). It measures 29 by 22 meters overall with a nave 14.5 meters wide, with galleries above the side aisles that are still preserved along the south side.17 Construction is of finely squared stone, although the irregularities in plan are difficult to explain. Basilica A at Perge, which may be from the fifth or early sixth century, terminates in an aisled transept, similar to that at Philippi, but as was common along the south coast of Anatolia, additional chambers flank the apse, so that the east wall is flat (Fig. 6.17). Italy and the Adriatic. With the shift of the capital eastward, Italy gradually became a backwater. Because it was lacking political unity, the papacy emerged as the unifying force. In Rome, the major construction after the time of Constantine was the Church of St. Paul’s outside the walls, or San Paolo fuori le mura, begun in 385 (and sub17

Hill, Early Churches, 106–10.

FIGURE 6.9 Mastichari (Kos), Church of St. John (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

stantially rebuilt after the fire of 1823), apparently with imperial benefaction (Figs. 6.18 and 6.19).18 18 Brandenburg, Ancient Churches, 114–30; R. Krautheimer, CBCR 5 (1980), 93–164.

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FIGURE 6.10 Two Greek basilicas. (A) Basilica B at Nikopolis has a tripartite transept; (B) Basilica A (St. Demetrius) at Thebes has apsidal rooms flanking the atrium, a baptistery to the north, and a room for the presentation of gifts to the south (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

A virtual replica of St. Peter’s, it was built above the tomb of the apostle Paul, replacing the small Constantinian church on the site. It introduced a number of significant modifications: the orientation was reversed so that the apse is in the east, as had become common in church architecture; the columns are matched (although spoliated), and the capitals are original and identical, supporting an arcade rather than an entablature. As at St. Peter’s, the altar was fixed above the tomb of the apostle, but the siting was adjusted so that the 112

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tomb and altar were at the front of the transept, beneath the triumphal arch, and this allowed better access to pilgrims, behind the altar in the transept. The transept, narrower and deeper than that at St. Peter’s, is also taller and better integrated with the nave. Like the modified St. Peter’s, it functioned as a combination of parish church and martyrium. Santa Maria Maggiore, built ca. 432–40 under Pope Sixtus III, continued the sort of monumentality found in St. Paul’s, but with a simpler

FIGURE 6.11 Philippi, Basilica A, plan and reconstructed elevation (after P. Lemerle, Philippes et le Macédoine Orientrale, 1945)

FIGURE 6.12 Philippi, cathedral complex, aerial view, with heroon and baptistery to the north (top) of the octagon (after Ch. KoukouliChrysanthaki and Ch. Bakirtzis, Philippi, 1995)

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FIGURE 6.13 Amphipolis, centrally planned church, plan (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

design (Fig. 6.20).19 It maintains the broad nave and is flanked by single side aisles, and the triumphal arch originally opened directly into the apse. Matched columns with Ionic capitals conservatively carry an architrave—actually an arcade covered by a stucco entablature. While we are still uncertain about the interior decoration of earlier churches, that at Santa Maria Maggiore is contemporaneous with the construction, although the present apse mosaic dates to the thirteenth century: pilasters extend above the entablature, framing the windows and forming a grid filled with panels of mosaic decoration. A similar gridded system of wall decoration was subsequently introduced in St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s. For the most part, church construction continued, but on a smaller scale, with the simple, three-aisled basilica predominating. One notable exception is Santo Stefano Rotondo, a monumental, centrally planned church, built ca. 468–83,

a hapax that resists interpretation (Fig. 6.21).20 Laid out on a series of circles, with an overall diameter of 225 Roman feet, the central, circular nave measures 75 Roman feet across and is separated from an ambulatory by a colonnade supporting an architrave, rising into a clerestory, covered either by a wooden roof or a dome of light construction (for units of measure, see Chap. 5). The ambulatory extended into axial chapels on the cross arms and, apparently, the porticoed courtyard on the diagonals—all lavishly decorated. Everything from centrally planned martyria in general to the Holy Sepulchre and garden pavilions in particular has been suggested as possible prototypes. In fact, we know virtually nothing of its original function: while the dedication to St. Stephen is original, the church contained no

Brandenburg, Ancient Churches, 200–15; H. Brandenburg, Die Kirche S. Stefano Rotondo in Rom: Bautypologie und Architektursymbolik in der spätantiken und frühchristlichen Architektur (Berlin, 1998).

20

Brandenburg, Ancient Churches, 176–89; Krautheimer, CBCR 3 (1969), 1–60.

19

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FIGURE 6.14 Ephesus, St. Mary (Theotokos): (top) reconstructed plan of fifth-century church; (bottom) later transformations (after F. Knoll and J. Keil, Marienkirche, 1932; and N. Karydis, Early Byzantine Vaulted Construction, 2011)

relics of its namesake. It may be best viewed as an experiment that found no following.21 Salona on the Adriatic coast, capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia, provides early evidence of Christianization, as well as association with Roman practices. This may be best seen in the memorial complex at Marusinac, which focused on the martyrium of Anastasius, constructed ca. 300, a two-storied structure with distinctive buttresses on the exterior (Fig. 6.22). Its upper floor served for memorial services, while the crypt below held the remains of the saint isolated in the apse, with other family members buried in the nave.22

During the early fifth century, it was incorporated into a much larger complex, with a three-aisled cemetery basilica added ca. 426, which included the martyrium in its atrium. A colonnaded precinct to the north and the irregular space between the two buildings provided additional areas for burial. The main imperial residence in the West shifted to Milan in 353, and the city saw a number of major building projects during the second half of the fourth century.23 In addition to the cathedral and its baptistery, several large basilicas are noteworthy. The Holy Apostles (Basilica Apostol-

21 R. Krautheimer, “Success and Failure in Late Antique Church Planning,” in Age of Spirituality: A Symposium, ed. H.-G. Beck (New York, 1980), 121–39.

Architecture in the Balkans, 59–61, 127–29; and A. M. Yasin, “Reassessing Salona’s Churches: Martyrium Evolution in Question,” JEChrSt 20, no.1 (2012): 59–112.

E.  Dyggve and R.  Egger, eds., Die altchristliche Friedhof Marusinac, Forschungen in Salona, vol. 3 (Vienna, 1939); Ćurčić,

23

22

For an overview, see R. Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals: Topography and Politics (Berkeley, 1983), 68–92.

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FIGURE 6.15 Meyremlik, St. Thekla, plan (after E. Herzfeld and S. Guyer, Meriamlik und Korikos, 1930)

FIGURE 6.16 Cambazlı, basilica, interior, looking west (Anastasios Tantsis)

orum, now substantially incorporated into San Nazaro), begun in 382 by St. Ambrose, was large, cruciform, and single aisled, close to 200 Roman feet long and with a nave 50 Roman feet wide, but with lateral wings rather than a proper transept, separated from it by tribilons (triple arcades), with apsidal niches to either side (Fig. 116

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6.23). The altar lay on axis, however, with relics of the apostles deposited beneath it in a silver casket. San Simpliciano, originally the “Basilica Virginum” dedicated to virgin martyrs, was added later in the fourth century. A variant of the crossshaped plan, it originally had a single-aisled interior, with the exterior façades detailed by arcading. On

FIGURE 6.17 Perge, Basilica A (redrawn after Krautheimer, ECBA, 1986)

FIGURE 6.18 Rome, St. Paul’s fuori le mura, interior looking east before destruction (Giovanni Battista Piranesi, from Wikimedia Commons)

a similarly grand scale, the nave was 200 Roman feet long and nearly 75 Roman feet wide. Both churches were constructed of brick, following local practice, and both were set outside the walls in association with Christian cemeteries. The selection of cruciform plans requires some explanation. Does San Simpliciano follow the model of St. Peter’s in Rome—as the original dedication to martyrs and position outside the walls might suggest?24 Does Holy Apostles follow

the model of its namesake in Constantinople? The answer to both questions is probably both yes and no. The cross arms at San Simpliciano may provide better access to the sanctuary—something we see in several Greek churches in this period—while those at the Holy Apostles seem to be an extraneous addition. Symbolically, if not functionally, however, they may draw meaning from the earlier churches.

See  S.  Lewis, “Function and Symbolic Form in the Basilica Apostolorum at Milan,” JSAH 28 (1969): 83–98; S. Lewis, “The

Latin Iconography of the Single-Naved Cruciform Basilica Apostolorum in Milan,” ArtB 51, no. 3 (1969): 205–19.

24

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117

FIGURE 6.19 Rome, St. Paul’s fuori le mura, isometric section (after H. Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome, 2004)

FIGURE 6.20 Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore, interior, looking east (Michael Waters)

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FIGURE 6.21 Rome, Santo Stefano Rotondo, interior view (Lalupa, Wikimedia Commons)

FIGURE 6.22 Salona-Marusinac, funerary complex, archaeological plan and reconstructed view (after E. Dyggve and R. Egger, Die altchristliche Friedhof Marusinac, 1939)

6.23 Milan, Basilica Apostolorum, reconstructed plan (redrawn after S. Lewis, JSAH, 1969) FIGURE

Unique in Milan is the Church of San Lorenzo, with the attached Chapel of Sant’Aquilino, constructed sometime between 352 and 375 (Figs. 6.24–6.26).25 The church is laid out on an aisled tetraconch plan, with the central quatrefoil enveloped by aisles and galleries in an elegant double-shell arrangement. Towers rose above the four corners framing the central tower. Com25 Krautheimer and Ćurčić, ECBA, 4th ed., 78–81; W. E. Kleinbauer, “‘Aedita in Turribus’: The Superstructure of the Early Christian Church of S. Lorenzo in Milan,” Gesta, vol. 15, no. 1/2 (1976): 1–9; D.  Kinney, “The Evidence for the Dating of S.  Lorenzo in Milan,” JSAH 31, no. 2 (1972): 92–107.

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FIGURE 6.24 Milan, San Lorenzo with Chapel of Sant’Aquilino, view from the southeast (author)

6.25 Milan, San Lorenzo with Chapel of Sant’Aquilino, plan (after W. E. Kleinbauer, DOP, 1977) FIGURE

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FIGURE 6.26 Milan, San Lorenzo with Chapel of Sant’Aquilino, interior view (Michael Waters)

pletely remodeled with a new dome in the Renaissance, certain original elements are difficult to reconstruct. How was the space covered? By a dome or a groin vault of light material or a wooden trussed roof? Where was the altar? Massive foundations excavated beneath the floor suggest it may have been centrally positioned. More troubling are the questions of why and for whom it was constructed. While the elegance of its design suggests imperial benefaction, it was not a palace church. The octagonal chapel attached to the south poses similar problems. Curiously, the chapel has a plan identical to the baptistery at the cathedral, octagonal with alternating rectangular and semicircular niches set into its walls. But it was a mausoleum, not a baptistery, probably for an imperial burial, and was quite similar to the imperial mausoleum that once stood near the Church of San Vittore.26 With the disturbances of the fourth century, the imperial residence was shifted to Ravenna in 402, near the Adriatic coast, with its port at nearby Classe, protected by the surrounding

swamps.27 Following the collapse of imperial administration, the city came under the control of the Ostrogoths, who followed the established model of patronage and leadership and saw themselves as part of the Byzantine oikoumene. Like Milan, Ravenna also acquired a cruciform church, with more explicit symbolism, however, as it was dedicated to Santa Croce—the Holy Cross (see Fig. 3.16).28 It is now in ruins, made famous by the so-called Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, empress of the West, originally attached to its broad narthex. Also cruciform, the mausoleum’s dome mosaic features the apparition of the cross against a starry sky, emphasizing its symbolism. Like Milan, the standard construction of Ravenna is brick, often reused Roman brick. Although built originally by Theodoric, the Ostrogothic ruler, ca. 490, the Church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo (originally dedicated to Christ) fits well into the picture of architectural production in fifth-century northern Italy (Figs. 6.27 and 6.28).29 The three-aisled basilica once 27

26

Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum, 156–67.

Deliyannis, Ravenna, 46–48.

28

Deliyannis, Ravenna, 70–84.

29

Deliyannis, Ravenna, 146–74.

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FIGURE 6.27 Ravenna, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo and elevation, plan (after D. Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity, 2010; and G. Bovini, Ravenna, 1971)

FIGURE 6.28. Ravenna, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, interior, looking southeast (Megan Boomer)

stood next to Theodoric’s palatial residence, which is known from limited archaeological remains and served as his palace church. While 122

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many of its features are standard, two aspects of its decoration are noteworthy, as they reflect the breakdown of the classical decorative system. The

FIGURE 6.29 Djémila, double church complex, seen from the north, with walls of opus africanum (Nathan Dennis)

first is a detail that is the appearance of impost blocks above the capitals of the nave arcade, already discussed. The other transition takes place in the mosaic decoration of the nave: along the lateral walls, the grid system—still employed in the window zone and above—is replaced by a continuous frieze, representing processions of male and female martyrs moving from west to east. While reflecting the processional character of the liturgy, the processions are set topographically: the men march from Theodoric’s Palace toward an enthroned Christ; the women march from the port of Classe toward an enthroned Virgin. While those represented are part of the replacement of “Arian” imagery under Justinian, the limited physical evidence suggests that some sort of precession was represented there originally as well.30 North Africa. North Africa in this period, including areas of what is now Tunisia, Algeria, and

30 A.  Urbano, “Donation, Dedication, and Damnatio Memoriae: The Catholic Reconciliation of Ravenna and the Church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo,” JEChrSt 12, no. 1 (2005): 71–110.

Libya, was closely connected to Italy.31 Captured by the Vandals in 427 and recaptured by the Byzantines in 534, neither the political fate nor the religious controversies of the region are registered in the architecture, at least until the Arabs arrived in 647. Within that broad period, however, the chronology is difficult to sort out; the Vandals were heretical followers of Arianism and may simply have modified existing churches rather than build new ones. The cult of the martyrs was strong throughout the region, with tombs often beneath the altar, sometimes in accessible crypts. Occasionally a counter-apse was introduced, sometimes to separate the liturgical and martyrial foci, but sometimes with other functions. Many had a sanctuary or other focus centrally positioned in the nave. A variety were constructed on a north–south axis rather than east–west, which was standard elsewhere. Construction is commonly of opus africanum, with small coursed stone strengthened by large upright and horizontal stones (Fig. 6.29).

31 J. P. Burns and R. M. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of Its Practices and Beliefs (Grand Rapids, 2014), 87–293.

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FIGURE 6.30 Carthage, plans of two extramural basilicas: (A) Basilica Majorum; (B) Memoria Cypriani (St. Monica) (after L. Ennabli, Carthage, 1997)

Carthage was the largest city in the Western Mediterranean after Rome and the major port of North Africa, although it is poorly preserved in the archaeological record. Moreover, it is often difficult to connect sites mentioned in the historical record with excavated remains.32 Nevertheless, a number of large extramural churches seem to date from the early period, including those identified as the Basilica Majorum and the Memoria Cypriani (or St. Monica), both cemetery churches and both sites of Augustine’s preaching (Fig. 6.30). The first was a huge, nine-aisled building, measuring 61 by 45 meters, with an apsed chapel at its center, said to contain the relics of Perpetua. The second was seven aisled, was slightly smaller, and had a centrally positioned sanctuary, although the nave terminates in an apse and is preceded by an atrium. At Damous el-Karita, outside Carthage, the huge, 65- by 45-meter, nine-aisled basilica seems to have been a cemetery basilica as well, oriented to the west, perhaps late 32

L. Ennabli, Carthage, une metropole chrétienne (Paris, 1997).

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fourth century in date (Fig. 6.31).33 It was preceded by a semicircular atrium with a triconch chapel on axis. A cross-axis was introduced into the basilica at a later date, with its own apse and entrance. Both nave and transept were lined with coupled columns. Poorly excavated, the elevation remains unclear. Additional constructions to the east include a second basilica and a baptistery, and the ensemble terminates in a memorial rotunda preceded by a sigma portico—all perhaps comprising a pilgrimage center. In all, throughout North Africa, architecture remains conservative, with regular reference to Constantinian forms. At Tebessa (Theveste), a three-aisled basilica with galleries was built ca. 390, preceded by an atrium with a propylon and monumental stair-

H. Dolenz and H. Baldus, Damous-el-Karita. Die österreichischtunesischen Ausgrabungen der Jahre 1996 und 1997 im Saalbau und der Memoria des Pilgerheiligtums Damous-el-Karita in Karthago (Vienna, 2001).

33

FIGURE 6.31 Carthage, Damous el-Karita, cemetery basilica and pilgrimage complex (after H. Dolenz and H. Baldus, Damous-el-Karita, 2001)

FIGURE 6.32 Tebessa, pilgrimage complex at the shrine of St. Crispina (after J. Lassus, CorsiRav, 1970)

case at its entrance (Figs. 6.32 and 6.33).34 A triconch martyr’s chapel to the south seems to have preceded the construction of the basilica by a few decades, probably that of the martyr Crispina, who was martyred ca. 304 and was popular across North Africa. Piers and columns were coupled as the nave supports—a feature common in North Africa, perhaps reflecting Roman precedents, with the piers supporting arches and the columns bearing entablatures, not unlike the façade of the I.  Gui, N.  Duval, and J.-P.  Caillet, eds., Basiliques chrétiennes d’Afrique du Nord, vol. 1 (Paris, 1992).

Colosseum in Rome. The side aisles were separated from the nave by parapets, and the bema projected deep into the nave. By the sixth century, the complex had become an enormous fortified monastery with facilities for visiting pilgrims. Many sites developed large ecclesial complexes. At Djémila (Cuicul), an enormous Christian quarter developed in the early fifth century, including two basilicas side by side, one of them five aisled with doubled supports in the nave and a monumental, centrally planned baptistery.35 At

34

35

J. Lassus, “La basilique africaine,” CorsiRav 17 (1970): 217–34.

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Sbeitla (Sufetula), a similarly elaborate cathedral complex developed over time (Fig. 6.34).36 Of the ecclesiastical structures, the easternmost, the Church of Bellator is the oldest, probably dating from the late fourth century. Originally, it had a single apse to the south, with the sanctuary set at the center of the nave; the counter-apse was added in a later phase and subsequently became the liturgical focus. To the west, a small apsed baptistery (or Chapel of Jucundus) stood in a peristyle court; it was covered over as the complex expanded to the west. The five-aisled, double-apsed Basilica of Vitalis was added at the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century, with the new baptistery to the south of the main, south apse (see Fig. 3.10), as well as housing and amenities for the clergy. The main altar stood toward the center of the nave but was subsequently shifted southward, as a second altar was incorporated into the northern apse, where an important tomb lay. Both basilicas utilized doubled columnar supports; construction throughout is opus africanum.

FIGURE 6.33 Tebessa, pilgrimage complex at the shrine of St. Crispina, view across the nave (Nathan Dennis)

36

FIGURE 6.34 Sbeitla, cathedral complex, plan and reconstructed view (after N. Duval and F. Baratte, Ruines de Sufetula, 1973)

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N. Duval and F. Baratte, Les ruines de Sufetula: Sbeïtla (Tunis, 1973).

FIGURE 6.35 Qalb Lozeh, church, view from the southeast (Frank Kidner, Frank Kidner Photographs 1983–1999, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC)

FIGURE 6.36 Qalb Lozeh, axonometric reconstruction (from G. Tchalenko, Églises de village de la Syrie du nord, 1979–80)

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FIGURE 6.37 Qalb Lozeh, interior, looking east (Frank Kidner, Frank Kidner Photographs 1983–1999, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC)

Syria, Palestine, and Jordan. Cut stone construction dominates the architecture of Syria. The church at Qalb Lozeh, built ca. 450, is a characteristic example (Figs. 6.35–6.37). Three aisled, the nave is divided from the side aisles by low piers supporting broad arches. Opened by portals to the exterior, the aisles terminate in chambers, one of which connects to the bema, perhaps a diakonikon; the other does not and is perhaps a reliquary chamber.37 The narthex is flanked by towers, with their lower rooms accessible from the interior. The side aisles are covered by flat slabs of stone; only the nave had a timber roof, its span narrowed by brackets supporting colonnettes in the clerestory zone. Most distinctive in the architecture is the carved stone decoration. String courses, molded with classical profiles, form a continuous band on the exterior, wrapping around windows and doors. Doors have heavy frames with carved decoration, and the arcades of the interior are also heavily carved. The exterior of the apse is enlivened by two ranges of G. Tchalenko, Églises de village de la Syrie du nord (Paris, 1979– 80); H. C. Butler, Early Churches in Syria, 4th to 7th Centuries (Amsterdam, 1969), 71–73; E. Loosley, The Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema in Fourth-to-Sixth-Century Syrian Churches (Leiden, 2012); A.  Michel, Les églises d’époque byzantine et umayyade de Jordanie (provinces d’Arabie et de Palestine) Ve-VIIIe siècle: Typologie architecturale et aménagements liturgiques (avec catalogue des monuments) (Turnhout, 2001). 37

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bracketed columns. With the exception of the pier supports in the nave, these distinctive features also characterize the pilgrimage church at Qal’at Sem’an, built a few decades later. These characteristic details are found at a variety of sites in the Limestone Massif: Kharab Shams and Mushabbak also preserve significant late fourthand fifth-century basilicas, but (like Qal’at Sem’an) with columnar supports (see Fig. 5.8).38 Resafa also preserves several basilicas and will be discussed in Chapter 7. Developments in Palestine and Jordan are dominated by the increasing number of holy sites associated with biblical events. Many took on central plans, as at the octagonal martyrium at the House of St. Peter, already noted, or the Kathisma Church near Jerusalem and its copy on Mt. Gerizim (to be discussed in Chap. 8), but the basilica continues to be the standard plan. At Taghba on Lake Tiberias, a site associated with Christ’s Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, a basilica with a transept was constructed in the late fifth century, with the transept focusing on the bema, rather than having a martyrium function (Fig. 6.38).39 At Scythopolis (Bet She’an), the remains of a unique round church were excavated 38

Tchalenko, Églises; Butler, Early Churches.

J.  W.  Crowfoot, Early Churches in Palestine (London, 1937), 73–77.

39

FIGURE 6.38 Tabgha, Church of the Multiplication of Loaves, plan (after J. W. Crowfoot, Early Churches in Palestine, 1937)

FIGURE 6.39 Bet She’an, Round Church, plan (after G. M. Fitzgerald, Beth-Shan Excavations, 1931)

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FIGURE 6.40 (A) Hammath Tiberias, synagogue, proposed reconstruction; (B) Beth Alpha, synagogue, plan (after M. Dothan, Hammath Tiberias, 1983; and E. L. Sukenik, Ancient Synagogue, 1932)

on the citadel. Perhaps dedicated to St. John, it may be dated to the latter part of the fifth century (Fig. 6.39).40 As at et-Taghba, the wall construction was of rough ashlar. The central area measures approximately 27 meters in diameter—certainly too broad a span for the columns to support. We should entertain the possibility that the central area was unroofed, forming a sort of memorial precinct, similar to that at Salona. At Gerasa (Jerash) the cathedral was built near the city center ca. 400 (or slightly earlier) on a three-aisled plan, accessed from the cardo to the east, and thus was provided with an eastern atrium, with stairs and a gateway leading from the street and porticoes flanking the basilica.41 Decorated with marbles and mosaics, its bema G. M. Fitzgerald, Beth-Shan Excavations 1921–23: the Arab and Byzantine Levels (Philadelphia, 1931); Crowfoot, Early Churches, 99–100; D. Nocera, “The Round Church at Beth Shean,” Expedition 55, no. 1 (2013): 16–20.

40

C. H. Kraeling, Gerasa, City of the Decapolis (New Haven, 1938); B. Brenk, Die Christianisierung der spätrömischen Welt (Wiesbaden, 2003), 10–24.

41

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follows the models of the Aegean. By the end of the fifth century, the complex was expanded with a second basilica, dedicated to St. Theodore (ca. 494–96), on an axis uphill to the east, with a fountain court in between (see Figs. 7.19–7.21). Synagogue architecture. In Palestine in particular, synagogues developed in tandem with church architecture. Following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 ce, worship among the Jews saw the replacement of sacrifice with prayer and communal worship in synagogues, both within Palestine and beyond. In the Late Antique period, synagogues developed in tandem with church architecture. Rather than an altar, however, the focus was a Torah shrine, oriented toward Jerusalem, containing the scrolls of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The service consisted of a series of blessings and prayers, with congregational responses, followed by instruction, with readings from the Torah and a sermon. In the early synagogue, all were performed by members of the congregation. Like the early example at Dura Europos, synagogues were assembly halls, commonly rectangular,

FIGURE 6.41 (A) Antinoopolis, south basilica, plan; (B) Kellis (Dakhla Oasis), Southeast Church, plan (after P. Grossmann, Christliche Architektur in Ägypten, 2002)

often with a forecourt, although they could take on a variety of forms (see Fig. 1.4).42 The fourthcentury synagogue at Hammath Tiberias, for example, is a broadhouse, subdivided by aisles, with an extra aisle on the east side. Entered from the north, its nave is oriented toward Jerusalem to the south (Fig. 6.40A). Lavish floor mosaics include a wheel of the zodiac in the nave. Immediately in front of the Torah shrine (which is completely destroyed) was a mosaic representation of the Ark of the Covenant, flanked by menorahs and other ritual objects—indicating the synagogue as the symbolic replacement of the Temple. The sixth-century synagogue at Capernaum presents another variation, its south wall opened L. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (New Haven, 2000); M. J. White, Building God’s House; J. Magness, The Archaeology of the Holy Land from the Destruction of Solomon’s Temple to the Muslim Conquest (Cambridge, 2012), esp. 286–319.

42

by three doors, flanking two Torah shrines (see Fig. 4.14). With its entrances and its orientation on the same wall, a worshipper would have to turn completely around upon entering. The central nave was flanked by side aisles and galleries. Lavishly decorated with sculpture, the building also included a courtyard to its east. When it was discovered, the synagogue was dated to the second or third century ce, but archaeology now clearly indicates a sixth-century date—perhaps replacing an earlier building on the same site. Sometimes the examples of synagogues from the fifth and sixth centuries follow the model of contemporary churches. The plan at Beth Alpha synagogue, for example, resembles that of a Byzantine church, its three-aisled basilican nave preceded by an atrium and narthex and terminating in an apse, oriented toward Jerusalem, which contained the Torah shrine (Fig. 6.40B). Its floor mosaics also include a wheel of the zodiac and an image of the Tabernacle.

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6.42 Sohag, Red Monastery Church, isometric reconstruction of the east end (N. Warner. Reproduced by permission of the American Research Center in Egypt. This project was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID]) FIGURE

Outside Israel, synagogues have been excavated at a variety of sites. At Sardis and Ostia, for example, the synagogues took on radically different plans, both incorporated into existing structures. The synagogue at Sardis is an elongated room (80 meters long) flanking the palestra in the bath–gymnasium complex, modified toward the end of the third century ce to serve Jewish worship and remodeled ca. 360–80. That at Ostia seems to have been a private residence, transformed in the first century ce although preserved in its fourth- to fifth-century form; its main hall is approximately 15 by 12.5 meters, augmented by a triclinium and a kitchen. For the synagogues of the diaspora, their plans were determined more by local customs than by established norms. Egypt. Alexandria was the major cultural center of Late Antique Egypt. The city was of prime importance as the site of the martyrium of St. Mark and as a major center of culture and commerce connected to Rome and Constantinople. Although virtually nothing is preserved in the city itself, we can imagine the dissemination of 132

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architectural forms and ideas through Alexandria, where they blended with local traditions. The developments at fifth- and sixth-century Abu Mena, discussed in Chapter 4, indicate both the popularity of pilgrimage and the far-reaching cultural connections maintained in Egypt through this period. Indeed, it would be hard to discuss the variety of architecture at Abu Mena within a solely regional context.43 Within Lower Egypt, Early Christian monuments are preserved only along the Mediterranean coast, but there are a number of important sites in Upper Egypt, both along the Nile and in the western oases. With its sizeable Christian population, some of the largest churches in the Eastern Mediterranean are preserved in Egypt.

43 P. Grossmann, Christliche Architektur in Ägypten (Leiden, 2002); and P. Grossman, “Early Christian Architecture in Egypt and Its Relationship to the Architecture of the Byzantine World,” in Egypt in the Byzantine World 300–700, ed. R. Bagnall (Cambridge, 2007), 103–36.

FIGURE 6.43 Sohag, Red Monastery Church, interior view, southwest lobe of the triconch (A. Vescovo. Reproduced by permission of the American Research Center in Egypt. This project was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID])

For church architecture, the basilica dominates, usually with rooms flanking the eastern apse and a western narthex, although the entrances are commonly on the lateral sides. Particularly in the Upper Egyptian examples, colonnades extend across the nave, forming aisles at the western and eastern ends, with an effect of enclosure not unlike that of a forum basilica; the eastern aisle was set aside for the clergy. Similar versions are found on both large and small scales, as in the South Church at Antinoopolis (approximately 22 by 60 meters) or the Southeast Church at Kellis in the Dakhla Oasis (Fig. 6.41). This feature is more common in Upper Egypt, while the western return aisle appears in several churches along the Mediterranean, as at

the carefully constructed, three-aisled North Basilica at Abu Mena, as well as in in monastic churches, as at the church of the White and Red Monasteries near Sohag. A notable feature in the churches of both the Red and the White Monasteries at Sohag is the trefoil sanctuary articulated with columnar screens and niches—in effect borrowing from the language of public architecture for the most private interior space of the church (Figs. 6.42 and 6.43; and see Fig. 3.22).44 A similar if less articuD. Kinney, “The Type of the Triconch Basilica,” in The Red Monastery Church: Beauty and Asceticism in Upper Egypt, ed. E. S. Bolman (New Haven, 2016), 37–48.

44

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6.44 Hermopolis Magna, Great Basilica, plan (after P. Grossmann, Christliche Architektur in Ägypten, 2002) FIGURE

lated triconch had appeared in the church in the Hathor Temple at Dendyra, and niches or columns occasionally articulate the curvature in singleapsed churches elsewhere. The recently restored painting of the Red Monastery triconch gives some sense of the colorful interiors.45 Scale is also an important factor. In addition to its sophisticated plan with an aisled transept, the Great Basilica at Abu Mena has a nave more than 14 meters wide, making it the largest surviving church in the region (see Figs. 4.11 and 4.12). Although the aisled transept is an unusual feature, a variation of it is found at Hermopolis Magna (alAshmunayn) (Fig. 6.44). The episcopal church, probably from the early fifth century, was built on the remains of a third-century bce royal cult building, delimited by its surviving enclosure walls. With a monumental entrance, its grand atrium was subdivided by porticoes. The church proper is a three-aisled basilica with reused granite colonnades surrounding the nave, extending across the western wall and into the transept arms, which are exedral in form. Several rooms flank the E. S. Bolman, ed., The Red Monastery Church: Beauty and Asceticism in Upper Egypt (New Haven, 2016). 45

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apse, including a rectangular baptistery in the northeast corner. One of the largest churches in Egypt, the basilica is 65 meters long, with a nave 14.5 meters wide. A similar colonnaded apsidal transept is found at Marea in northern Egypt.

* Although standardized church basilicas continued to be constructed across the empire, by the end of the fifth century, two important trends had emerged in church architecture: the centralized plan, into which a longitudinal axis was introduced, and the longitudinal plan, into which a centralizing element was introduced. The first type may be represented by the Church of the Theotokos on Mt. Gerizim, ca. 484, which has a developed sanctuary bay projecting beyond an aisled octagon with radiating chapels; the second may be represented by the so-called Domed Basilica at Mereyemlik, ca. 471–94, which superimposed a dome on a standard basilican nave. Both may be attributed to the patronage of the emperor Zeno (r. 474–91). Both trends are further developed during the reign of Justinian, which we shall return to in subsequent chapters.

CHAPTER SEVEN

,

SECULAR ARCHITECTURE Cities, Houses, and Fortifications

T

he two centuries following Constantine witnessed both continuity and change in the urban landscape, as well as in secular architecture more generally. The expansion of Constantinople with palaces, fora, harbors, aqueducts, cisterns, and an impressive system of fortifications represents Byzantine urbanism par excellence. At the same time, many long-established cities, such as Ephesus, reflect urban continuity from classical times. The empire remained predominantly urban through the sixth century, although changes were made in urban centers to give prominence to Christian structures. Justinian’s new foundations give some sense of both the endurance and the demise of Late Antique urban planning principles. Many cities were provided with a new set of fortifications. As will be discussed in Chapter 10, Justinian (and we can assume other builder-emperors) was concerned not just with church construction, but also with providing for the stability of the empire and the continuation of civic life.

* Constantinople. By the late fifth century, Constantinople seems to have achieved its peak population of approximately four hundred thousand—less than half the size of Rome at its

height, the result of urban expansion after Constantine, who had established the basic armature of streets and public spaces, put his personal stamp on the city, and situated it within the millennial narrative of Roman history (Fig. 7.1). It remained for his successors to fill in the map, most notably adding the urban necessities. But it seems to have filled out quickly through the first century, expanding outward with a new line of walls added by Theodosius II in 412–13, 1.5 kilometers west of Constantine’s walls (see Fig. 2.3).1 An inventory of ca. 425, known as the Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae, itemizes the urban features: within the city’s fourteen regions, there were 5 imperial palaces, 14 churches, 8 public baths, 3 basilicas, 4 forums, 2 theaters, 4 harbors, 4 cisterns, 322 streets, 4,388 domus, 52 colonnades, and 153 private baths.2 The paucity of church construction is noteworthy, but we must recall that the city was founded to be a political center and became a religious center only gradually. 1 Mango, Développement; Dagron, Naissance; Dagron, Constantinople imaginaire; P.  Magdalino, Constantinople médiévale: Études sur l’évolution des structures urbaines (Paris, 1996); Bassett, Urban Image. 2 J.  Matthews, “The Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae,” in Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, eds. L. Grig and G. Kelly (Oxford, 2012), 81–115.

Constantinople, hypothetical aerial view of the early city (Tayfun Öner) 137

FIGURE 7.1 Constantinople, hypothetical aerial view of the early city (Tayfun Öner)

What remains of Byzantine Constantinople today is primarily medieval and will be discussed in a later chapter; the Late Antique city is known primarily from texts, judiciously combined with limited archaeological data. Some basic elements remain elusive: for example, what did its residences look like? The Notitia records 4,388 domus—a term that usually means houses, but here more likely refers to apartment blocks, what in Rome were called insulae. Yet none of these survives. And what did the street system look like? Was it a Roman grid, with a cardo and decumanus, or was it adjusted to the topography, like a Hellenistic city? Most likely it was a combination of both. With limited archaeological information of the Mese and a few minor streets, one can draw some suggestions from the vagaries of topography, the orientation of churches (which tend to follow the street system rather than a true east–west axis), cisterns, and terrace walls, as well as the positioning of gates, openings in the aqueduct bridge, and even the alignment of a few 138

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modern streets.3 As the Mese extended outward, it was crossed by the Makros Embolos, or Portico of Domninos, which seems to correspond to the current Uzun Çarşı (in the area of the Grand Bazaar). It intersected the Mese at a quadrifrons (four-faced) arch in a neighborhood known as the Artopolia, the Breadmakers’ Quarter, west of the Forum of Constantine, leading down to the Harbor of Julian on the south side and the Golden Horn on the north. Major streets were paved and equipped with underground sewers; they maintained a minimum width of 12 feet and a clearance of 15 feet beneath balconies and other overhangs. As the Notitia, indicates, 52 of them had colonnades—a feature more common to Eastern Mediterranean cities than to Rome itself. Minor streets in residential neighborhoods may have been less regular and less maintained.

3 A. Berger, “Streets and Public Spaces in Constantinople,” DOP 54 (2000): 167–68.

Following the model of Constantine, other emperors added forums to the city. In addition to Constantine’s round forum and the old plazas known as the Augustaion and Strategion, several new public spaces were added. Most important was the Forum of Theodosius I, also called Forum Tauri, which was added to the Mese in 393.4 It was framed by arches where it joined the Mese, with a basilica and a historiated column to its north. The Forum Tauri was probably modeled after Rome’s Forum of Trajan, to whom Theodosius was distantly related, although on a considerably smaller scale. Now in ruins, fragments of the historiated column survive, illustrating the military exploits of the emperor. The unusual column shafts of the arches were detailed with oak whorls, encircled by giant hands at their top—apparently an allusion to the club of Herakles, to symbolize the strength of Theodosius (Figs. 7.2 and 7.3). Emperor Arcadius added a similar forum in the Xerolophos district, on the southern branch of the Mese, from which the mutilated base of its historiated column survives (Fig. 7.4).5 The limited archaeological evidence and topographical situations of the imperial forums indicate they were considerably smaller than their Roman counterparts. Moreover, they were intersected by the main street, while those in Rome were bypassed. In addition to ceremonial public spaces, the city needed a ceremonial entry. Constantine’s wall had a Golden Gate, somewhere in the vicinity of İsa Kapı Mescidi, but as the city extended outward, a new entry was necessary. The present Golden Gate is aligned with the Land Walls of Theodosius II, but very different in character.6 Encased in marble, a monumental triple arch between two projecting towers, it combines features of a triumphal arch and a city gate (Figs. 7.5 and 7.6). Scholars are divided on its date: it was constructed either at the same time as the Land Walls or slightly earlier. One suggestion is that it was a freestanding monument of Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 248–70; F. A. Bauer, Stadt, Platz und Denkmal in der Spätantike (Mainz, 1996), 187–211.

4

5 J.  Kelly, “The Column of Arcadius: Reflections of a Roman Narrative Tradition,” in Byzantine Narrative: Papers in Honour of Roger Scott, ed. J. Burke (Melbourne, 2006), 259–65. 6

Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 297–300.

FIGURE 7.2 Constantinople, Forum of Theodosius I, triumphal arch, reconstruction (after R. Naumann, in W. Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 1977)

FIGURE 7.3 Constantinople, Forum of Theodosius I, fragment of oakwhorl column with giant hand (author)

FIGURE 7.4 Constantinople, Column of Arcadius, remains of historiated shaft (author)

Theodosius I, honoring his defeat of Magnus Maximus in 388.7 While the inscription must be to a Theodosius (according to the dowel holes that once bore bronze letters framing the central arch), it is unclear which one. It is also unclear how the Golden Gate connected to the Mese. If the Mese 7 J. Bardill, “The Golden Gate in Constantinople: A Triumphal Arch of Theodosius I,” AJA 103 (1999): 671–96.

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FIGURE 7.5 Constantinople, Golden Gate (author)

continued on a straight line, it would have intersected the Land Wall at the Belgrade Gate (the Second Military Gate), so there must have been a street to connect to the Mese. Imperial processions entering the city through the Golden Gate mention the public space known as the Sigma (a plaza probably framed by a C-shaped portico) as the first station stop, apparently still outside the walls of Constantine, so this may be where the routes connected. At the opposite end of the Mese, other ceremonial settings were enhanced. New monuments were added to the Hippodrome, including an Egyptian obelisk, erected by Theodosius, with a marble base decorated with reliefs that illustrate the various ceremonies and entertainments that occurred there (Fig. 7.7).8 The Great Palace, at least partially damaged in the Nika Riots, received a monumental

FIGURE 7.6 Constantinople, reconstruction of the Land Walls at the Golden Gate (S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

B.  Pitarakis, ed., Hippodrome/Atmeydanı: A Stage for Istanbul’s History, 2 vols. (Istanbul, 2010).

8

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FIGURE 7.7 Constantinople, Hippodrome, Obelisk of Theodosius I, view of base (author)

entryway, the Chalke (Bronze) Gate, a domed vestibule decorated with mosaics.9 Behind this lay the imperial residence, a series of buildings and pavilions in a park-like setting; it formed a precinct of its own, separated from the city by the Hippodrome (see Fig. 7.1). By the fifth century, the city had expanded from an estimated population of twenty thousand before the arrival of Constantine to twenty times that, and there are increasing indications of urban problems. Most critical was the need to supply the growing population with food and water. Although it was strategic in its location, the city did not have a good natural source of water, nor did it have an extensive hinterland to provision it—the Lykos River, which emptied into the Theodosian Harbor, was little more than a trickle. Moreover, the area inside Constantine’s walls was

rapidly filling. Nevertheless, it is not exactly clear what motivated the dramatic expansion under Theodosius II. Was the enlargement necessary for the expanding population? The area between the wall of Constantine (which has disappeared completely) and that of Theodosius II remained relatively rural, and in fact tombs were allowed here—the pomerium, or city limit, was still defined by the Constantinian wall. The best suggestion is that the expansion was to protect the city’s water system for a growing and thirsty population, as well as a protected agricultural area. Notably, the area between the walls contained three large open-air cisterns, which could hold more than 900,000 cubic meters of water; within the city were more than eighty covered cisterns.10 An aqueduct had been constructed by Hadrian in the second century, but at a low level, follow-

9 Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 229–31; for the excavation, see İ. Karamut et al., Gün Işığında: İstanbul’un 8000 yılı: Marmaray, Metro, Sultanahmet kazıları (Istanbul, 2007), 134–37.

10 C.  Mango, “The Water Supply of Constantinople,” in Constantinople and Its Hinterland, eds. C. Mango and G. Dagron (Aldershot, 1995), 9–18.

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FIGURE 7.8 Constantinople, Aqueduct of Valens, looking north (author)

ing the Golden Horn.11 This would have been adequate for old Byzantion, as well as for the Great Palace, the Basilica Cistern, and the Baths of Zeuxippos, but as Constantine’s city expanded westward, new areas of development, including areas of elite estates, lay at a higher level. For this reason, a new line was introduced, probably by Valens, in 363, at a level more than 20 meters higher than the old system, drawing water from springs far to the west of the city (Fig. 7.8). Expanded and extended over the next century, it became the ancient world’s longest water system, extending an estimated total of 592 kilometers and drawing from numerous springs in the hills of Thrace (Fig. 7.9). Much of the system ran underground or in canals following the natural incline of the landscape, with aqueduct bridges constructed only where absolutely necessary. Several survive in the forests of Thrace, but the 2-kilometer stretch of the so-called Aqueduct of Valens may be its most visible component. Gregory of Nazianzus called it “a subterranean and aerial river.”12 Within the city, it debouched J. Crow, J. Bardill, and R. Bayliss, The Water Supply of Byzantine Constantinople (London, 2008). 11

12

Or. 33.6, PG 36.221C.

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into numerous cisterns and fountains, such as the Nymphaea Valens at the Forum of Theodosius. The cisterns were probably connected by a network of canals leading from the aqueduct. The open-air cisterns within the walls are in relatively poor condition, with many used as sunken gardens, taking advantage of the alluvium. The fifth-century Fildamı Cistern in the suburb of Hebdomon (Bakırköy) is the best preserved, although it is unclear how it connected to the aqueduct system (Fig. 7.10). Measuring 127 by 75 meters, it could contain 95,250 cubic meters of water. Constructed of alternating bands of brick and stone, its walls were buttressed against the slope on one side—necessary when the cistern was empty—and against the pressure of the water on the other—necessary when full. Stairways allowed access on the shorter sides. Within the city, the Philoxenos Cistern, just west of the Hippodrome, of the fifth or early sixth century, offers a good example of a covered cistern. Known in Turkish as the Binbirderek Sarnıcı, or the “Cistern of 1001 Columns,” it actually has only 224 columns (Figs. 7.11 and 7.12). It is equipped with bases and capitals, all of which are spoliated, and the shafts are doubled in height, to cover a deep area of 64 by 56 meters, capable of

FIGURE 7.9 Topographical map of eastern Thrace, showing the lines of the Anastasian Long Wall and the long-distance aqueduct systems (J. Crow et al., Water Supply of Byzantine Constantinople, 2008)

FIGURE 7.10 Bakırköy, Fildamı Cistern, general view, looking north (author)

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holding 3,584 cubic meters of water. Forming a modular system on the interior, the columns support domical groin vaults. Like the nearby Basilica Cistern, it did double duty as the substructure to one of the grand buildings of the city.13 Related to the water system, baths and bathing were part of Late Antique culture, not simply for hygiene, but also for their social and entertainment aspects. Of the nine mentioned in the Notitia, the Baths of Zeuxippos represent the only large bath known from archaeological remains, located on the Augustaion square.14 These included parts of a domed room and the exedra of a courtyard, as well as a spiral staircase and a few vaulted chambers, all sixth-century masonry, a Justinianic rebuilding of an older bath complex. While the plan remains incompletely known and may have been irregular overall, the excavated features compare to those of the great imperial baths of Rome, although on a considerably smaller scale. Of the 153 private baths noted in the Notitia, a few examples are known in part: one excavated by the Kalenderhane Camii from the fourth or fifth century seems to have been part of a private estate; another has been excavated on the grounds of Topkapı Palace. We shall return to domestic architecture shortly. The development of harbors and harbor facilities was also linked to the growth of Constantinople. Constantine does not appear to have increased portage, but as the population grew, the harbors became increasingly necessary for the importation of grain from as far away as Egypt. The Prosphorion and Neorion harbors continued from the old city; they lay inside the walls, at the entrance to the Golden Horn, but they quickly proved inadequate. Julian added a harbor in 362 on the Sea of Marmara side. Most important, however, was the Eleutherios Harbor (Langa Bostan), added ca. 390 by Theodosius I at the mouth of the Lykos. With a width of approximately 700 meters, it was largest of all the urban harbors. Two granaries are mentioned in association with it: the Horrea Alexandrina and Horreum Theodosianum. Excavations at the site since 2005

FIGURE 7.11 Constantinople, Philoxenos Cistern (Binbirderek), interior view (author)

FIGURE 7.12 Constantinople, Philoxenos Cistern (Binbirderek), reconstructed view (K. Wulzinger, BZ, 1913)

Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 271–85; Crow et al., Water Supply, 125–55. 13

14

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Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 48–51.

have uncovered the remains of more than thirtyfive shipwrecks from the harbor floor, dating from the seventh through the tenth centuries.15 At the height of its population, the city needed an estimated 4 kilometers of port frontage for the delivery and offloading of grain shipments.16 In addition to enhancing the ceremonial aspects and the urban amenities of Constantinople, the period after Constantine sees the city gradually taking on a more pronounced Christian character, with the Theotokos becoming prominent among holy figures associated with the city.17 Her importance had already been signaled by the Council of Ephesus in 431, and for Constantinople her special importance reached a climax by 626, when she is credited with turning back the Avar siege of the city. By the sixth century at the latest, she was regarded as the patron and protectress of the city, her presence recognized in the fifth century with the arrival of relics—her robe, kept at the Blachernae Church near the Land Walls, and her girdle, kept at the Chalkoprateia Church, just opposite Hagia Sophia. She is celebrated in hymns, ceremonies, and civic processions; her presence is represented in physical form by relics and icons. As with the relics of the apostles at the Holy Apostles, the Marian relics represent an imported sanctity that became part of the spiritual life and identity of the city. Related to the spiritual life of the city are its cemeteries. Roman rule limited burials to outside the walls of a city; pre-Constantinian burials have been found near the Forum of Constantine and the Beyazit district. For the Early Christian period, the highest density of burials was outside the walls of Constantine but within the Theodosian walls.18 A variety of hypogea and combined burials have been found in salvage excavations. A cemetery lay

M.  Vassilaki, ed., Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium (Aldershot, 2005).

by the Church of St. Mokios—this was an extramural cemetery basilica, following the Roman model. Several hypogea have been excavated immediately outside the walls, and there is evidence for burials between two lines of the Theodosian Walls as well. The Theodosian code assigns land around walls to its former owners, who were responsible for upkeep—are these their tombs? Byzantine fortifications will be discussed elsewhere, but it is important to include Constantinople’s Land Walls as part of our urban analysis, for they form a significant component of the city’s identity, just as their history of repairs and rebuildings (recorded in inscriptions) parallels the fate of the city they protected (Figs. 7.13 and 7.14).19 The Land Walls represent a major engineering feat unrivaled for centuries—and not breached until there were significant changes in military technology with the acquisition of gunpowder (first developed in ninth-century China). The Land Walls extend 5.7 kilometers between the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn, and the curtain wall is lined with ninety-six towers. The system had two parallel lines of walls, with a total width of approximately 27–55 meters. The inner wall (mega teichos) was 4.8 meters thick and 11 meters high. Its towers were spaced 70–75 meters apart, alternating rectangular and octagonal. The outer wall (proteichisma, exo teichos) lay 14.5 meters farther out and was 8 meters high, with an arcaded inner surface and raised ground level; its towers were staggered between those of the inner wall. The upper levels of the towers had arrow slits facing outward, so that archers had a clear shot at attackers—there was, in effect, nowhere to hide, nowhere near the walls out of range of the archers. A moat added a third line of defense, although this may have been slightly later in date. With the difference in wall heights, the city could be defended from both walls simultaneously, and if the attackers were able to breach the outer wall, they would have found themselves in a constricted passage, between the two lines of fire. Needless to say, the system was effective.

18 Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 219–22; M.  Tunay, “Byzantine Archaeological Findings in Istanbul during the Last Decade,” in Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life, ed. N.  Necipoğlu (Leiden, 2001), 217–31; J.  Deckers and Ü. Serdaroğlu, “Das Hypogäum bein Silivri-Kapı in Istanbul,” JbAC 36 (1993): 140–63.

19 Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 286–96; B.  C.  P.  Tsangadas, The Fortifications and Defense of Constantinople (New York, 1980); N. Asutay-Effenberger, Die Landmauer von Konstantinopel-Istanbul: historisch-topographische und baugeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Berlin, 2007).

Karamut et al., Gün Işığında; Z.  Kızıltan, ed., Stories from the Hidden Harbor: Shipwrecks of Yenikapı (Istanbul, 2013).

15

16

Mango, Développement.

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FIGURE 7.13 Constantinople, Land Walls of Theodosius II, partially restored, with garden plots in the moat (author)

FIGURE 7.14 Constantinople, Land Walls of Theodosius II, section through walls (S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

The construction was of alternating courses of brick and stone, typical of Constantinople, and this system was continued in most of the repairs and reconstructions, so it is often difficult to distinguish the reconstructions from the original—as, for example, in the substantial re146

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building after the earthquake of 740, identified by brick inscriptions on the towers. The inner towers were multistoried and independent, not connected to a curtain wall; they could thus function as separate fortresses. The city was entered through seven large gates, each fortified

with towers, as well as four smaller gates or posterns. The walls along the Golden Horn and Sea of Marmara were constructed subsequently, ordered by Theodosius II in 439, both single lines of defense, perhaps following older foundations. A final element of the defensive system is less well known. The Long Walls were added in the late fifth century by Anastasius, 65 kilometers west of the city (see Fig. 7.9).20 A low wall, 45 kilometers long and lined with towers, stretched between the Marmara and Black Seas, forming an outer line of defense for the city. It also protected significant elements of the city’s water system, which extended almost 100 kilometers into the hills of Thrace.

* Continuity and transformation. With the official acceptance of Christianity across the empire, and particularly after the edicts of Theodosius, we find a growing desire to establish a visible Christian presence at urban centers at the expense of older religious institutions. At Jerusalem, Constantine’s new church complex stood in visual opposition to the empty and abandoned Temple on the esplanade opposite it. Similarly, in Athens, the temples on the Acropolis stood abandoned, as an elegant new tetraconch cathedral rose in the city below (Fig. 7.15; and see Fig. 5.3C). The visual juxtaposition of old (pagan) and new (Christian) religious establishments would have found a particular resonance with the Late Antique viewer, both in these examples and elsewhere. All the same, it was rare for temple buildings, or even the sites of former temples, to be reused as churches before the sixth century—there is no evidence for conversion of the Parthenon before the late sixth century, for example—and unlike spoliation, reuse of temples often came as a matter of economy rather than as a triumphal statement (Fig. 7.16).21 J.  Crow. “The Long Walls of Thrace,” in Constantinople and Its Hinterland, eds. C.  Mango and G.  Dagron (Aldershot, 1995), 118–24.

20

21 R.  G.  Ousterhout, “‘Bestride the Very Peak of Heaven’: The Parthenon in the Byzantine and Ottoman Periods,” in The

The triumph of the church also instituted a new administrative bureaucracy across the empire that paralleled the existing administrative structure, and with the gradual decline of central authority, the role of the church increased, with the bishop emerging as the most important civic leader. Thus, as churches replaced temples as the signature monuments of a community, they also replaced its older administrative buildings. Theaters and other settings for public spectacle also gradually fell out of use, as the church gradually replaced older sites of public entertainment. The visible, symbolic transformation of the city reflected a fundamental shift in urban organization, as the following examples illustrate. Ephesus. Famed in antiquity for the Temple of Artemis, Ephesus became the Roman capital of Asia in 29 bce and prospered into the third century ce.22 Much of the city follows a grid oriented to the harbor, with the exception of the so-called Embolos, which follows the slope of the Panayirdağ (Figs. 7.17 and 7.18). In 262 ce the city was hit by a violent earthquake that damaged or destroyed much of the infrastructure, exacerbated by an invasion by the Goths, who burned the Temple of Artemis. Additional earthquakes followed in the fourth century, with damage so severe as to necessitate imperial intervention. The scale of the reconstruction is indicative of the city’s importance and the wherewithal of the imperial purse. For Christians, the city was associated with John the Evangelist (also known as John the Theologian), whose tomb was on a nearby hill, now known as Ayasoluk (a corruption of Hagios Theologos), marked by a tetrapylon by ca. 300 ce and expanded into a cruciform church, a popular pilgrimage destination, in the early fifth century. The Seven Sleepers, martyrs under Decius (r. 249–51 ce), were commemorated at a cave on the Panayirdağ, which developed into a martyrium and cemetery. Legend also associated the Virgin Mary with the city: the cathedral, Parthenon from Antiquity to the Present, ed. J.  Neils (Cambridge, 2005), 292–325. S. Ladstätter, “Ephesus,” in The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia, ed. P. Niewöhner (Oxford, 2017), 238–40; C. Foss, Ephesus after Antiquity: A Late Antique, Byzantine and Turkish City (Cambridge, 1979).

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FIGURE 7.15 Athens, plan showing the area enclosed by the Late Antique wall (shaded); the cathedral in the Library of Hadrian is at the top of the shaded area; the Acropolis with the Parthenon is at the bottom (after J. Travlos, Bildlexikon, 1971)

dedicated to her, was built into the southern stoa of the Olympieion, whose temple had been leveled ca. 400 ce (see Fig. 6.14). The church was the site of the famed 431 ce Ecumenical Council that 148

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recognized the Virgin as Theotokos, or Godbearer. Gerasa. Gerasa (Jerash in Jordan) offers a good example of a Late Antique city in which we

FIGURE 7.16 Athens, plan of the Parthenon converted to a church (redrawn after J. Travlos, Bildlexikon, 1971, and M. Korres, in Tournikiotis, Parthenon, 1994)

can chart the transformation with the arrival and growing presence of Christianity (Figs. 7.19– 7.21).23 With a population of approximately ten thousand to fifteen thousand at its height in the second century ce, the city was laid out on a grid oriented roughly north–south, with the entrance at the south through an off-axis oval forum. The cardo extends northward crossed by two major decumani, marked by tetrapylons at the intersections. At the city center, to the west of the cardo, stairs led up through a monumental propylon to the huge esplanade of the Temple of Artemis, one of the major Roman temples of the Near East, impressive in its scale and architectural sophistication. To the south and parallel to it was a smaller Temple of Dionysius, similarly accessed by a monumental propylon and stairway. By the early fifth century, however, the Temple of Dionysius had been razed and replaced by the cathedral, a three-aisled basilica, set on the same axis and parallel to the temenos (holy precinct) of Artemis next door. Accessed from the east through the existing propylon and stairway, the visitor first confronted the apse of the church, although porticoes flanking the building allowed the visitor to circumambulate it to reach the western atrium. Epiphanius of Salamis reported ca. 375 that the 23

Kraeling, Gerasa; B. Brenk, Die Christianisierung, 10–24.

Miracle at Cana was miraculously reenacted at “the fountain in Gerasa in the martyrium.”24 If this refers to a fountain in the atrium, then perhaps an older church stood on the same site. All the same, turning water into wine seems an appropriate miracle at a site formerly associated with Dionysius. In spite of the razing of the Temple of Dionysius, the side-by-side situation of the cathedral and Artemis temple seems extraordinary, both commanding presences at the urban core. Could the two have functioned simultaneously? As tempting as this suggestion is, archaeology indicates the Artemis temple may never have been completed; its temenos had been put to industrial use, taken over by pottery kilns and metalworking, before the cathedral was begun. There also appears to be a time lag between the destruction of the Dionysius temple and the cathedral construction, although spolia from both temples found their way into the cathedral. The cathedral complex expanded westward, with the Church of St. Theodore added on the same axis in the late fifth century. Although abandoned, the memory of the temples lingered on: an inscription of ca. 495 condemns the “stomachchurning stench” presumably from the temple 24

Panarion, 51.30.1.

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FIGURE 7.17 Ephesus, view down the Embolos, looking toward the Library of Celsus and the harbor (author)

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FIGURE 7.18 Ephesus, plan of the early Byzantine city (©Austrian Archaeological Institute)

sacrifices, but this may be no more than a late, rhetorical gesture.25 Another church, the so-called Propylaia Church, was built into the pre-existing structures immediately opposite the entrance to the temple. Evidence of at least ten other churches from before the seventh century survives around the city. The visual transformation of the urban landscape is paralleled by changes in the administration, reflected most dramatically in the control of its water system—a prime concern in the arid environment of Gerasa.26 Water entering the city through its aqueduct system seems to have been controlled and distributed from the area of the Temple of Artemis, whose precinct included cisterns for its storage. Control gradually shifted to C. B. Welles, “Inscriptions,” in Gerasa: City of the Decapolis, ed. C. H. Kraeling (New Haven, 1938), no. 299: 477–78. 25

J.  Pickett, “Water after Antiquity: The Afterlives of Roman Water Infrastructure in the Eastern Mediterranean (300–800 ad),” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2015), 45–96.

26

church authority, and the water channels were adjusted to lead to the cathedral complex, which, in addition to water storage and distribution, connected to several industrial installations, including a water-powered sawmill. On the cardo, water was diverted to the Propylaia Church, which has been identified as the treasury for tax collection during Byzantine times. Although the water system continued to function, it was clearly in limited quantity: aqueduct lines were narrowed; fountains and bathing establishments show evidence of contraction; abandoned buildings were retrofitted as cisterns for water storage. Here we may note a shift from a concern for water as an element of display and enjoyment (with sewers for drainage) to a more practical concern for utility and storage—all part of the reconfiguring of the city both administratively and socially. Thessalonike. The major city in northern Greece, Thessalonike witnessed several periods of transformation in Late Antiquity, during which many of its most important monuments were

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FIGURE 7.19 Gerasa (Jerash), plan of the city with a detail of the Cathedral complex (author, redrawn after C. H. Kraeling, Gerasa, 1938; B. Brenk, Christianisierung, 2003)

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constructed (Fig. 7.22).27 Situated on a gulf of the Aegean and passed by the Via Egnatia, the major Roman east–west route, it was well connected by land and sea, and through the Axios/Vardar River valley it connected northward into the Balkans. The city seems to have followed an orthogonal grid, adjusted to the sloping topography, with a second cardo to the north. The main decumanus was called the Mese, the main colonnaded street of the Roman city, and its remains were excavated directly beneath its modern-day successor, with marble paving, its porticoes flanked by shops (Fig. 7.23). The agora lay toward the city center, slightly north of the Mese, where the ground level rises noticeably. The complex was surrounded by two-storied porticoes, two baths, and a small theater. A second agora lay at a lower level to the east. By the late third century the city was fortified; the present walls, from the late fourth and fifth centuries, follow the same line. The archaic Temple of Dionysius lay to the west of the agora, and a temple identified as a Serapeum lay further to the west, both known only from limited excavation. Under the Tetrarchy, Thessalonike became an imperial residence for Galerius (r. 282–311), who added an imperial residence flanked by a hippodrome along its eastern wall—a relationship noted in Constantinople and found in other Tetrarchic residences as well.28 A triumphal arch was built to its north, to commemorate Galerius’s 296 victory over the Persians. An elaborated, domed tetrapylon, it joined the colonnades of the Via Egnatia, while a transverse colonnade extended the palace axis to the north to join to a monumental rotunda, usually identified as an imperial mausoleum and typically attributed to Galerius. The mausoleum has also been attribA.  Tourta, “Thessalonike,” in Heaven & Earth: Cities and Countryside in Byzantine Greece, eds. J.  Albani and E.  Chalkia (Athens, 2013), 75–93; Bauer, Eine Stadt und Ihr Patron; Ch. Bakirtzis, “Late Antiquity and Christianity in Thessalonikē: Aspects of a Transformation,” in From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē: Studies in Religion and Archaeology, eds. L. Nasrallah, Ch. Bakirtzis, and S. J. Friesen (Cambridge, 2010), 397–426.

27

A. Mentzos, “Reflections on the Architectural History of the Tetrarchic Palace Complex at Thessalonikē,” in From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē: Studies in Religion and Archaeology, eds. L.  Nasrallah, Ch. Bakirtzis, and S.  J.  Friesen (Cambridge, 2010), 333–60.

28

FIGURE 7.20 Gerasa, propylon to the cathedral complex (author)

uted to Constantine, who spent the years 318–24 in the Balkans and resided in the city in 322–23. Constantine may have also completed some of the palatial structures left unfinished at the death of Galerius (Fig. 7.24).29 In short, by the end of the third century, Thessalonike had all the trappings of a Roman city and could boast an imperial presence. As at Gerasa, the gradual Christianization of the city did not alter the Roman matrix but developed within the established framework. In spite of the preaching of St. Paul in the mid-first century and the martyrdom of St. Demetrius (who became the patron and protector of the city) in 306, Christianization was a slow process, and the marking of its presence architecturally was also gradual (see Chaps. 4 and 6). Certainly, by the fifth century, we find the deliberate placement of churches as visible civic markers, with 29 S.  Ćurčić, Some Observations and Questions Regarding Early Christian Architecture in Thessaloniki (Thessalonike, 2000); Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 53–54.

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FIGURE 7.21 Gerasa, view of the fountain court, looking east (author)

the church controlling major urban real estate, so that without a major reconfiguration, the city had been provided with a new identity.30 Unfortunately, none of the significant buildings is securely dated. Some construction may have already occurred in the later fourth or early fifth century, perhaps while Theodosius I was in residence. The rotunda was converted into a church and adorned with mosaics, although the dates and circumstances of both remain hotly contested; rooms of the imperial residence may have been converted for Christian use as well. A huge octagonal church was built near the west gate, identified by its excavators tentatively as the Martyrium of Nestor, companion to Demetrius. Cemetery basilicas arose outside the east and west gates, associated with privileged burials—either of local martyrs or of dignitaries. By the late fourth century, a basilica

S.  Ćurčić, “Christianization of Thessalonikē: The Making of Christian ‘Urban Topography,’” in From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē: Studies in Religion and Archaeology, eds. L. Nasrallah, Ch. Bakirtzis, and S. J. Friesen (Cambridge, 2010), 213–44.

30

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was constructed below the lower agora to function as the cathedral. A major construction campaign probably did not significantly affect the center of the city until after 441–42, however, when the city witnessed an elevation in its status, replacing Sirmium (further to the north and threatened by the Huns) as the seat of the prefecture of Illyricum. A new residence east of the agora may have been the palace of the prefect. The major undertaking after this time was the construction of the great basilica dedicated to Demetrius, just above the agora, replacing the bath where Demetrius and Nestor were martyred. It is tempting to suggest that the relics of Demetrius were translated from Sirmium at that time—both cities held claims on the saint—but there is no evidence of this, and the vagueness in the references to his presence and even the location of his tomb would argue against it (see Chap. 4). The great basilica seems to have been a martyrium without a martyr. Still, significant elements of the bath were incorporated into the church, most notably the crypt beneath the transept, which may have been the site of martyrdom. The large Acheiropoietos Basilica was constructed

FIGURE 7.22 Thessalonike, plan of the early Byzantine city (author, redrawn after ninth EBS)

at more or less the same time, perhaps over the remains of a public bath related to the lower agora (see Figs. 6.6–6.8). The cathedral was rebuilt in the same period—a huge five-aisled basilica, measuring 94 by 53 meters, with a nave close to 20 meters wide, preceded by a large atrium, with a hexagonal baptistery to the south (Fig. 7.25). Known from limited remains, it was replaced by the surviving Hagia Sophia in the eighth century. There were other constructions as well, but clearly by the late fifth century, Thessalonike

appeared decidedly Christian in character, with great basilicas at its core, great Christian rotundas marking its east and west entrances, and cemetery basilicas outside its walls. Despite the challenges of the Slavic invasions, the urban matrix established in antiquity continued to define Thessalonike through the Byzantine period. The fate of its pagan sanctuaries is passed over in silence. New Cities. The newly founded cities and settlements of Late Antiquity are also instructive, for rather than evincing a transformation of society, they address the immediate concerns of a society CHAPTER SEVEN: SECULAR ARCHITECTURE

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FIGURE 7.23 Thessalonike, excavated area of the Mese (Ephorate of the City of Thessalonike)

FIGURE 7.24 Thessalonike, view from the Arch of Galerius looking toward the Rotunda (author)

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FIGURE 7.25 Thessalonike, plan of the cathedral beneath Hagia Sophia, with baptistery to the south (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

that has already undergone transformation.31 They are as interesting for what is not there as for what is. As with Thessalonike, temples and pagan sanctuaries do not enter the story. Founded sometime in the 530s near the birthplace of Justinian, Iustiniana Prima, or Caričin Grad, provides useful evidence of what was considered essential for a city at the time of Justinian (Fig. 7.26).32 By the early seventh century, however, the city fell victim to the Slavic invasions, as migratory tribes entered the Balkans. Nowadays it is known from excavated foundations. Justinian had great hopes for it, however, elevating its status to an archbishopric, independent from Thessalonike. Built on a hilltop, the irregular outline of the walls E.  Rizos and A.  Ricci, eds., New Cities in Late Antiquity: Documents and Archaeology (Turnhout, 2017).

31

32 Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 209–14; B. Bavant, “Caričin Grad and the Changes in the Nature of Urbanism in the Central Balkans in the 6th century,” in The Transition to Late Antiquity: On the Danube and Beyond, ed. A.  Poulter (Oxford, 2007): 337–74; Procopius, On Buildings, 4.1.19–27.

reflects the topography, as do adjustments in the urban grid. Internal walls separate the acropolis, the upper city, and the lower city. The main streets are colonnaded and lined with shops, intersecting at a circular forum, as at Gerasa. An aqueduct more than 16 kilometers long supplied water to the city and its public baths. Throughout, construction is of rough stone and brick, with marble in limited supply. Although one of the building complexes in the upper city may have been the military residence, many of the clearly identifiable buildings are churches, as the church seems to have replaced the civic authority. This is most clearly evident in the prestige given to the cathedral complex, treated as an independently fortified acropolis, on the highest point of the city, with the decumanus leading from the monumental east city gate, across the circular forum, to a second gate leading into the main street of the archbishopric. The basilica, already noted for its vaulted sanctuary, was preceded by an atrium, with a cistern beneath it; it is flanked by a four-lobed baptistery, with the episcopal residence probably the cruciform CHAPTER SEVEN: SECULAR ARCHITECTURE

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FIGURE 7.26 Caričin Grad (Iustiniana Prima) site plan, with detail of the acropolis (author, after B. Bavant, in Transition to Late Antiquity, 2007; V. Ivanišević, “Caričin Grad (Iustiniana Prima),” 2016; and S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

building just across the street. Formally and functionally, this was clearly the most important area of the city. Sergiopolis, now Resafa in Syria, had developed from a modest castrum, or military encampment, into a planned city by the end of the fifth century (Figs. 7.27–7.29).33 Nothing remains of 33 E. K. Fowden, The Barbarian Plain: St. Sergius between Rome and Islam (Berkeley, 1999). Kollwitz, “Die Grabungen in Resafa,” 45–70; Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, ed., Resafa, 7 vols. (Mainz, 1984–); M.  Gussone and D.  Sack, “Resafa/Syrien. Städtebauliche Entwicklung zwischen Kultort und Herrschaftssitz,”

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the pre-Christian settlement, so it may be effectively discussed as a new city. Its organization reflects the continuity of Late Antique urbanism, with an ambitious building program that reflects its urban aspirations. While far from haphazard, the deviations evident at Resafa indicate growth over a period of time, without a restrictive master plan. Housing the Martyrium of St. Sergius, the city was a major pilgrimage destination. Enclosed by nearly rectangular walls with monumental in New Cities in Late Antiquity: Documents and Archaeology, eds. E. Rizos and A. Ricci (Turnhout, 2017), 117–36.

FIGURE 7.27 Resafa, plan (redrawn after M. Gussone and D. Sack, in E. Rizos, New Cities, 2017)

gates, the city was laid out with a fairly regular grid of streets, some of which were flanked by colonnades, with monumental arches marking the intersections of major thoroughfares. Major squares were established in the northeast and southwest sectors, the latter above cisterns. Highlighted in the urban design were the three city’s major churches, the most important of which was the enormous complex (also called Basilica A, or Church of the Holy Cross) dedicated to St. Sergius in the southeast sector, which centered on a large basilica, with a baptistery, a bishop’s palace, and a large courtyard, all completed ca. 500. The church

itself was three aisled with a curious alternating system of piers and columns, perhaps with diaphragm arches spanning the nave. A Syrian bema lay at the center; the bema proper was flanked by a series of annexed chapels. At that time, the relics of St. Sergius were brought into the new complex, housed in the room immediately north of the apse, accessible both from the church and from the courtyard. They had been previously held in an “old brick church,” which was subsequently replaced by Basilica B in 518. The new Basilica B was three aisled, framed by porticoes to the south and west, with annexed chapels flanking the bema, CHAPTER SEVEN: SECULAR ARCHITECTURE

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situated between the new St. Sergius and the square above the cisterns. A large tetraconch church was constructed about the same time, on a site whose importance is indicated by the angled street leading from the north gate. Two other, smaller basilicas, situated farther to the east, were added about the same time or slightly later. All major construction seems to date roughly between 470 and 530, when the city was at its economic peak. When it was struck by an earthquake, sometime shortly after the major construction phase, the wherewithal was no longer there for major

FIGURE 7.28 Resafa, North Gate (author)

FIGURE 7.29 Resafa, general view of the site from the Tetraconch Church, looking toward the St. Sergius complex (author)

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construction projects; the archaeological evidence suggests only small-scale provisional replacements and spoliation. By the ninth century, even the Church of St. Sergius was in ruins. Prosperity continued, after a fashion, into the early Islamic period, but with most major constructions outside the walls. The building to the north of the city, often identified as the audience hall of alMundhir, is more likely a church, perhaps related to the pilgrimage to St. Sergius. A great suburban development occurred under Hisham (ca. 724– 43), with the addition of suburban fortified palaces to the south of the city. Hisham renewed the city’s fortifications and added a mosque to the north of St. Sergius. The final decline of the city corresponds to the shift of the power base from Damascus to Baghdad under the Abbasids. While both Caričin Grad and Resafa indicate the survival of Roman planning principles well into the sixth century, at the opposite extreme, there are also several sites that are new but with no evidence of traditional planning forms. The remains of Mokisos (Viranşehir), on the slopes of Hasan Dağı in Cappadocia, also provide evidence of urban life in the Late Antique period, but of a

FIGURE 7.30 Viranşehir (Mokisos), plan of settlement (after A. Berger, “Mokisos,” 1998)

remarkably different nature (Figs. 7.30 and 7.31).34 Procopius relates that Justinian relocated A.  Berger, “Viranşehir (Mokisos), eine byzantinische Stadt in Kappadokien,” BZ 48 (1998): 349–429; A.  Berger, “Mokisos— eine kappadokische Fluchtsiedlung des sechten Jahrhunderts,” in New Cities in Late Antiquity: Documents and Archaeology, eds. E. Rizos and A. Ricci (Turnhout, 2017), 177–88; R. G. Ousterhout,

34

the formerly dilapidated frourion (fortress) from level ground to a site where it was protected by the steep slope. He also added churches, hospices, public baths, “and all the other structures that are Visualizing Community: Art, Material Culture, and Settlement in Byzantine Cappadocia (Washington, DC, 2017), 273–74. CHAPTER SEVEN: SECULAR ARCHITECTURE

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7.31 Viranşehir (Mokisos), cruciform church, with ruins of the settlement in the distance (author) FIGURE

the mark of a prosperous city,” elevating Mokisos to the ecclesiastical rank of metropolis and apparently renaming it Iustinianopolis.35 Nevertheless, the site presents little evidence of a Roman urban character. There is no grid plan, and even evidence of a street system seems elusive. Perhaps because of its relocation, there was no pre-existing street system to follow, and—like later medieval urban foundations—the organization is dependent on the topography, with security its primary concern. A fortress is situated at the northwest, but beyond this there is no indication of fortifications, aside from the difficult slope to the west. Most of the buildings are crudely built of rough basalt, laid without mortar, and there is no evidence of elite housing. Instead, houses tend to be of one or two irregular rooms. The only buildings constructed of ashlar and with mortar are the churches—more than twenty have been documented—as well as mausolea and cisterns. Mokisos stands as a good example of the dramatic changes experienced by Roman urbanism even

35

Procopius, On Buildings, 5.4.15–18.

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before the Transitional Period—the subject of Chapter 11. Like Mokisos, rural and village architecture may appear less than thrilling for the uninitiated—small, poorly constructed, and without clear functional distinctions. Unlike limited preservation elsewhere, however, the Limestone Massif of northern Syria preserves some seven hundred villages, dating primarily from the midfourth through the mid-fifth centuries. Buildings were constructed of squared stone—the most readily available building material in the region. Irregular clusters vary in size, and perhaps 95 percent of the village buildings are houses—public buildings are rare and ceremonial spaces are nonexistent.36 Houses tend to be two storied and G. Tchalenko, Villages Antiques; J.-P. Sodini et al., “Déhès (Syrie du nord) Campagnes I–III (1976–1978): Recherches sur l’habitat rural,” Syria 57 (1980): 1–181, 183–301, 303–4; G.  Tate, Les Campagnes de la Syrie du Nord du IIe au VIIe Siècle: Un Exemple d’Expansion Démographique et Économique à la Fin de l’Antiquité (Paris, 1992); G. Tate, “The Syrian Countryside during the Roman Era,” in The Early Roman Empire in the East, ed. S. Alcock (Oxford, 1997), 55–71.

36

FIGURE 7.32 Déhès, reconstruction of settlement (after J.-P. Sodini et al., “Déhès,” 1986; and H. Klengel, Syrien, 1987)

inward turning, with enclosed courtyards. Living accommodations were on the upper level, with the ground floor and court consigned to livestock. Living spaces seem to have been normally a single room, 25–30 square meters per family, without running water, latrines, facilities for bathing, or privacy. Communities seem to have aimed at self-sufficiency, with abundant evidence of olive and wine presses, as well as orchards, grain, and livestock. In spite of the apparent sophistication of the remains, living conditions were relatively simple—the evidence of wealth within the region comes from the churches, not the houses. Déhès, one of the larger villages studied in detail, had fifty-four houses, with 187 rooms (Fig. 7.32). Where earlier scholars had identified a public plaza, a market with stoas, and an inn, more recent examination indicates all were private residences, all oriented toward agricultural production. Defensive architecture. Defensive architecture followed Roman practices. The walls of Constantinople,

added by Theodosius II (412–13), stand as a singular achievement, combining two lines of defensive walls with a moat. Most fortification systems were simpler, with a single line of defense, following the topography, as at Thessalonike or Gerasa, and were part and parcel of urban development. Critical since the early Roman imperial period, however, was the protection of the frontiers, or limes, with fortresses and watchtowers, along the Danube to the north and in the eastern desert, regularly under threat by the Persians and Arab tribes.37 Sergiopolis (Resafa), fortified in the early sixth century, was one part of a larger network of M. Konrad, “Roman Military Fortifications along the Eastern Desert Frontier: Settlement Continuities and Change in North Syria 4th–8th Centuries,” in Residences, Castles, Settlements. Transformation Processes from Late Antiquity to Early Islam in Bilad al-Sham, eds. K.  Bartl and A.  Moaz (Rahden, 2008), 533–53; S. Parker, The Roman Frontier in Central Jordan: Interim Report on the Limes Arabicus Project, 1980–1985 (Oxford, 1987).

37

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163

FIGURE 7.33 Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine, view from the north (Joonas Plaan, Wikimedia Commons)

fortified outposts and a good example of an urban fortification system (see Figs. 7.27–7.29). As recounted by Procopius, under the patronage of Justinian, the protection of the limes took on a twofold purpose, combining defense with the promotion of Chalcedonian Christianity—indeed, there were large non-Chaldedonian, Miaphysite populations in the East. In this context, Resafa should be understood as both a military and a spiritual outpost. The city was surrounded by a huge enclosure, nearly rectangular, measuring approximately 549 by 411 meters overall, rising to a height of approximately 14 meters.38 The curtain wall is lined with towers, alternating large and small ones of different shapes, with octagonal towers at the corners. Stairs led up to the parapet near the gates and major towers, and an open arcade on the inner side eased the movement of troops from one area to another during the defense of the city. A dry moat enveloped the 38

W. Karnapp, Die Stadtmauer von Resafa in Syrien (Berlin, 1976).

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wall. Gates opened on four sides, all protected by towers, and three were protected by outer enclosure walls. That on the north wall, opening toward the Euphrates, is treated as a triumphal entry, with a triple opening decorated with columns and arches. Construction is of square stone, the local gypsum, used in the church construction as well. Justinian’s fortified monastery at Sinai functioned similarly, combining military and monastic functions (Figs. 7.33 and 7.34).39 Its original dedication to the Theotokos reflected the belief in the two natures of Christ. Like Resafa, its nearrectangular enclosure follows the model of a Roman castrum. Constructed in the early sixth century, it predates most of the monastic building it encloses. Representative of its dual function are G.  H.  Forsyth, “The Monastery of St. Catherine,” 1–19; G. H. Forsyth and K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai: The Church and Fortress of Justinian (Ann Arbor, 1973).

39

FIGURE 7.34 Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine, plan of sixth-century constructions (George H. Forsyth Jr., Michigan– Princeton– Alexandria Mission to Mount Sinai)

the sculpted hood guards that appear above the openings on the towers, decorated with apotropaic crosses. The walls thus offered both physical and spiritual protection to those inside. In his description of the fortifications of the eastern frontier, Procopius singled out Dara in Mesopotamia for a lengthy and detailed description—comparable in length to his description of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (Fig. 7.35).40 Critical in the Persian Wars, the fortifications had been rebuilt by Anastasius in the early sixth century at an earlier stage of the conflict. Procopius claims they were plagued by shoddy construction and that Justinian was compelled to undertake extensive repairs, doubling their height, raising towers, and adding a moat. The defensive system was combined with a reorientation of the water Procopius, On Buildings, 2.1.1–2.3.28; B.  Croke and J.  Crow, “Procopius and Dara,” JRS 73 (1983): 143–59; E.  Keser Kayaalp and N.  Erdoğan, “Recent Research on Dara/Anastasiopolis,” in New Cities in Late Antiquity: Documents and Archaeology, eds. E. Rizos and A. Ricci (Turnhout, 2017), 153–75.

40

system, diverting the Kordes River to flow through the city, supplying it with water, but exiting through an underground channel, thus depriving the besiegers of water. The whole was controlled by an elaborate dam. In spite of the lengthy and detailed description of the dam and the fortifications, most impressive at Dara today are its extensive vaulted cisterns (Fig. 7.36). A few meager towers survive, but they preserve no indication of rebuilding; texts also indicate that the water channel existed at an earlier date. Here and elsewhere, Justinian (in the voice of Procopius) seems to be taking credit for the work of Anastasius, while discrediting him at the same time. Although Anastasius was a Miaphysite and the last of the old guard to rule before Justin I was elected to the throne—thus worthy of contempt on two counts— it is curious that Procopius devotes such a long description to this particular site. All the same, while Procopius credits Justinian with the systematic fortification of the Eastern frontier, much of the work clearly belongs to his predecessors.

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FIGURE 7.35 Dara, site plan (redrawn after B. Croke and J. Crow, JRS, 1983)

FIGURE 7.36 Dara, cisterns (Marku1988, Wikimedia Commons)

Indeed, it is likely that the fortification of Resafa was the work of Anastasius as well. The site now known as Qasr ibn Wardan, also on the Persian limes, falls somewhere between 166

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church architecture, military architecture, and domestic architecture, the residence of a provincial governor, constructed ca. 561–64 (Figs. 7.37 and 7.38). As will be noted in the discussion of the

FIGURE 7.37 Qasr ibn Wardan, church and governor’s palace, seen from the south (author)

palace chapel in Chapter 10, construction is of alternating bands of brick and stone, apparently following the model of Constantinople, although the brick was produced locally. The residential building, approximately 50 by 50 meters, is inward turning, organized symmetrically around a central courtyard, and entered from the north, with rooms on two levels. Stables flank the entrance, while on the south side, an apsidal room on the upper level seems to have functioned as an audience hall. A small bath lay in the eastern wing. The chapel stood independently to the southeast. Another rectangular complex stood farther south, almost identical in dimensions to the residential block. Now almost completely destroyed, it seems to have been the barracks for the troops. The Byzantine reconquest of North Africa from the Vandals in 533–34 was followed by an unprecedented program of fortification, both urban and rural. In several instances, rather than enveloping the existing urban entity, only a portion of its core was fortified, creating a citadel within the city—a model common elsewhere in subsequent centuries. At Dougga, for example, only the forum, the Capitolium, and a few

FIGURE 7.38 Qasr ibn Wardan, site plan (after H. C. Butler, Early Churches, 1929)

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FIGURE 7.39 Dougga, plan of the forum area showing the intrusive Byzantine citadel (after Karldupart, Wikimedia Commons)

adjacent buildings were incorporated into the citadel, utilizing and extending existing walls (Fig. 7.39). Here and elsewhere, urban life continued, with new construction and new churches, while the citadel at its heart must have disrupted older urban patterns.41 Domestic architecture. Well into the sixth century, the standard elite residence was inward turning, with rooms organized around a central peristyle and garden, replete with ceremonial spaces

D. Pringle, Defense of Byzantine Africa from Justinian to the Arab Conquest (Oxford, 1981); A. Leone, Changing Townscapes in North Africa from Late Antiquity to the Arab Conquest (Bari, 2007); C. Fenwick, “From Africa to Ifrīqya: Settlement and Society in Early Medieval North Africa (650–800),” Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 25 (2013), 9–33

41

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for reception and dining.42 Large houses with similar features have been excavated across the Mediterranean. Perhaps the most significant changes in the Late Antique domus were the increasing size and number of ceremonial spaces (audience halls and triclinia), as at the famous early fourth-century villa at Piazza Armerina in Sicily (Fig. 7.40).43 Also noteworthy is the incorporation of chapels into the domestic setting.44 The latter phenomenon is indicative of the growing importance of private worship and was a source of growing concern in ecclesiastical legislation. With significant economic and social changes, however, by the end of the period under discussion, the domus disappeared. S. Ellis, “The End of the Roman House,” AJA 92 (1988): 565– 76; J.-P. Sodini, “Habitat de l’antiquité tardive,” Topoi 5, no. 1 (1995): 151–218; J.-P. Sodini, “Habitat de l’antiquité tardive,” Topoi 7, no. 1 (1997): 435–577.

42

43

R. J. A. Wilson, Piazza Armerina (London, 1983).

44

Bowes, Private Worship.

FIGURE 7.40 Piazza Armerina, villa, plan (after R. J. A. Wilson, Piazza Armerina, 1983)

A characteristic, if not particularly innovative, example is what may have been the palatial residence of Theodoric at Ravenna, for which the adjacent church now dedicated to Sant’Apollinare Nuovo served as palace chapel (Fig. 7.41).45 While only partially excavated and incompletely known, it includes the signature features: rooms organized around a portico enclosing a garden; a large apsidal hall, perhaps on axis, perhaps the audience hall; a triconch at one corner that may have been the triclinium, a dining hall, equipped with sigmashaped couches. It is tempting to see the building identified as the palatium in the mosaics in the church next door as depicting the peristyle

façade.46 The same features appeared almost two centuries earlier at Piazza Armerina, although arranged somewhat differently, with separate courtyards for the audience hall and the triclinium. A similar combination of peristyle court and audience hall characterizes one of the few excavated portions of the Great Palace in Constantinople, which has been dated archaeologically to the sixth century (Fig. 7.42).47 Known for the spectacular mosaics preserved in the portico, the identity of this part of the palace remains elusive. Indeed, the Great Palace would have been closer to what we would call a villa—buildings and pavilions loosely organized in a park-like setting. Many are known from evocative texts, describing exotic, lavishly M.  J.  Johnson, “Toward a History of Theoderic’s Building Program,” DOP 42 (1988): 73–96.

46

Deliyannis, Ravenna, 55–58; A.  Augenti, “The Palace of Theoderic at Ravenna: A New Analysis of the Complex,” in Housing in Late Antiquity: From Palaces to Shops, eds. L.  Lavan, L. Özgenel, and A. Sarantis (Leiden, 2007), 425–54. 45

W.  Jobst, B.  Erdal, and C.  Gurtner, Istanbul. The Great Palace Mosaic (Istanbul, 1997); T. Öner and J. Kostenec, Walking through Byzantium: Great Palace Region (Istanbul, 2007).

47

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169

FIGURE 7.41 Ravenna, so-called Palace of Theodoric, plan (partially excavated) (after Mark J. Johnson, DOP, 1988)

decorated audience halls, triclinia, and chapels— the settings of imperial rituals, collected in the tenth-century Book of Ceremonies. Although little is preserved of the Great Palace, some sense of its architecture is provided by two early fifth-century palaces excavated on the opposite site of the Hippodrome, belonging to officials in the imperial court. Already noted for its innovative structure and geometry, the Palace of Antiochos belonged to a eunuch in the court of Theodosius II (see Figs. 8.9 and 8.10).48 Entered from a street perpendicular to the Hippodrome 48 R.  Naumann and H.  Belting, Die Euphemia-Kirche am Hippodrom zu Istanbul und Ihre Fresken (Berlin, 1966); R. Naumann, “Vorbericht über die Ausgrabungen zwischen Mese und Antiochos-Palast 1964 in Istanbul,” IstMitt 15 (1965): 135–48; the identification is questioned by J. Bardill, “The Palace of Lausus and Nearby Monuments in Constantinople: A Topographical Study,” AJA 101 (1997): 67–95.

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through a sigma portico enclosing formal gardens, the portico connected to a series of elegant, geometrically shaped rooms: an octagon; suites of rooms organized around circular halls; and a lobed hexagon on axis—the triclinium, or ceremonial hall, in which we might imagine sigmashaped couches and tables set into the niches for ceremonial dining. The neighboring palace, usually identified as the Palace of Lausus, known to house a collection of ancient sculptures, was similarly entered through a sigma portico, which opened into a large, domed vestibule. This in turn connected, through a narthex, to an elongated triclinium, with seven niches for the couches of the diners. In both complexes, the emphasis is on the formal spaces to the exclusion of almost everything else, reflecting the ceremonialization of daily life among the Late Antique elite, following the model of the imperial court. Indeed, these two palace complexes may best represent the kind of architecture once found in the Great Palace. In this respect, the accusation that Antiochus was overstepping his bounds and “living like an emperor” is telling—his property was confiscated and eventually turned into the Church of St. Euphemia.49 As to the Great Palace, from descriptions we know that the Chrysotriclinos (the Golden audience hall) was octagonal and niched, perhaps not unlike Antiochus’s triclinium, while one of the ceremonial dining halls was known as the Dekaenneakoubita (the hall of the nineteen couches), suggesting a longer version of Lausus’s triclinium. A similar tendency toward ceremonialization is evident in elite housing across the empire. The so-called Triconch House at Aphrodisias, built ca. 400, was perhaps the governor’s residence or that of a civic official; in its later life, it became the bishop’s palace (Fig. 7.43A).50 Situated next to the Bouleterion at the North Agora, it was built I. Lavin, “The House of the Lord: Aspects of the Role of Palace Triclinia in the Architecture of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” ArtB 44, no. 1 (1962): 1–27.

49

M.  Berenfeld, “The Triconch House and the Predecessors of the Bishop’s Palace at Aphrodisias,” AJA 113 (2009): 203–29. 50

FIGURE 7.42 Constantinople, Great Palace area. (A) Archaeological plan of the courtyard and audience hall; (B) reconstructed view of the peristyle court with floor mosaics (after W. Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 1977; and Tayfun Öner)

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FIGURE 7.43 Plans of elite houses: (A) Aphrodisias, Triconch House; (B) Apollonia, Palace of the Dux (after M. Berenfeld, AJA, 2009; and S. Ellis, AJA, 1988)

on a previously occupied site, incorporating some older elements. Its plan includes both a large triconch hall and a rectangular apsed hall, both adjacent to the central peristyle court. The rectangular hall is more contained, connected to a public street to the west, and may have been used for official business, while the peristyle opened from a private or semiprivate passageway to the south. The triconch opened axially onto the peristyle, with a decorated niche set opposite; it seems more likely the setting of more private entertainments and dining. Thus, public and private ceremonial functions were separated. The Palace of the Dux at Apollonia, residence of the dux of Cyrenaica (Libya), is in many ways similar, although later in date, probably sixth century (Fig. 7.43B).51 The smaller of the two reception halls was immediately accessible from the street, its vestibule provided with benches. Here guests were met and business was conducted. Those allowed into the residential core could pass into the peristyle court, dominated by a larger apsed hall at its head, the triclinium for entertain51

Ellis, “End of the Roman House.”

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ment or dining. On the opposite side of the peristyle was a diminutive three-aisled basilica, the private chapel of the dux. Similar features have been noted in the Late Antique houses of Ephesus, indicating that settings for private worship were gradually joining the other ceremonial spaces.52

* In sum, much of what we have discussed in this chapter would not have been out of place in a general survey of Roman architecture. Even the small dwellings at Mokisos or Déhès, lacking formal and functional distinction, find earlier Greek and Roman analogues—and are perhaps more interesting for the social historian than for the architectural historian. Even as Christianity enters the scene, it is but one part of a larger social and cultural transformation. While evidence of economic decline becomes apparent in the later sixth century, only in the subsequent centuries is there a decisive cultural break—as is addressed in Chapters 11 and 12. 52

Bowes, Private Worship, 104.

CHAPTER EIGHT

,

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C

hapter 6 concentrated on standard architectural forms and building materials as they developed across the empire, primarily during the fifth century. Parallel to the proliferation of the basilica as the prevailing church type, a more experimental trend developed, which had repercussions for later developments. In fact, it is difficult to make sense of the unique scale and form of Justinian’s Hagia Sophia—the subject of the next chapter—without a more theoretical perspective. A few examples discussed already, such as Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome, the hexagonal church at Amphipolis, or the round church at Bet She’an, remain unique monuments, inspiring no successors, but they indicate a desire for alternatives to the basilica. This chapter discusses several architectural themes that signal innovation during Late Antiquity: (1) the juxtaposition of longitudinal and centralized plans in church architecture; (2) the development of skeletal structural systems in Late Roman architecture that transform wall support into point support; and (3) an increased interest in geometry and measurement in architectural design. The innovative developments of Hagia Sophia mark a creative shift from Rome and Italy (where architecture would remain conservative after the sixth century) to Constantinople and the East. Surviving buildings provide dramatic testimony of the vibrance of Constantinople as a cultural

center, drawing upon the empire-wide experimentation of the preceding century. Moreover, design changes also reflect the growing importance of a symbolic language, as architecture became part of a political discourse. New directions in church planning. By the latter part of the fifth century, two important trends emerged in church architecture: the centralized plan, into which a longitudinal axis was introduced, and the longitudinal plan, into which a centralizing element was introduced. Both prefigure Hagia Sophia to a certain extent. The first type may be represented by the Church of the Theotokos on Mt. Gerizim, in Palestine, built ca. 484, replacing an older Samaritan hilltop site after a rebellion was quelled by Emperor Zeno (r. 474–91) (Fig. 8.1).¹ The church was likely modeled after the Kathisma Church outside Jerusalem, a pilgrimage site marking the Virgin’s resting point on the journey to Bethlehem.² In both, known from excavated foundations, the nave is octagonal, enveloped by Y. Magen, “The Church of Mary Theotokos on Mount Gerizim,” in Christian Archaeology in the Holy Land: New Discoveries, eds. G. C. Bottini, L. di Segni, and A. Alliata (Jerusalem, 1990), 333– 42; Y.  Magen, Mount Gerizim Excavations, II. A Temple City (Jerusalem, 2008).

1

Avner, “The Recovery of the Kathisma Church”; see also Johnson, San Vitale, 67–73. 2

Alahan Manastır, East Church, interior, looking east (Anastasios Tantsis) 175

FIGURE 8.1 (A) Jerusalem, Kathisma Church, reconstructed plan; (B) Mt. Gerizim, Church of the Theotokos, plan (after R. Avner, ARAM, 2007; and Y. Magen, in Christian Archaeology, 1990)

8.2 Gerasa (Jerash), Church of the Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs, plan (after C. H. Kraeling, Gerasa, 1938) FIGURE

an aisle, with columns along the sides and piers at the corners, but open along the east side into a deep sanctuary bay and apse. The centralized nature of the design was emphasized by including both a western narthex and lateral porches, as well as four subsidiary chapels positioned on the diagonals. At the Kathisma Church, the exposed rock seat appeared at the center of the octagon, and the church might be classified as an octagonal martyrium, but with its liturgical focus in the eastern sanctuary. At Mt. Gerizim, a relic of the Cross was housed somewhere, but there is no evidence of anything centrally positioned. Nevertheless, the adoption of the plan must have had symbolic overtones, as the site was claimed for Orthodoxy, and the association with the Theotokos physically manifested in the  church’s form. The famed Church of the Dormition of the Virgin in 176

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Jerusalem may have also been octagonal, although it has disappeared without a trace.³ Similarly juxtaposing a centralized design and a longitudinal axis is the Church of the Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs, of ca. 465 in Gerasa, known from excavations (Fig. 8.2).4 In this case, the plan is cruciform and aisled, with the central square bay articulated by heavier columns at the crossing. Four rooms of uncertain function fill the corners. Only the semicircular apse projects from the square block of the building. The centrality of the design is emphasized by entrances on three sides. At the same time, the longitudinal liturgical axis is marked by a porch on the western side, a slightly elongated western cross arm, and the sanctuary filling the eastern cross arm, with closure panels set between the columns. And like Mt. Gerizim, we can only hypothesize with regard to the elevation, which for both churches must have been a sort of pyramidal massing, rising to a central tower, covered by a wooden roof. A third variation, briefly discussed in Chapter 5, is the aisled tetraconch, which combines geometric elegance with a centralizing focus (see Fig. 5.3).5 Nevertheless, although the plan found favor at a number of locations, there is an evident ambivalence toward how it might function liturgically— that is, where was the altar? At the earliest example, 3

Vincent and Abel, Jérusalem, 825–31, and fig. 349.

4

Kraeling, Gerasa, 256–60.

W.  E.  Kleinbauer, “The Origin and Function of the Aisled Tetraconch Churches.” 5

FIGURE 8.3 Seleucia Pieria, aisled tetraconch church, partial axonometric reconstruction (James StantonAbbott)

the fourth-century San Lorenzo in Milan, evidence suggests the sanctuary was centrally positioned. At Seleucia Pieria, the central nave contained a so-called Syrian bema (see Chap. 3), and an additional apsed bay opened through a columnar screen from the east wall (Fig. 8.3).6 This must have been the sanctuary—it was equipped with a templon, as the excavation drawing indicates, and there seems to be no other likely position for it. But it is an odd solution, with the liturgical focus effectively separated from the emphatically centralized nave. At the early sixth-century Cathedral of Apamea, the tetraconch plan of Seleucia is repeated, including the apsed bay projecting to the east through a columnar screen (Fig. 8.4).7 The 6 W. A. Campbell, “The Martyrion at Seleucia Pieria,” in Antiochon-the-Orontes III. The Excavations, 1937–1939, ed. R.  Stillwell (Princeton, 1941), 35–54; W. E. Kleinbauer, “The Church Building at Seleucia Pieria,” in Antioch: The Lost City, ed. C. Kondoleon (Princeton, 2001), 217–18.

J.  C.  Balty, “Le groupe épiscopal d’Apamée, dit ‘cathédrale de l’est’—premières recherches,” in Apamée de Syrie. Bilan des recherches archéologiques 1969–1971, eds. J. Balty and J. C. Balty (Brussels, 1972), 187–205.

heavy piers suggest that the central nave was domed, and the eastern conch has been replaced by a semicircular wall, within which are remains of a synthronon and altar (and no Syrian bema)— thus bringing the sanctuary closer to the centralizing focus of the design. At Resafa, the tetraconch church may have been the cathedral as well; it is elongated, and if covered with a trussed timber roof (as the excavators proposed), the interior space would have seemed like a basilica with lateral exedrae, the centralizing element minimized.8 The fifth-century tetraconch inserted in the Stoa of Hadrian at Athens (likely the cathedral) must have been similar (see Fig. 5.3C).9 In sum, the ambivalence in the design seems to be symptomatic of the inherent conflicts between the harmony symbolized by an ideal geometric plan and the functional requirements of the liturgy, which dictated a longitudinal axis. Indeed, the same conflicts plagued Renaissance architectural

7

8

J. Kollwitz, “Die Grabungen in Resafa,” 45–70.

J.  M.  Camp, The Archaeology of Athens (New Haven, 2001), 233–35. 9

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FIGURE 8.4 Apamea, cathedral, plan (after J. C. Balty, Apamée, 1972)

theory, as the history of design changes at New St. Peter’s in Rome illustrates.¹0 The second trend, in which a centralizing element was introduced into a basilican plan, is exemplified by the so-called Domed Basilica at Meryemlik in Cilicia, built ca. 471–94, at which a dome seems to have been superimposed on a standard basilican nave (Fig. 8.5).¹¹ Known from its excavated foundations and early travelers’ reports, it is similar in proportion to the fifth-century Church of St. John Stoudios in Constantinople. Preceded by a large atrium with a semicircular forecourt, the church differs noticeably in the alternating supports of the nave, with heavy piers isolating the eastern bay, immediately before the apse. The remainder of the church may have been vaulted as well; the barrel vaults of the aisles were visible a century ago, and the walls are thickened

appropriately. Either we should reconstruct the building as vaulted throughout, with a nave covered by a domed eastern bay and a barrel-vaulted western bay, or alternatively with the nave covered by wooden roofs, with a tower of some sort above the eastern bay. In either case, the design accorded architectural distinction to the eastern bay. While the first alternative is enticing, the second may be encouraged on comparison with the late fifth-century East Church at Alahan Manastır, which is similar in its design (Figs. 8.6–8.8).¹² Probably part of a large pilgrimage complex in the mountains of Cilicia, with two churches, a baptistery, and other buildings connected by a portico along the cliff face, originally accessed by a monumental staircase, much of the complex remains standing in pristine isolation. Although the roof is missing, the South Church stands almost its full

S. Kostof, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals, 2nd ed. (New York, 1995), 500–509.

12

10

11

Hill, Early Byzantine Churches, 226–34.

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M. Gough, ed., Alahan: An Early Christian Monastery in Southern Turkey (Toronto, 1985); Hill, Early Byzantine Churches, 68–82.

FIGURE 8.5 Meryemlik, “Domed Basilica,” plan (after E. Herzfeld and S. Guyer, Meriamlik und Korykos, 1930)

height, of fine ashlar construction with excellent carved decoration. The building had three aisles, with galleries above the side aisles, which terminate in apses. The sanctuary extends an extra bay, flanked by subsidiary rooms. Within the elevation, the nave, aisles, and subsidiary rooms are strengthened by diaphragm arches, which may have reduced the amount of timber (or reduced its length) necessary for roofing. Like Meryemlik, the eastern squarish bay is emphasized in the support system, rising above the level of the galleries to culminate in a tower. Before the roof level, squinches appear at the corners—corbelled arches rising above bracketed columns—to make a transition from square to octagon. The roofing of the area must have been an octagonal wooden pyramid, for the walls are too thin to support a dome. Another church of similar date in the same area at Dağ Pazarı seems to have been similar in its design, although on a smaller scale.¹³ Cilicia and Isauria seem to have been fruitful areas for architectural experimentation, immediately before the  time of Justinian. Here and in Syria, several buildings have been attributed to the patronage of Emperor Zeno (r. 474–91), who came from Isauria, a region famous for its builders.¹4 Both trends—the liturgically equipped centralized design and the basilica with a centralizing 13

Hill, Early Byzantine Churches, 155–60.

C.  Mango, “Isaurian Builders,” in Polychronion (Festschrift Franz Dölger zum 75 Geburtstag), ed. P. Wirth (Heidelberg, 1966), 358– 65. 14

focus—are further developed during the reign of Justinian. Structural design. A second point to consider is the innovative trend in Late Antique architecture, which we find manifest in Rome and subsequently transferred to Constantinople by the fifth century, as was briefly touched on in Chapter 5. In addition to a variety of new, vaulted architectural designs, which were concerned with molding interior space, a variety of buildings evince a desire to lighten the structural system by reducing the mass of construction materials—that is, moving away from massive vaults supported by thick, solid walls toward a system of thin-shell construction with point support. Such changes are evident as early as the second century in the design of the pavilions at Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli, notably the octagonal vestibule at the Water Court (Piazza d’Oro).¹5 Here a pumpkin dome rises above a niched octagon, whose form is expressed on the exterior of the building, while loads are concentrated at the eight piers between the niches. While it was small in scale and isolated, by the end of the third century, similar skeletal structures are found in Rome itself, and on a much larger scale. The Pavilion in the Licinian Gardens, built ca. 300, is the bestknown example, with a dome approximately 25 meters in diameter (see Fig. 5.17).¹6 A garden W. MacDonald and J. Pinto, Hadrian’s Villa and Its Legacy (New Haven, 1995), 96–99.

15

16

Lancaster, Concrete Vaulted Construction, 161–64, 201–202.

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FIGURE

180

8.6

Alahan Manastır, East Church, interior, looking east (Anastasios Tantsis)

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FIGURE 8.7 Alahan Manastır, East Church, plan and elevation (after M. Gough, Alahan, 1985)

pavilion—and thus without overriding functional restrictions—the building is decagonal and remarkably open in its design, with niches exposed on the exterior and open by columnar screens. Moreover, there is considerable evidence of attempts to lighten and concentrate the structural system. It is built of brick-faced concrete, but structural brick ribs were built into the fabric of the dome—not visible originally—to concentrate the weight and thrusts at the piers, and amphorae were built into the dome to lighten its weight. All of this stands in contrast to traditional Roman thick-walled construction, as exemplified by the Pantheon, whose great dome rests on a cylindrical wall more than 7 meters thick, pierced by niches. While the garden pavilion is both daring and innovative, it was not without its problems and required additional structural bracing on the exterior. By the early fifth century, the same sort of innovative design appeared in Constantinople, notably in the hexagonal triclinium at the Palace of Antiochos by the Hippodrome, which was

discussed in the context of residential architecture in Chapter 7 (Figs. 8.9 and 8.10).¹7 The ceremonial hall of an elite administrator in the court of Theodosius II, the building was similarly niched— apparently to hold the semicircular couches of the diners—and the niches were exposed on the exterior; the weight of the approximately 20-meterdiameter dome was countered by piers between the niches. With the exception of the axial niche, others connected into circular, colonnaded porches, opening into the palace garden. Known from excavation (and thus elements of the elevation are speculative), the building is nevertheless provocative in its design; the innovative forms found here are a smaller-scale reflection of the sort of architecture one might have found in the Great Palace of the Byzantine emperors, on the opposite side of the Hippodrome. At the same time, Antiochos’s triclinium contrasts dramatically with its next-door neighbor, sometimes identified as the Palace of Lausus and 17

Naumann and Belting, Die Euphemia-Kirche.

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FIGURE 8.8 Alahan Manastır, East Church, view from the southwest (Anastasios Tantsis)

close to contemporaneous in date.¹8 Here, the palace complex was entered through a decagonal domed vestibule, but of very different character. The building is of thick-walled construction with niches set into the thickness of the wall, similar to the design of the Pantheon. That is, the rotunda relied on its massive walls to support its dome. Archaeology suggests that the two palaces were very close in date, indicating that the innovative and conservative trends in architectural design continued side by side in Byzantium. Geometry and measure. It is perhaps belaboring the obvious to note the importance of geometry in these designs. At the Palace of Antiochos, even the secondary rooms are round or polygonal, organized around a semicircular courtyard— sometimes called a sigma courtyard, as the Byzantines wrote the letter sigma as a C. Similarly, the design of the aisled tetraconch churches also has obviously strong geometric underpinnings; the 18 Naumann, “Vorbericht,” 135–48; the identification is questioned by Bardill, “Palace of Lausus,” 67–95.

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importance of geometry in general was discussed in Chapter  5. Less evident to the present-day viewer, however, is the importance of measurement in historic architecture. At a variety of Late Roman and Byzantine monuments, evidence of round numbers has been deduced as the basis of planning, which would have introduced a sort of invisible symbolism into the structure. One building that is often discussed in relationship to Hagia Sophia is the church of St. Polyeuktos in Constantinople, the immediate predecessor to Hagia Sophia, built by the noblewoman Juliana Anicia and completed ca. 522 (Figs. 8.11–8.13).¹9 Known from its excavated R.  M.  Harrison, Excavations at Saraçhane in Istanbul, Vol. 1 (Princeton, 1986), 410–11; R. M. Harrison, A Temple for Byzantium: The Discovery and Excavation of Anicia Juliana’s Palace-Church in Istanbul (Austin, 1989); J. Bardill, “A New Temple for Byzantium: Anicia Juliana, King Solomon, and the Gilded Ceiling of the Church of St. Polyeuktos in Constantinople,” in Social and  Political Life in Late Antiquity, eds. W.  Bowden, A.  Gutteridge, and C.  Machado (Leiden, 2006), 339–70;

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FIGURE 8.9 Constantinople, palaces of Antiochos and Lausus, excavation plan (redrawn after W. Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 1977)

foundations and opulent decorative elements, the building is well documented in Byzantine sources and was clearly the largest and most lavish architectural enterprise in the capital before Hagia Sophia. When it was excavated in the 1960s, it was thought to be a domed basilica, but it seems much more likely to have been a wooden-roofed

J.  Bardill, “Église Saint-Polyeucte à Constantinople: Nouvelle solution pour l’énigme de sa reconstitution,” in Architecture paléochrétienne, ed. J.-M. Spieser (Gollion, 2011), 77–103.

basilica of great ostentation, with the nave flanked by parallel exedrae, resting atop thick foundations. No evidence of a dome was found in the excavations, and the delicate exedrae would not have provided the support necessary for a vaulted superstructure, despite the thick foundations. The exedrae were lined with niches formed by the sculpted tails of peacocks, the spandrels were filled with intricately carved vine leaves, and the whole was enveloped by a long, adulatory dedication poem. In addition to marble, mosaic, and gilt interior surfaces, the elaborately carved

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FIGURE 8.10 Constantinople, Palace of Antiochos, reconstructed plan and elevation of the hexagonal triclinium (after R. Naumann and H. Belting, Euphemia-Kirche, 1966)

capitals have unusual forms and details, and many of the column shafts were inlaid with glass paste to resemble jewels. Measurements here played a critical role in the meaning of the building, for the builders of St. Polyeuktos had attempted to replicate the Temple of Solomon in its measurements, translated into Byzantine royal cubits (rather than Byzantine feet): 100 royal cubits in length, as was the Temple, and 100 royal cubits in width (actually 51.45 by 51.9 meters), as was the Temple platform—following both the unit of measure and the measurements given in Ezekiel 41. The sanctuary of the church was to have been 20 royal cubits square internally, the recorded measurement of the Holy of Holies. Similarly, the ostentatious decoration compares with that described in the Temple, with cherubim (here represented by peacocks) alternating with palm trees, bands 184

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of ornamental networks, festoons of chainwork, pomegranates, network on the capitals, and capitals shaped like lilies, stylistically far from classical, but following Sasanian—that is, Eastern— models. Why copy the Temple of Solomon? A powerful noblewoman, Juliana Anicia was one of the last representatives of the Theodosian dynasty who could trace her lineage back to Constantine. When her son was passed over in the selection of emperor in favor of Justin I and subsequently Justinian, the construction of St. Polyeuktos became her ultimate political statement. The dedicatory inscription credits Juliana with having “surpassed the wisdom of the celebrated Solomon, raising a temple to receive God.” In this context, Justinian’s rebuilding of the Hagia Sophia could be seen as part of a larger, competitive discourse between political rivals, played out in architecture.²0 Ultimately, the discourse was perhaps more about the construction of divinely sanctioned kingship than about architecture or sacred topography. Clearly, both Juliana and Justinian understood the symbolic value of architecture, with which they could make powerful political statements. In the case of St. Polyeuktos, it was a statement that could never be put into words. Divinely sanctioned measurements here seem to be part of that political statement. The Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople was likely Justinian’s immediate response to St. Polyeuktos, begun by the mid-520s (Figs. 8.14–8.17).²¹ As the oldest functioning religious institution in the city, as well as preserving the city’s oldest dome, the building has long been of interest to scholars, who have debated its date and the circumstances of its foundation; whether it represents a “palace church type”; and if it served as a refuge for Monophysite (non-Chalcedonian; see Chap. 6) monks during the religious controversies of the sixth century, although few have 20

Ousterhout, “New Temples and New Solomons,” 223–53.

C.  Mango, “The Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus at Constantinople and the Alleged Tradition of Octagonal Palatine Churches,” JÖB 21 (1972): 189–93; J. Bardill, “The Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople and the Monophysite Refugees,” DOP 54 (2000): 1–11; B. Croke, “Justinian, Theodora, and the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus,” DOP 60 (2006): 25–63. 21

actually attempted to analyze the building formally or aesthetically. The church was originally constructed within the confines of the Hormisdas Palace on the Sea of Marmara, immediately south of the Hippodrome. The palace was the residence of Justinian before his accession to the throne, during the reign of his uncle Justin I (r. 517–27). Of the palace, nothing remains, but the historian Procopius writes that the construction of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus had been preceded by the construction of another church, dedicated to Sts. Peter and Paul. Built in the form of a basilica, ca. 518/9, the first church housed relics of the two Roman saints sent to Justinian as a gift by the pope. Justinian’s construction followed, built against its north side and sharing a common narthex and atrium. The Greek dedicatory inscription is carved in raised letters on the marble cornice of the naos. It mentions the royal couple, Justinian and Theodora, as well as St. Sergius, but, oddly, not his brother-saint Bacchus:

FIGURE 8.11 Constantinople, St. Polyeuktos, hypothetical reconstruction of plan (with surviving foundations in gray) and elevation (author, after J. Bardill, “Église Saint-Polyeucte,” 2011)

FIGURE 8.12 Constantinople, St. Polyeuktos, a peacock niche, now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums (author)

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FIGURE 8.13 Constantinople, St. Polyeuktos, one of the so-called Pilastri Acritani, now in Venice (Kaelin Jewell)

Other sovereigns, indeed, have honored dead men whose labor was useless. But our sceptered Justinian, fostering piety, honors with a splendid abode the servant of Christ, Creator of all things, Sergius; whom neither the burning breath of fire, nor the sword, nor other constraints or trials disturbed; but who for the sake of God-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 God-crowned Theodora, whose mind is bright with piety, whose toil ever is unsparing efforts to nourish the destitute.²² Begun immediately after the completion of St. Polyeuktos, the two churches may be usefully viewed in relationship to each other. Both were lavishly decorated, and in both, epigrams concerning C. Connor, “The Epigram in the Church of Hagios Polyeuktos in Constantinople and Its Byzantine Response,” Byzantion 69 (1999): 479–527.

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their founders encircled the nave. The piety expressed in the Sergius and Bacchus epigram stands in sharp contrast to the hubris that characterizes Juliana’s inscription. The reference to “other sovereigns” in the epigram, to those “dead men whose labor was unprofitable,” may be read as a not-so-subtle critique of Juliana, her vaunted ancestry, and her imperial pretensions. More importantly, the designs of the two buildings are fundamentally different. As the immediate predecessor to Hagia Sophia, the Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus represents one of Byzantium’s most innovative architectural creations. The plan positioned a domed, octagonal core within an irregular rectangle, its overall extent limited by the pre-existing elements of the palace.²³ The octagonal naos of the church measures 50 Byzantine feet across and is defined by piers, but the space between them billows outward with alternating rectangular and semicircular recesses on two levels; columnar screens open into the enveloping ambulatory and gallery. Corner niches in the ambulatory and gallery give these subsidiary spaces irregular octagonal plans. To the east, a sanctuary bay appears in place of an eighth recess, with the apse projecting on the exterior. The lower colonnades are topped by a heavy cornice that bears the dedicatory inscription. The cornice follows the undulations of the piers and recesses, emphasizing the spatial complexity of the naos. The upper colonnades are arcaded, surmounted by conches or narrow barrel vaults over the recesses. The unique dome—the oldest to survive in the capital—is actually a combination of a cloister vault and a pumpkin dome, with eight flat segments alternating with eight scalloped segments, its shape more elliptical than semicircular. The flat segments rise from the crown of the eight arches of the octagon, while the scalloped segments are set at the corners. Mathews, Early Churches of Constantinople, 42–51; P. Grossmann, “Beobachtungen zum ursprünglichen Grundriß der Sergios und Bakchoskirche in Konstantinopel,” IstMitt 39 (1989): 153–59; H. Svenshon and R. H. W. Stichel, “Neue Beobachtungen an der ehemaligen Kirche der Heiligen Sergios und Bakchos (Küçük Ayasofya Camisi) in Istanbul,” IstMitt 50 (2000): 389–409; H.  Svenshon, “Neue Überlegungen zum Grundrissentwurf der Sergios- und Bakchoskirche in Istanbul,” Architectura 43 (2013): 113–28; Johnson, San Vitale, 110–20.

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FIGURE 8.14 Constantinople, Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, interior view, looking east (author)

FIGURE 8.15 Constantinople, Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, plan, with adjacent buildings shaded in gray (author, redrawn after J. Ebersolt and A. Thiers, Les Églises de Constantinople, 1913)

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FIGURE 8. 16 Constantinople, Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, interior view, showing capitals and architrave (author)

FIGURE 8. 17 Constantinople, Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, detail of inscription (author)

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Eight windows appear at the base of the dome, within each of the flat segments. The ambulatory and gallery are now covered by barrel vaults, but it is likely they were originally covered by wooden roofs: the ambulatory vault springs illogically from the base of the cornice, and its insertion required the gallery floor level to be raised. Where exposed, the vaults are irregular, laid without formwork. Remarkably, the sophisticated spatial complexities of the interior are virtually invisible from the exterior. Originally surrounded by other buildings and preceded by a large atrium, the first view of the interior’s intricate spatial design would have come as a surprise to the visitor—as it still does today. Only the unusual form of the dome can be detected when viewed from a distance. However, buttresses and a false drum give the dome an odd, flattened appearance. Only tantalizing fragments of the original interior decoration survive. The walls and floors must have been covered with marbles and the vaults with mosaics. The columns are of verde antico and red-veined Synnada marble. The architectural sculpture is primarily of gray-veined Proconessian marble. The forms of the cornices and capitals appear as innovative as the architecture, all heavily undercut using a drill, giving them a weightless, lace-like appearance. The lower impost capitals have a “melon” form that echoes the billowing octagon of the church itself. The gallery capitals are of the Ionic impost type, exhibiting a great variety in their foliate patterning. These were decorated with the monograms of Justinian and Theodora and their titles. In both plan and elevation, the interior offers a remarkable study in geometry, as the design presents a subtle alternation of curvilinear and rectilinear forms. The plan alternates rectangular and semicircular colonnaded niches; the lower colonnades are trabeated; the gallery is arcuated; the lower capitals are curvilinear and undulating; the upper ones are rectilinear impost capitals. All culminates in the great dome, uniquely composed of alternating flat and scalloped segments. The careful coordination of the design is reflected in the organization of the inscription, which sets Justinian’s and Theodora’s names opposite each other to the north and south, while highlighting other key words by their architectural placement.

The suggestion that the minor spaces were originally unvaulted is worth considering in this context, for this emphasizes the experimental character of the dome—that is, it was a formal experiment, more concerned with design than with structure, its meaning perhaps found deep within Neoplatonic thought. The discrepancies between the sophisticated design of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus and the irregularities of its execution have been frequently noted. While regular and elegant, the central octagon is slightly rotated within an irregular rectangle, and the ambulatory varies dramatically in width. One suggestion is that the building was designed by a skilled architect but executed by a less talented master mason.²4 Most of the irregularities can be explained by the difficulty of situating the building between two pre-existing structures. In order to connect the building with the openings in the flanking structures, which were not symmetrical, it was necessary to rotate slightly the octagonal core. That is to say, the architect made the best of a difficult situation. Seen in relationship to St. Polyeuktos, the innovative character of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus stands out, both by its vaulting and in the subtle geometric complexities of its design—conceptually advanced far beyond its rival. In many ways, St. Polyeuktos signaled the end of the road for the great timber-roofed basilicas of Late Antiquity: while adventurous and ostentatious in its decoration, it was, for all intents and purposes, a conservative building, looking backward rather than forward. Its exedrae were elegant, but they were simply decorative, not integrated in a meaningful way into the structural system. By contrast, at Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, the columnar niches are fully integrated, perhaps the driving force in the development of the innovative design, signaling the important innovations that would characterize Justinianic architecture at its finest. It is Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, not St. Poyleuktos, that set the way toward Hagia Sophia and the future of Byzantine domed architecture. Domed basilicas, modular domes, and structure. Despite its scale, the structural stability of the dome was not a problem at Sts. Sergius and Bacchus. As a centrally planned building with a 24

Mango, Byzantine Architecture, 101–107.

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FIGURE 8. 18 Constantinople, Hagia Eirene, view from the northeast, with Hagia Sophia in the distance (author)

gallery, it provided even bracing on all sides, at the springing of the dome. However, the introduction of vaulting into basilican architecture posed some problems, as will be discussed in detail in the discussion of Hagia Sophia in the next chapter. Like Hagia Sophia, its next-door neighbor, the church of Hagia Eirene (Holy Peace) was destroyed in the riots of 532, and the two churches were reconstructed simultaneously (Figs. 8.18 and 8.19). Built as a domed basilica with a gallery, preceded by a narthex and atrium, the sanctuary preserves its synthronon and even the base for the altar.²5 In many ways, Hagia Eirene is a scaled-down, simplified version of Hagia Sophia, and it suffered from the same structural flaw: the lack of bilaterally symmetrical buttressing. The 50-foot (16-meter) dome of Hagia Eirene was raised above pendentives, buttressed to the east and west by barrel U.  Peschlow, Die Irenenkirche in Istanbul. Untersuchungen zur Architektur (Tübingen, 1977); Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 190–92.

vaults, but with clerestories opening to the north and south, with no additional bracing on the transverse axis. The building collapsed in the devastating earthquake of 740 and was substantially rebuilt, and its flawed structural system was corrected. Although it is normally discussed as Justinianic, most of what survives represents the late eighth-century reconstruction (see Chap. 11). The structural problems of Hagia Eirene are repeated in several provincial domed basilicas of the sixth century. Very close to Constantinopolitan design, for example, is the domed basilica known as Basilica B at Philippi in eastern Macedonia, constructed ca. 540 and possibly destroyed by an earthquake before its completion (Fig. 8.20).²6 It follows the plan of the nearby, timber-roofed Basilica A (late fifth century), framing the bema with transept wings (see Fig. 6.11). The short nave is preceded by a narthex and exonarthex; the aisles are surmounted by

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P. Lemerle, Philippes et la Macédoine Orientale, 413–513; Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 207–209.

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FIGURE 8. 19 Constantinople, Hagia Eirene, plan and hypothetical sections of the sixth-century building (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010, with the author’s modifications)

FIGURE 8. 20 Philippi, Basilica B, plan and hypothetical section (after P. Lemerle, Philippes et le Macédoine Orientale, 1945)

galleries, and the transept is framed by small chapels to the north and south. Construction was of alternating bands of brick and stone, with piers of large marble blocks for the major supports. Even the heavily undercut carving of the capitals reflects the art of

Constantinople. Vaulted throughout, it had a large groin vault above the nave, barrel vaults above the transept arms, and a ribbed brick dome above the crossing. The inclusion of a barrel-vaulted transept would seem to correct the lack of bilaterally

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FIGURE 8. 21 Mayafarqin, Church of the Virgin, looking north, in 1911 (Gertrude Bell Photographic Archive, University of Newcastle)

8. 22 Mayafarqin, Church of the Virgin, plan (after G. Bell, Churches and Monasteries of the Tur ‘Abdin, 1913) FIGURE

symmetrical buttressing, but a more detailed examination indicates this was not fully understood. The domed bay is actually trapezoidal, with a broad arch opening into the nave, slightly narrower arches into the transept, and a narrow arch into the apse. If it had been semicircular in profile, the eastern arch would have been much lower than its western counterpart and would have failed to provide the necessary support, even with the conch of the apse behind it. Surviving remains at the site tell the story: the westernmost nave piers stand—the groin vault was 192

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evenly braced and the western crossing piers are half preserved, whereas the eastern piers and the apse survive only at the foundation level. When struck by an earthquake, the dome and transept vaults must have toppled to the east. Stable structural systems existed, but they were not picked up in the capital. Two buildings from southern Asia Minor are instructive here. The nowdestroyed Church of the Virgin at Mayafarqin (ca. sixth century), recorded by Gertrude Bell in 1911, and the church now known as the Cumanin Camii in Antalya (late fifth–early sixth century) were both wooden-roofed churches, with a central tower, but both were planned originally with cruciform naves and corner compartments—that is, with bilateral symmetry along the major axes, something that is absent in the early domed basilicas noted earlier in the chapter (Figs. 8.21–8.23).²7 Significantly, in a  later phase—perhaps the eighth century—the Cumanin Camii was strengthened and vaulted in a cross-domed design. Another possible solution is the spatial unit formed by the dome on pendentives, which could G.  Bell, The Churches and Monasteries of the Ṭ ur A ‘ bdin, ed. M. M. Mango (London, 1982), 126–27; G. Kaymak, Die Cumanin Camii in Antalya (Antalya, 2009).

27

also be used as a design module. This seems to be what lay behind Justinian’s now-lost rebuilding of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople (Fig. 8.24). Whatever the exact form of Constantius’s cruciform church, it was completely replaced ca. 536–50. Although the building was destroyed in 1469 to make way for the Fatih Mosque (also subsequently destroyed and rebuilt), we may discuss Justinian’s church in general terms based on descriptions of it, as well as its reflections in the rebuilding of St. John’s Basilica at Ephesus, completed before 565, and in the late eleventh-century San Marco in Venice.²8 In these buildings, the modular unit is in fact a domed cross, with the dome on pendentives, braced on four sides by narrow barrel vaults. At the Holy Apostles, the domes seem to have been about 40 Byzantine feet in diameter, although not all were the same size. Only the central dome, above the sanctuary, had windows at its base, and the others may have been shallow, blind domes or perhaps pendentive domes. Procopius describes St. John at Ephesus as “most resembling and in every way rivaling the Temple of the Apostles in Constantinople” (Figs. 8.25 and 8.26).²9 It might thus be able to provide us with a good impression of the lost prototype. When excavated, St. John’s stood to a maximum height of 3 to 4 meters—that is, perhaps one sixth of its original height. Replacing the older church of ca. 450, when it was completed, Justinian’s church had six major bays defined by piers or pier clusters at the corners of each bay, and as the analysis of the fallen masonry indicates, it was covered by five low pendentive domes and a taller dome on pendentives at the crossing.³0 This gave greater prominence to the crossing dome, above the sanctuary and tomb of the evangelist, and creates a more unified interior. N.  Karydis, “The Evolution of the Church of St. John at Ephesos,” 97–128; N.  Karydis, “Justinian’s Church of the Holy Apostles: A New Reconstruction Proposal,” in The Holy Apostles: A Lost Monument, a Forgotten Project, and the Presentness of the Past, eds. M. Mullett and R. G. Ousterhout (Washington, DC, in press). 29 Procopius, On Buildings, 5.1.4 –6. 30 Karydis, “Evolution,” argues, based on a close analysis of the masonry, that the sixth-century church was begun on a five-domed plan and subsequently the nave was extended, resulting in the sixdomed plan. 28

FIGURE 8. 23 Antalya, Cumanin Camii, plan and elevation, showing two phases (author, after G. Kaymak, Cumanin Camii, 2009)

Begun sometime in the second half of the eleventh century, San Marco in Venice is also similar (Figs. 21.10 and 21.11). The interior must give something of the impression of how the Holy Apostles may have appeared, with domes on pendentives, organized in a Greek-cross plan, rising above cluster piers. A monk from San Nicolò di Lido noted in the early twelfth century that the church was “a skillful construction entirely similar to that of the Twelve Apostles in Constantinople.”³¹ But its context is quite different: the building would have responded to the emerging civic pride within eleventh-century Italy, offering visual competition to Venice’s rival Pisa, which was building its new cathedral at the same time—a subject to which we shall return in Chapter 21. It also provided visual testimony of Venice’s cosmopolitan character, its close relations, and its growing rivalry with Constantinople. 31 O. Demus, The Church of San Marco in Venice, History, Architecture, Sculpture (Washington, DC, 1960), 90; F. Forlati, La Basilica di San Marco attraverso i suoi Restauri (Trieste, 1975), and E.  Concina, Storia dell’Architettura di Venezia dal VII al XX Secolo (Milano, 1995), 35–36.

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FIGURE 8. 24 Constantinople, Church of the Holy Apostles, hypothetical plan and elevation (N. Karydis)

Returning to western Asia Minor and the sixth century, we find a variety of vaulted buildings that employed the cross-domed unit. The enigmatic church of St. John at Alaşehir (Philadelphia) has a curious single-aisled plan, with a nave covered by two domes; Church D at Sardis was similar, while two churches at Pamukkale/ Hierapolis—all probably Justinianic in date— seem to have employed similar modular designs (Fig. 8.27).³² We might wonder if they (rather than the Holy Apostles) set the pattern for later H.  Buchwald, “Western Asia Minor as a Generator of Architectural Forms in the Byzantine Period, Provincial Back-wash of Dynamic Center of Production,” JÖB 34 (1984): 199–234, esp. 209–14; reprinted in H.  Buchwald, Form, Style and Meaning in Byzantine Church Architecture (Ashgate,

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developments. Could St. John’s have served as the model for the Holy Apostles, rather than the other way around? Anthemius and Isidorus, the architects of Hagia Sophia, came from western Asia Minor, but we can only speculate how much local know-how they brought with them. That said, the full integration of the cross-domed unit must wait until after the time of Justinian.

, What is perhaps most striking from this overview is the experimental nature of the dome in the sixth 1999); N.  Karydis, Early Byzantine Vaulted Construction, 13– 23.

FIGURE 8. 25 Ephesus, St. John, view looking northwest (author)

FIGURE 8. 26 Ephesus, St. John, plan and hypothetical isometric section (after N. Karydis, Early Byzantine Vaulted Construction, 2011)

8. 27 Plans of vaulted churches from western Asia Minor: Urban Basilica, Hierapolis; St. John, Philadelphia; Building D, Sardis (after N. Karydis, Early Byzantine Vaulted Construction, 2011) FIGURE

century—not simply in terms of its structure, but also in terms of its form, placement, and meaning. We have pendentive domes, domes on pendentives, with and without ribs, and with and without windows, as well as the exotic combination of pumpkin dome and cloister vault. And where should the dome be positioned—centrally over the nave or above the bema? And what does it mean? At Hagia Sophia, Procopius presents the dome as the heavenly sphere—as the “dome of heaven,” where God dwells. Would the same apply to the faceted dome of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus? And if a church has multiple domes, do they all bear the

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same meaning? Where do we draw the line between the roles played by structure, function, and meaning in the creation of new architectural designs? Much of the fifth-century experimentation might be viewed as a spatial interplay between liturgically appropriate longitudinal plans and symbolically resonant centralized designs. The changes in architectural design we are discussing here may be driven more by symbolic than by structural concerns. This is most evident in the context of imperial patronage, but as Constantinople emerges as a powerful cultural and religious center, it sets a standard to be emulated across the empire.

CHAPTER NINE

,

THE BASILICA TRANSFORMED Hagia Sophia in Constantinople

T

he best known and most influential of all Byzantine churches, Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is a unique achievement in the history of architecture and, as such, demands a detailed analysis to understand its historical context, planning principles, structural systems, aesthetics, and symbolism (Fig. 9.1; and see Fig. 0.1).1 Justinian’s “Great Church” (Megale Ekklesia) was dedicated to the Holy Wisdom—a concept, not a person—and it may be best understood in conceptual terms. Intended to be unique in form and scale, the grand building was meant to symbolize the dominion of the emperor Justinian (r. 527–65), whose armies reconquered lost territories in the East and West and in North Africa. At the same time, an examination of the building’s details reveals unresolved design features and structural flaws, which indicate that the Great Church was an experiment on the grandest of scales, planned and executed quickly.

1 The literature on Hagia Sophia is voluminous; for an overview, see Mainstone, Hagia Sophia; for bibliography, see Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls, 84–96; and Kleinbauer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture; for the liturgy, see Mathews, Early Churches of Constantinople, 88–99 and passim; for documentation, R.  L.  Van Nice, St. Sophia in Istanbul: An Architectural Survey, 2 vols. (Washington, DC, 1965, 1986).

The idea of a domed temple as the heavenly abode of the divinity, as expressed in the Roman Pantheon, lies behind Justinian’s church, and it is tempting to see the Pantheon as its referent.2 An enormous dome rises above the nave of a basilica, transforming both the spatial experience and the meaning of the interior. It served as the cathedral of Constantinople and the setting of important imperial ceremonies, but more than anything it stood as a symbol of Justinian’s dominion, for its construction coincided with a critical point in his reign.3 In 532, the feuds between the various political factions in the capital culminated in a riot, called the Nika Rebellion for the shouts of “Victory” (= nika in Greek) by the rioters. In the course of a week in January 532, much of the city was set ablaze, and while Justinian attempted to placate the rioters, a rival emperor was declared by the rabble. Ultimately the riot was ruthlessly quelled, more than thirty thousand were said to

2

K. Lehmann, “The Dome of Heaven,” ArtB 27, no. 1 (1945): 1–27.

For background to the period see M. Maas, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2005), with extensive bibliography; D. Potter, Theodora: Actress, Empress, Saint (Oxford, 2011); P.  Heather, Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian (Oxford, 2018). 3

Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, view into the dome, with east at the top (author) 199

FIGURE 9.1 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya Müzesi), interior of the nave, looking east from the gallery (author)

have been massacred, and Justinian emerged secure in his imperial power. The colorful circumstances of Justinian’s rise to power and his reign with Theodora as his consort have been the stuff of stage dramas, operas, and any number of popular novels, all dependent on the historian Procopius’s so-called Secret History, filled as it is with vitriol, character assassination, and pornography—and quite different in tone than his more important works of history, chronicling Justinian’s military engagements and his building program.4 Both Justinian and Theodora were Procopius, Buildings; Procopius, History of the Wars, Vols. 1–5, trans. H.  B.  Dewing and G.  Downey (Cambridge, 1935); and Procopius, Secret History, trans. H. B. Dewing (Cambridge, 40). 4

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political outsiders, who rose from the lower classes—he a peasant from the northern Balkans, she an entertainer at the Hippodrome. Their reign marked an end to the dominance of the old Roman aristocracy, and in many ways, the Nika Rebellion was emblematic of the social upheavals of the period. That said, Justinian styled himself as an emperor of old. And like his illustrious predecessors of the first and second centuries, Justinian clearly understood the symbolic value of architectural patronage. As the riots were quelled, the old cathedral, parts of the palace, and much of the heart of Constantinople lay in ashes. Justinian immediately undertook an ambitious building program, in effect transforming the City of Constantine into the City of Justinian.

Hagia Sophia was his first project. The old basilica (see Chap. 6) had burned in the riots, and Justinian sought to replace it immediately, hiring two mechanopoioi (architect-engineers), Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, to create a unique monument, for which construction is said to have begun barely six weeks after the destruction of the old cathedral.5 In both design and scale, Hagia Sophia has no antecedents and no immediate followers, testifying to the ambitions of the patron and the theoretical backgrounds of its creators, who were the equivalent of university professors specializing in theoretical geometry. Indeed, no one with a practical background would have attempted such an experimental building on such a grand scale—or to construct it so rapidly. The Great Church was completed within a remarkably short period of time—after less than six years, the building was dedicated in December 537. Laid out on a rectangular plan with maximum interior dimensions of approximately 70 by 76 meters, the building in fact repeats the basic elements and even the proportions of earlier basilicas, such as that of St. John Stoudios (see Chap. 3): in plan, it has three aisles, with galleries above the side aisles and narthex, preceded by an atrium, and with the longitudinal axis terminating in the sanctuary (Figs. 9.2 and 9.3). But it differs in several significant respects from the basilicas of the fifth century, most notably with the introduction of vaulting throughout the building. The added weight of the vaulting meant that the designers could not reuse the foundations of the old church because they needed thicker and deeper footings. In the elevation, while columnar screens separated the nave from the side aisles and galleries, large piers were necessary at critical points to support the vaults. In terms of its design, the building combines elements of a longitudinally planned basilica with the centralizing features of a dome raised above the square central bay. This is seen most clearly in the elevation and the dramatic spatial effect created by the centrally positioned dome. The centralizing focus is also expressed in the plan with the exedrae, or columnar screens, which round off the four corners of the nave. 5

Downey, “Byzantine Architects,” 99–118.

Supported by arches and piers, the great dome measures approximately 31 meters in diameter (100 Byzantine feet) and rises approximately 58 meters above the floor; it forms a monumental canopy above the nave, expanded to the east and west by semi-domes. Measured from entrance to apse, the nave preserves the greatest vaulting span of any building to survive from antiquity or the Middle Ages. The dome is clearly the dominant theme of the interior design and a new feature in architectural vocabulary of the basilica, which was normally covered by a wooden roof. Indeed, large-scale vaulting in church architecture was rare before the sixth century. Most earlier domes rose above a circular plan, as did the Pantheon’s dome, so that the transition from rising wall to vault was fairly simple, in spite of the complex structural requirements.6 To place a dome above a rectilinear building required some sort of transition. The central square bay is defined by four great piers, above which rise four arches, which support the dome. At the corners, spherical triangles, or pendentives, ease the transition from square to circle. In fact, while the pendentives may appear to be an important design innovation, it is the arches that bear the weight of the dome and adjust it downward to the corner piers. Rather than relying on solid walls for support, the daring design concentrated the weight of the building at twelve critical points: the four great piers beneath the dome, four clustered piers behind them to the north and south, and four clustered piers flanking the exedra to the east and west. With the weight of the superstructure transferred to a point support system, large areas of the outer walls were transformed to non-load-bearing curtain walls—screens of windows on the ground floor and gallery levels (Figs. 9.4 and 9.5; and see Fig. 5.18). The dome is similarly innovative, constructed of a thin membrane of brick, reinforced with forty ribs that concentrate the weight and allow a ring of forty windows around the haunch of the dome (Fig. 9.6). As a consequence, the interior appears light and lofty, with light entering at many points in the elevation. 6

Lancaster, Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome, 158–61.

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FIGURE 9.2 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, plan of the sixth-century building, showing the “double square” in purple, measuring 100 and 106 Byzantine feet across, with projected dome dimensions in blue: the innermost circle measures 100 Byzantine feet in diameter and the outermost 150 Byzantine feet (author, after V. Hoffmann, Geometrische Entwurf, 2005; and R. Mainstone, Hagia Sophia, 1988)

FIGURE 9.3 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, transverse and longitudinal elevations of the sixth-century building (after Mainstone, Hagia Sophia, 1988)

By the most reliable Byzantine accounts, the first dome of Hagia Sophia was shallower and more daring than its replacement, with a profile about 7 meters lower than the present dome.7 Notably J. Malalas, The Chronicle of John Malalas, trans. E. Jeffreys, M.  Jeffreys, R.  Scott, and B.  Croke (Melbourne, 1986), 297;

7

Most scholars believe the original building was covered by a pendentive dome, distinct in its geometry from the present dome on pendentives, the Agathius, The Histories, 5.9.1–3, ed. R.  Keydell, CFHB 2 (Berlin, 1967), 174–75; all carefully scrutinized by C. Mango, “Byzantine Writers on the Fabric of Hagia Sophia,” 41–56.

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FIGURE 9.4 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, south nave arcade and gallery (author)

FIGURE 9.5 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, typical system for gallery windows: filling the wall area beneath the arch, with a parapet on the lowest zone, on which rest casement windows, with two levels of glazing above, framed by mullions (author)

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FIGURE 9.6 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, view into the dome, with north at the top (author)

latter a change of design introduced after the earthquake of 557 (Fig. 9.7).8 The difference is noteworthy: a pendentive dome has a curvature continuous from the four corners—from the springing of the pendentives through the crown of the vault—that is, all curved surfaces depend on the same spherical geometry. By contrast, in a dome on pendentives, the geometry of the hemispherical dome is based on a smaller sphere than that which defines the pendentives. For both the original dome and its replacement, texts indicate a cornice at the transition from pendentive to the dome proper, with a ring of windows at its haunches. To begin the design process with a pendentive dome, the diameter of the original sphere would have been the diagonal of the square bay it covers (see Fig. 9.3). This would have posed a challenge to the designer, because the diagonal of a 100-foot square is an irrational number, 141.4213 . . . , and even the most experienced theoretician would not have begun a design with an irrational number. One analysis proposes an K. J. Conant, “The First Dome of St. Sophia and Its Rebuilding,” BByzI 1 (1946): 71–78; Mainstone, Hagia Sophia, esp. 209–12. 8

alternative unit of measurement, yielding a 99-foot bay (determined using the golden section), resulting in a diameter of exactly 140 feet.9 But a 99foot module for the central bay seems odd when set against the even numbers employed for domes elsewhere during the early sixth century.10 Another ingenious suggestion posits that the planning of Hagia Sophia actually depended on a double square, measuring 100 and 106 Byzantine feet across, the larger measurement defined by the extra width of the central bay (see Figs. 9.2

R.  H.  W.  Stichel, “Die Kuppel an der ‘goldenen Kette’: Zur Interpretation der Hagia Sophia in Konstantinopel,” in Almanach Architektur 1998–2002: Lehre und Forschung an der Technischen Universität Darmstadt, eds. H. Svenshon, M. Bender, and R. May (Tübingen, 2003), 244–51; R. H. W. Stichel and H. Svenshon, “Das unsichtbare Oktagramm und die Kuppel an der ‘goldenen Kette’. Zum Grundrissentwurf der Hagia Sophia in Konstantinopel und zur Deutung ihrer Architekturform,” Bericht über die Tagung für Ausgrabungswissenschaft und Bauforschung 2002 42 (2004): 187–205.

9

10 Underwood, “Some Principles of Measure in the Architecture of the Period of Justinian,” 64–74; Schilbach, Byzantinische Metrologie, 13–36.

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FIGURE 9.7 (A and B) Diagrams of pendentive domes, showing spherical geometry and measurements at two different scales; (C) Dome on pendentives (L. Lancaster)

and 9.7).11 In fact, the 100:106 ratio determines the relationship of the overall length to width in the building as well. For the original dome, a slight expansion from a 100- to a 106-foot measurement in the calculations would allow the necessary setback at the level of the dome cornice. Moreover, if the dome rises above a 106-foot square, the diagonal measurement would have been almost exactly 150 Byzantine feet—actually 149.9066 . . . feet, close enough to be counted as a round number. The double-square solution thus would allow round numbers to define both the central square at ground level and the dome diameter. An initial measurement of 150 feet is significant because the dome diameter of the Pantheon in Rome is 150 Roman feet—the unit is slightly larger than the Byzantine foot, but the numerical correspondence is noteworthy.12 We might thus view the scale of Hagia Sophia’s dome as determined by that of the Pantheon, with Justinian’s Great Church participating in a competitive discourse with the Roman imperial past, played out in architectural terms. But in contrast to the heavy forms and closed interior of the Pantheon, the design of Hagia Sophia is more open, daring, and filled with light—in short, Hagia Sophia does the Pantheon one better. After the fires of the Nika Riots, Anthemius and Isidorus quite literally had a tabula rasa on which to build. What they didn’t have was time to work out the details, as the building project was

11 V. Hoffmann, ed., Die geometrische Entwurf der Hagia Sophia in Istanbul: Bilder einer Ausstellung (Bern, 2005); V.  Hoffmann and N. Theocharis, “Der geometrische Entwurf der Hagia Sophia in Istanbul: Erster Teil,” IstMitt 52 (2002): 393–428. 12

Jones, Principles of Roman Architecture, 177–97.

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rushed from start to finish. The building must have been designed in great haste, with the architects concentrating their attention on the monumental spectacle of the nave vessel at the expense of all else—the dome braced by half-domes framed with exedrae, rising above two levels of colonnades. With a dome diameter of 100 Byzantine feet, flanked by half-domes of the same diameter, other measurements for the central space can be calculated in round numbers, fractions of 100.13 But neither the system of measurement nor the design elements continue into the secondary spaces, which have a completely different structural organization, with groin vaults rising above an independent system of columns (Figs. 9.8 and 9.9). The two systems are awkwardly connected by oddly shaped barrel vaults and partial arches, barely disguised behind the nave arcades—details that perhaps only the diehard architectural historian might notice. In spite of the design inconsistencies, the amount of coordination and preplanning necessary for the enterprise is staggering, even by today’s standards. A legendary ninth-century account credits the building to one hundred teams of one hundred masons, each under the supervision of a master mason.14 This is surely an exaggeration, but when we take into consideration the amount of stone that had to be quarried, mortar to be prepared, brick to be manufactured, and hundreds of columns, capitals, and closure panels to be carved, as well as hectares of mosaic to be laid and workers to be fed and housed, the energetics involved is mind-boggling, particularly when we realize the project went from conception 13

Mainstone, Hagia Sophia, 177–83.

Narratio de S. Sophiae; see Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 96–102; Dagron, Constantinople imaginaire. 14

FIGURE 9.8 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, gallery, looking south (author)

to completion in less than six years. That Justinian could marshal the manpower and materials in such a short period of time is a testament to the resources and power of the state in the sixth century. Structurally, Hagia Sophia was fraught with problems, which became evident during the process of construction, even before the dome was begun. The basic difficulty was the unprecedented size of the building. The increased scale meant an increase in weight, so that an estimated 105 tons of pressure per square meter is exerted on the main piers. The great weight would have exacerbated defects in the structural system—and there were defects. In the vaulting of the building, the points of maximum impact were the crowns of the four great arches supporting the dome. The weight of the dome and vaults would have caused both downward and outward thrusts—that is, they would have exerted both compressive and tensile stresses. Masonry structures work well in compression, and the downward thrust, or dead weight caused by gravity, was not a problem. But the outward thrusts of the vaults introduced tension—bending or elongating forces—into the fabric of the building, and they were not properly addressed on all sides. The outward thrusts of the

dome were sufficiently braced on the longitudinal axis by the lower semi-domes, and these in turn were braced by the conches of the exedrae in a cascading system of support. But no additional bracing appears to the north and south: on the transverse axis are clerestory windows, which originally were much more open than they appear today (now essentially the result of a tenth-century rebuilding). To be stable, the dome required a bilaterally symmetrical system of buttressing—that is, something like the half-domes was necessary to stabilize the transverse axis as well (compare sections, Fig. 9.3). This very basic structural problem was compounded by the construction technique. Walls and vaults were built of brick laid with large quantities of mortar. The bricks are approximately 6 centimeters thick, and the mortar beds were slightly thicker; in other words, more mortar was used than brick. This may have expedited the construction, for we know that Justinian was in a great hurry to have his church completed. But mortar takes a long time to dry properly, and it will appear stable long before it has set to its ultimate hardness. At Hagia Sophia this allowed a phenomenon known as the “plastic flow of mortar”

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FIGURE 9.9 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, intersection of side aisle vaults with the nave arcade (author)

to occur: the walls and vaults became misshapen when pressure was exerted on them.15 Structural problems led to the permanent deformation of the building. On the exterior, imposing buttresses are positioned to the north and south of the dome piers (Fig. 9.10). At first glance, they may seem improperly positioned, for they provide no bracing for the clerestory arches. However, they would have provided necessary support against the outward thrusts of the east and west arches. Indeed, with diameters of 100 Byzantine feet, the four great arches of the domed bay had far greater spans than any surviving Roman arch. Even before the dome was constructed, they would have required additional bracing. The outward thrusts of the north and south arches were braced by the lower vaults, but not those to the east and west, so the buttresses were absolutely necessary to stabilize the building during the construction process. Procopius’s description of Hagia Sophia tells us a great deal about the sixth-century aesthetic response to the building, but it concludes with two rather perplexing structural problems that are 15

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 156.

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appropriate to this discussion.16 These appear to have been included as a not-so-subtle way to honor Justinian, to whom the solutions are credited, when the expertise of the builders falls short. If properly understood, the two problems are nevertheless revealing. In the first, Procopius relates that even before it was completed, the weight of the eastern arch was too much for the supports beneath it, which threatened to collapse: “The supports [pessoi] on top of which the structure was being built, unable to bear the mass that was pressing down on them, somehow or other suddenly started to break away and seemed to be on the point of collapsing.” The text is a bit confusing: what exactly are the pessoi? Procopius uses the same term for the great piers from which the arch springs, but these would not be adversely affected solely by the weight of the arch. More likely, the pessoi in question are the towers of formwork that supported the arch during its construction—which must have been as massive as the piers. To solve the problem, Justinian ordered the completion of the arch, noting that it would bear its own weight once completed, a solution 16

Procopius, Buildings, 1.i.20–78.

FIGURE 9.10 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, distant view from the southeast (author)

that only makes sense if the problem was with the formwork, not the piers. A second problem occurred with the north and south arches, which, as Procopius relates, placed so much pressure on the columns under them that they began to flake. Justinian directed the builders to remove the columns, let the arch set, and then replace them. Again, the solution might seem perplexing but begins to make sense if we take into consideration the greater degree of openness in the original clerestory—probably a so-called thermal window, with mullions dividing the lunette into three lights, as survives in the western vault (see Fig. 9.5 and Fig. 0.1). The marble mullions (Procopius’s “columns”) were suffering due to the plastic flow of mortar, which allowed the arch above them to deform. Justinian’s alleged solution offered a quick fix to a more serious problem. Taken together, these two episodes, which were meant to emphasize Justinian’s divinely inspired wisdom, instead indicate real structural problems encountered even before construction on the dome had begun. This is not to say that Anthemius and Isidorus were unfamiliar with structural design, but neither they nor any of their contemporaries had experience with construction on such a colossal

scale as that of Hagia Sophia. Without the structural theory of the present-day architect, structural design was a matter of trial and error. A variety of precautionary features indicate they were well aware of the challenges: foundations were carried down to bedrock; the major piers were constructed of large limestone blocks laid with thin mortar beds; lead was used instead of mortar at the springing of the arches and vaults; marble cornices and string courses were joined with iron cramps to form tension rings at three levels in the elevation.17 Minor arches were braced by tie rods or tie beams; and imported Roman bricks, four times larger than standard, were used in the arches below the dome. These measures proved insufficient against the sheer weight and resultant outward thrusts. None of this was enough to counteract the combined forces of gravity and earth movement. Improperly braced, the dome of Hagia Sophia expanded laterally, pushing against the clerestory arches and the piers to the north and south. The major piers have rotated outward and are now off vertical by more than 60 centimeters each, and the columns in the gallery lean noticeably outward as well (Fig. 9.11). Not 17

Butler, “Hagia Sophia’s Nave Cornices,” 57–77.

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FIGURE 9.11 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, gallery column showing the effects of lateral expansion (author)

surprisingly, following an earthquake in 557, the dome collapsed, along with the eastern semi-dome. The dome we see today is essentially the replacement, designed by Isidorus the Younger, a nephew of one of the original architects, dedicated in 563 (see Fig. 9.6). The new dome was close to hemispherical and thus more stable, but in all other aspects its details correspond to the first dome, as described by Procopius. It rests on an irregular base, however, with the distortions rendering it slightly oval in plan. Its thin-shell construction is strengthened by forty ribs, with buttresses projecting between the windows on the exterior. The western portion of the dome fell following the earthquake of 989 and was rebuilt under the supervision of the Armenian architect Trdat, who happened to be in Constantinople at the time. He thickened the dome base to guard against future deformation and added metal bands to join the newer masonry to the older. Blocked windows mark the ends of the repair. The eastern quadrant collapsed in 1346, along with portions of the eastern arch and semi-dome. 210

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They were rebuilt by 1354 under the supervision of a military official named Astras and a Latin subject named John Peralta; the project was financed with Russian subventions.18 Construction here is rough and irregular, as evident from the awkward joint in the northwest pendentive. All considered, the fact that so much of the original building remains standing is nothing short of miraculous. In this respect, Procopius’s impression of the original dome is noteworthy: it was “wonderful to behold in its beauty yet altogether terrifying by the apparent precariousness of its composition. For it seems somehow not to be raised up in a firm manner, but to soar aloft to the peril of those who are in there.”19 His comments are addressed not to the structural system but to the aesthetic effect of the interior, which evokes an emotional response, a mixture of fear and awe. The architects consciously created a dematerialized impression in the interior, emphasizing the transcendental. All surfaces are lush and reflective, the vaults covered with more gold mosaic, the walls and floors with “meadows” of many-colored stone revetments and opus sectile inlays (Fig. 9.12). Unfolded in book-matched panels, the veined Proconessian marble flooring appears rippling and liquid, as if the visitor is walking on water (Fig. 9.13).20 Even the structural elements lose the appearance of support: the solidity of the piers hidden behind the lavish cladding, the colorful panels joined by dematerialized, lace-like borders. The lack of vertical alignment in the nave and gallery colonnades denies their structural role and reduces them to decorative screens (see Fig. 9.7). The nave arcades have four columns; the galleries above have six. The lack of alignment was even more dramatic in the exedrae, which have two columns below and six above, with the mass of the piers decreased to either side. As Paul the Silentiary commented in 563, “One may wonder at the resolve of the man who upon two columns 18

Mainstone, Hagia Sophia, 85–127.

19

Procopius, Buildings, 1.i.33.35.

F. Barry, “Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” ArtB 89, no. 4 (2007): 627–56; B. Pentcheva, “Hagia Sophia and Multisensory Aesthetics,” Gesta 50, no. 2 (2011): 93–111.

20

FIGURE 9.12 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, interior of the nave, detail of revetments (author)

FIGURE 9.13 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, detail of floor paving in bookmatched panels of Proconessian marble (author)

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FIGURE 9.14 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, southeast exedra, with two columns below and six above (author)

has bravely set thrice two and has not hesitated to fix their bases over empty air” (Fig. 9.14).21 The carved marble details evoke a similar response. Capitals, spandrels, and decorative borders are heavily undercut, the vegetal patterns executed with a drill. The delicate, lace-like surface is emphasized, and these pieces seem unable to support anything of substance despite the huge mass of the building. The capitals, in fact, descend from the Roman composite type, combining a basket of acanthus leaves with volutes, reduced to a decorative screen above the core. Monograms provide names and titles: Justinian, Theodora, Basileus (emperor), Augusta (empress) (Fig. 9.15). The heavy undercutting extends into the spandrels of the nave arcade and cornices. The ethereal impression was enhanced by more than 2.8 hectares of gold mosaic on the vaults, all originally with nonfigural patterning.22 All conspire to disguise the solidity of the structure and to create an atmosphere of transcendence. 21 Paul Silentiarius, Descr. S.  Sophiae; Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 81.

N.  Teteriatnikov, Justinianic Mosaics of Hagia Sophia and Their Aftermath (Washington, DC, 2017).

22

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At a loss to understand its structural system, Procopius resorts to rhetoric to explain it: “It seems not to be founded on solid masonry, but to be suspended from heaven by that golden chain,” a reference to the Iliad (VIII.19). The reference might also be to Neoplatonic thought, for example, as expressed somewhat later by the writer known as Pseudo-Dionysius: “the great shining chain hanging downward from the heights of Heaven to the world below,” by which we are lifted up to its dazzling light.23 Indeed, both Anthemius and Isidorus were thoroughly grounded in Neoplatonic thought, and the concept of celestial light may inform and underlie the unique design of the building (Fig. 9.16).24 The transcendental quality of the interior reflects a conceptual change in Early Christian architecture at this time: from its inception, a

Pseudo-Dionysius, “The Divine Names,” in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. C. Luibhéid and P. Rorem (New York, 1987), 68.

23

N. Schibille, Hagia Sophia and the Byzantine Aesthetic Experience (Aldershot, 2014); A.  Kaldellis, “The Making of Hagia Sophia and the Last Pagans of Rome,” JLA 6 (2014): 347–66.

24

FIGURE 9.15 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, capitals from the gallery with monograms reading Justinian, Basileus, Theodora, and Augusta (author)

Christian church was understood as a meeting hall for the congregation, not a temple—that is, not the dwelling place of the divinity. But as paganism disappeared and churches became more lavish, the church came to be regarded as the House of God. Thus, Procopius writes, “The visitor’s mind is lifted to God and floats aloft, thinking that He cannot be far away, but must love to dwell in this place which He himself has chosen.”25 As with the Pantheon, the dome is the Dome of Heaven. Can we talk about a relationship between architecture and liturgy at Hagia Sophia? In terms of its plan, proportions, and basic features, the Great Church conforms to the design of earlier basilicas, and its liturgical features, now lost, must have been similar based on descriptions, although larger in scale and more lavish, with the sanctuary projecting into the eastern part of the nave and solea and ambo extending toward its center. The worship service would have been similar to that

described in Chapter 3. The major difference was the scale of the building, which required a slower liturgy and less involvement by the congregation. The resonance of the vaulted interior would have encouraged singing or chanting, rather than the spoken word. The scale also demanded a greater number of officiants. At the time of Justinian, the church and its dependencies was staffed by 60 priests, 100 deacons, 40 deaconesses, 90 subdeacons, 110 lectors, 25 psalmists, and 100 doorkeepers.26 Rather than responding directly to the necessities of the liturgy, the architects were more concerned with the aesthetic experience of the interior, creating a space that elevated the ceremonies it housed, placing them on a level beyond common experience, transforming them into a symbolic, heavenly drama. Hagia Sophia also created an appropriate space for imperial ceremony. The emperor could A.  H.  M.  Jones, The Later Roman Empire (Baltimore, 1964), 910–14.

26 25

Procopius, Buildings, 1.i.60–63.

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FIGURE 9.16 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, nave, looking east; a study of the effects of natural light in the building, 1948 (Byzantine Institute of America and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. late 1920s–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks Trustees of Harvard University)

participate in the regular worship service, presenting his gifts to the church at the altar during the First Entrance and receiving communion before the congregation during the Mass of the Faithful.27 A throne for him was positioned in 27

Mathews, Early Churches, 172–73.

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the south colonnade. The empress and her retinue probably observed the service from the gallery, and if the emperor chose not to take communion, he could observe the service from the gallery as well; the south gallery was set aside for imperial worship. By the tenth century, the Book of Ceremonies lists nineteen annual services in

which the emperor officially participated.28 Set in the magnificent interior of Hagia Sophia, the exchange of the Kiss of Peace between the emperor and the patriarch would have emphasized the unity of church and state. The great dome, the celestial canopy in which God dwelled, sanctified the events and ceremonies that transpired below. In the final analysis, Hagia Sophia may be best understood in symbolic rather than in liturgical terms. But this is not to suggest its meaning was fixed and immutable. Hagia Sophia is all about architecture—a building and the process of building as metaphor. It was a flexible symbol that could be read in a variety of ways and whose meaning shifted with fundamental changes in Byzantine society. Indeed, already in the sixth century, writers offered different readings of the building. Procopius, for example, underscores the sacred character of the building with allusions to the Temple of Solomon, where God similarly chose to dwell. He emphasizes the quality of light in the building: “Indeed, one might say that its interior is not illuminated from without by the sun, but that the radiance comes into being within it, such an abundance of light bathes this shrine.”29 Set within the context of the general evocation of the Temple, this may refer to the appearance of the Shekinah, or presence of God, in the Temple. Similar themes echo in the ninthcentury, legendary Narratio, which recounts that the bricks of the building were stamped with the verse of Psalm 45, reading “God is in her midst, she shall not be moved”—a verse that may have been spoken at the dedication ceremony.30 We might even extend the metaphor to suggest that as Hagia Sophia increased in prestige, it came to be regarded as the new Temple of Solomon, thereby equating Constantinople with Jerusalem. Paul the Silentiary’s ekphrasis, written for the rededication of the building in 563, develops a slightly different theme, emphasizing Justinian’s

earthly role.31 His identification and description of the marble “meadows”—stones used as revetments and columns—reads as a geography lesson on the expanse of Justinian’s dominion and his command of resources:

28 Mathews, Early Churches, 113; Constantine Porphyrogennetos, The Book of Ceremonies, trans. A. Moffatt and M. Tall (Canberra, 2012).

31

29

R. G. Ousterhout, “New Temples and New Solomons,” 223–53.

30

Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 98.

Yet who, even in the thundering strains of Homer, shall sing the marble meadows gathered upon the mighty walls and spreading pavement of the lofty church? Mining tools of toothed steel have cut these from the green flanks of Carystus [Euboea] and have cleft the speckled Phrygian stone, sometimes rosy mixed with white, sometimes gleaming with purple and silver flowers. There is a wealth of porphyry stone, too, besprinkled with little bright stars that had laden the river-boat on the broad Nile. He continues to describe the stones from Laconia, Libya, the Moorish hills, the Celtic crags, and the land of Atrax [Thessaly]—all are encompassed in the vast territorial expanse of Justinian’s empire. Seen in this light, as a symbol of dominion, the original, nonfigural mosaic decorations may find their best comparisons in Sasanian silks: the interior is swathed in the luxury of the East. In purely secular terms, the church reads as a microcosm of wealth and power.32 Later viewers from both East and West responded more toward the inherent sanctity of the building and less toward a specific association with Justinian. In 987, for example, when the ambassadors of the Russian prince Vladimir attended the liturgical celebrations at Hagia Sophia, they responded, “We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth . . . we only knew that God dwells there among men . . . we cannot forget that beauty.”33 And on the strength of that experience, Kievan Rus’ converted to Orthodox Christianity. It is a rare historical event when a

Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 80–96.

M. Canepa, The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran (Berkeley, 2009), 216–21. 32

33 S. Z. Zenkovsky, ed., Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, and Tales (New York, 1963), 66–67.

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nation is said to be converted on the memory of a monument. The response of the Russians is all the more surprising when we realize that neither the church nor its site had any specific sacred associations and the building contained no important relic—it was dedicated to a concept and not to a person. When the first Hagia Sophia was rebuilt in 415, the relics of Joseph (son of Jacob) and Zacharias (father of John the Baptist) were deposited

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at the dedication.34 But these were never particularly important and are rarely mentioned afterward. The building’s significance did not depend on imported sacred matter. Instead, the sanctity that came to be associated with the building derived from the power of its architecture. C. Mango, Hagia Sophia: A Vision for Empires (Istanbul, 1997), xxiv.

34

CHAPTER TEN

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JUSTINIAN’S BUILDING PROGRAM AND SIXTH-CENTURY DEVELOPMENTS

D

escribed in detail by Justinian’s court historian Procopius, Justinian’s building program focused on the center (Constantinople, with Hagia Sophia given pride of place) and the periphery (the Persian limes, with a detailed description of the fortifications at Dara in Mesopotamia). His text, known as De Aedificiis, or Buildings, has been referred to several times already. It is a remarkable and unique work: rather than an ekphrasis inserted into a work of history or written for a specific occasion (such as the rededication of Hagia Sophia), it constructs an imperial geography that emphasizes the expanse of Justinian’s dominion through his building program. Although a panegyric focused on the emperor and apparently left unfinished at the author’s death (Italy is not included), the book emphasizes the threefold intention of the emperor’s architectural activity: to encourage Orthodox Christianity and honor the Christian God; to fortify and defend the borders of the empire; and to preserve the aspects of civic life and urban culture that had characterized Roman civilization. In the context of the text, monuments function as themes, metaphors, and signs.1

Turning to the surviving monuments, the prestige of Constantinople is evident at far-flung locations: in church architecture, the dome appears as an experimental element structurally, formally, and symbolically, as it had in the capital, while artisans and building materials from the capital appear from the northern Adriatic to the Sinai. At the same time, traditional architectural forms continue—indeed, Procopius notes local history and traditions as a setting for the emperor’s interventions. At the margins of the empire, Justinian’s program of fortification was often coupled with spiritual outposts—churches and pilgrimage sites—combined to spread the message of Chalcedonian Christianity. While the innovative buildings closely associated with Justinian in Constantinople draw upon the empire-wide developments of the preceding century, architecture outside the capital in the sixth century often indicates Constantinople as the driving force, both in architectural design and in its decoration. Two well-known examples, neither directly connected with Justinian’s patronage, shall suffice to illustrate this. The first, San

J.  Elsner, “The Rhetoric of Buildings in the De Aedificiis of Procopius,” in Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, ed. L.  James

(Cambridge, 2007), 33–57; A. Cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century (London, 1985).

1

Poreč, view of the sanctuary showing opus sectile (Photo by Renco Kosinožić, Henry Maguire and Ann Terry Poreč archive, 1990–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC) 219

FIGURE 10.1 Ravenna, San Vitale, view from the north (author)

FIGURE 10.2 Ravenna, San Vitale, plan and elevation (after D. Deliyannis, Ravenna, 2010)

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FIGURE 10.3 Ravenna, San Vitale, interior, looking east (Mark J. Johnson)

Vitale at Ravenna, represents unique building for sixth-century Italy (Figs. 10.1–10.3).2 The closest comparisons for its sophisticated design is Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople. The famous mosaics in the sanctuary of San Vitale, Deliyannis, Ravenna, 223–50, F.  W.  Deichmann, Ravenna: Haupstadt des spätantiken Abenlandes I (Wiesbaden, 1969), 226–56; and F.  W.  Deichmann, Ravenna: Haupstadt des spätantiken Abenlandes II (Wiesbaden, 1976): 47–230; Johnson, San Vitale.

2

showing Justinian and Theodora offering gifts to the church, might encourage an association with the imperial couple, but there is no evidence for interest or financial backing by them; neither ever set foot in Ravenna. More likely, their images are included as evidence of the high status and court connections of the founder(s). Texts clearly state that the local bishop Ecclesius undertook the project, deciding to replace a small shrine dedicated to the martyr Vitalis with a grander

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building. The financial backing came from a wealthy banker, Julianus Argentarius, who spent 26,000 gold solidi (sing. solidus, a gold coin weighing approximately 4.5 grams) for its construction.3 The project was begun not during Byzantine rule, but while the Goths were still in control of Ravenna. Ecclesius had come from Constantinople before 526 and thus could not have seen the grand building projects of Justinian. Ecclesius appears in the apse mosaic, but the names of his successors, Victor and Maximian, are also associated with the building; the latter appears with Justinian in the sanctuary mosaic, and the church was dedicated under him in 547 (see Fig. 5.1). The building thus took an unusually long time to complete—between fifteen and twenty years, but the period was marked by war, plague, and other calamities that could have slowed or even halted construction or impeded the shipment of building materials. Although the design may have been imported from the Byzantine capital, unlike Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, the church is octagonal on both the interior and the exterior and was clearly designed to be a freestanding structure. Curvilinear forms of the narthex apses, stair towers, and chambers flanking the apse are expressed on the exterior. The narthex and atrium are rotated 30 degrees from the main axis of the building, with odd, wedge-shaped spaces between the narthex and the ambulatory. The reason for this is unclear, although the change of axis may have been intended to connect the atrium to the grid of the street system. Another suggestion is that the doubled access from the narthex into the octagon allowed an axial entrance to the naos proper, as well as to the exedra containing the relics of the saint—the focal point of the older church on the site.4 In any case, the off-axis entrance emphasizes the centralized nature of the building’s design. Indeed, entrances appear on seven sides. The octagonal nave is defined by eight piers of complex shape, with colonnaded exedrae billowing between them, with arcades on two levels opening into the ambulatory and gallery. The proportions are taller than at Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, and the forms appear lighter. While the S.  J.  Barnish, “The Wealth of Julianus Argentarius: Late Antique Banking and the Mediterranean Economy,” Byzantion 55 (1985): 5–38.

3

4

Johnson, San Vitale, esp. 133.

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dome is similar in diameter—here just over 15.5 meters (close to 50 Byzantine feet), the central space rises to 28.7 meters, topped by a hemispherical dome with large windows in its haunches. At the corners of the octagon, squinches ease the transition to the hemisphere. A tall arch, wider than those that define the exedrae, opens to the sanctuary, the soaring space of the deep bay covered by a groin vault connecting to the apse. Triple arcades surmounted by lunettes open into the side aisles and galleries on either side. Justly famous for its well-preserved decoration, the mosaics offer a visual spectacle with interconnected themes of gift-giving, sacrifice, and triumph.5 In the apse, Ecclesius presents a model of the church to Christ, who appears seated on a globe in a paradisiacal setting, flanked by angels. Christ offers a crown to Vitalis, who waits with hands covered. Below, in two smaller panels on either side of the bema, Justinian and Theodora, accompanied by their retinues, offer a paten and chalice, to be used for the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Outside the presbytery, most of the original decoration has disappeared. Shocking next to the grandeur of the mosaics surviving in the sanctuary is the mediocre eighteenth-century painting in the dome, which depicts the Apotheosis of St. Vitalis. The building construction presents a mixture of local and Constantinopolitan features. The marbles used for columns, capitals, and impost blocks are all imported and represent up-to-date cosmopolitan styles. Marble revetments were also imported from the East. And unlike standard construction in northern Italy, the bricks employed in San Vitale are long and thin, imitating the size and shape of those used in Constantinople. They were, however, produced locally and appear in all the buildings financed by Julianus. The vaults of the apse, presbytery, and exedrae are of brick, but the dome itself is constructed of tubi fittili, lightweight interlocking ceramic tubes, approximately 20 centimeters long, set with cement and covered with a wooden roof. Tubi fittili are found in a variety of 5 I. Andreescu-Treadgold and W. Treadgold, “Procopius and the Imperial Panels at San Vitale,” ArtB 79 (1997): 768–23; C. Barber, “The Imperial Panels at San Vitale: A Reconsideration,” BMGS 14 (1990): 19–43; and S. Bassett, “Style and Meaning in the Imperial Panels at San Vitale,” Artibus et Historiae 29, no. 57 (2008): 49–57.

FIGURE 10.4 Poreč, cathedral complex, seen from southeast, with the Eufrasiana Basilica to the left and the bishop’s palace to the right (Photo by Henry Maguire and Ann Terry, Henry Maguire and Ann Terry Poreč archive, 1990– 2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC)

Late Antique sites in North Africa and Italy, and they appear in many other Ravennate buildings, notably the Orthodox Baptistery (see Chap. 5).6 They are, however, unknown in Constantinople and the Eastern Mediterranean. While introducing a purely local element into an imported design, no surviving dome of tubi fittili matches the scale of San Vitale. Curiously, the ambulatory and gallery were originally without vaulting, covered by a system of wooden roofs, as was likely the case at Sts. Sergius and Bacchus. This fact emphasizes the experimental nature of large-scale dome construction in the sixth century. Rather than growing out of pragmatic desires for permanent or fireproof roofing, domes appear in response to formal and aesthetic concerns as architects were redefining the church interior, both spatially and conceptually. In this respect, the dome of San Vitale fits well with contemporary experiments in Constantinople. A second example offers a slightly different perspective. The Cathedral of Poreč (Parentium) in Istria on the northern Adriatic Coast was a

fifth-century complex that was rebuilt and substantially updated ca. 550 by the local Bishop Eufrasius and is consequently known as the Basilica Eufrasiana (Figs. 10.4–10.7).7 Apparently originally a double cathedral of the fifth century, the north church fell out of use, while the south church was extended eastward.8 Although it was a rather plain, three-aisled, timber-roofed basilica of traditional design, the remodeling gave it a decidedly Constantinopolitan appearance. The complex is substantial and well preserved: the basilica is preceded by a small atrium, connecting to an axial baptistery of octagonal plan, with the episcopal residence to the north of the atrium; a A.  Terry, “The ‘Opus Sectile’ in the Eufrasius Cathedral at Poreč,” DOP 40 (1986): 147–64; A.  Terry, “The Sculpture of the Cathedral of Eufrasius at Poreč,” DOP 42 (1988): 13–64; A.  Terry, “The Architecture and the Architectural Sculpture of the Sixth-Century Eufrasius Cathedral Complex at Poreč” (PhD diss., University of Illinois, 1984); and A. Terry and H. Maguire, Dynamic Splendor: The Wall Mosaics in the Cathedral of Eufrasius at Poreč (University Park, 2007).

7

I.  Matejčić and P.  Chevalier, “Nouvelle interpretation du complexe episcopal pré-euphresien de Poreč,” Antiquité Tardive 6 (1998): 355–65. 8

6

Lancaster, Innovative Vaulting, 99–128.

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FIGURE 10.5 Poreč, plan of the complex (after A. Terry and H. Maguire, Dynamic Splendor, 2007)

trefoil chapel sits to the northeast of the church. All are constructed of rough local stone. Within the nave arcades, the columns are topped by a mixture of imported capital types, matched symmetrically across the nave, and the soffits of the arches preserve molded stucco panels. The low synthronon is of imported marble with an ornate throne at its center, with panels of opus sectile lining the wall above it and mosaics filling the conch of the apse and upper wall. The bema floor is of inlaid marbles as well. The apparent lavishness of the decoration stands in contrast to its setting. Parentium was not a great cultural center; it was small and ordinary, little more than a provincial coastal town. An earlier generation of scholars had been impressed with the opus sectile in particular, viewing 224

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it as closely related to that of Hagia Sophia, thus promoting the building to a central position within discussions of Justinianic art.9 In fact, on close inspection, much is probably of local production: the opus sectile is composed of spolia— many from a nearby temple, with the panels often awkwardly composed with mismatched and heterogeneous stones. Similarly, the mismatched capitals of the nave may be simply leftovers from a nearby marble yard or port—perhaps from Ravenna, where one finds many similar imported pieces. In short, the local bishop seems to have succeeded, working within a small budget and 9 For example, Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 2nd ed. (Harmondsworth, 1975), 293; and see Terry, “ ‘Opus Sectile.’ ”

FIGURE 10.6 Poreč, interior of the side aisle, looking east (Photo by Renco Kosinožić, Henry Maguire and Ann Terry Poreč archive, 1990–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC)

utilizing local artisans and regionally available materials to achieve impressive results. As it stands, the Basilica Eufrasiana speaks both to the ingenuity of its patron and—like San Vitale—to the cultural impact of Constantinople in the sixth century. Directly associated with Justinian’s patronage, the construction of the Nea Ekklesia in Jerusalem (already noted in Chap. 5), dedicated in 543 to the Theotokos, reflects the emperor’s concern with the empire’s sacred sites.10 Unlike earlier patrons, who concentrated on Jerusalem’s loca sancta, the Nea was built on a difficult site with no biblical associations. Although the vaulted substructures survive, the immense church itself is incompletely known from limited archaeological remains; it seems to have been a basilica of traditional design. A number of features, however, suggest a link to the Temple 10 N. Avigad, “The Nea: Justinian’s Church of St. Mary, Mother of God, Discovered in the Old City of Jerusalem,” in Ancient Churches Revealed, ed. Y. Tsafrir (Jerusalem, 1993), 128–35.

of Solomon: set parallel to the Holy Sepulchre, it faced the ruins of the Temple across the Tyropoeon Valley. Like the Temple, the Nea was raised on a high platform on a site with no previous religious associations, and it was said to be roofed with cedars of Lebanon and fronted by two majestic columns—like the famed Jachin and Boaz, described at Solomon’s Temple (II Chron., 17); Procopius even uses the word hieron (temple) to refer to the Nea.11 Indeed, the motivation behind the construction of a new church on virgin territory in a city where virtually every stone is imbued with symbolic significance is far from clear. One wonders if the return to Jerusalem of the Temple’s relics, recovered from the Vandals in 532, might have inspired its construction, as several scholars have suggested. Perhaps it was simply another statement that Justinian was the “New Solomon.”12 A second building project in the Holy Land emphasizes Justinian’s interest in the patriarchs of the Old Testament. At Mount Sinai, Justinian constructed a church dedicated to the Virgin, after 548, on the site where God had spoken to Moses in the form of a Burning Bush (Figs. 10.8– 10.11).13 The dedication depends on Christian typology, for the bush that burned but was not consumed was taken as a prefiguration of the virginity of the Theotokos. The monastery may have been founded in the fourth century by the empress Helena, who allegedly first identified the site, and is dedicated today to St. Catherine of Alexandria, but the Byzantine dedication must have been to the Theotokos. The church is a small three-aisled basilica, built of a red local granite by a local craftsman, Stephen of Alia. The nave capitals are of local granite as well, heavy imitations of forms known elsewhere in the empire.14 The remarkably preserved wooden trussed roof was introduced in Chapter 5; one of the beams preserves the dedicatory inscription, naming Justinian, Theodora 11

On Buildings, V.vi.1–23.

12

Ousterhout, “New Temples and New Solomons,” 223–53.

Forsyth, “The Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai,” 1–19; Forsyth and Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine. 13

14 E.  Maguire, “The Capitals and Other Granite Carvings of Justinian’s Church at Mount Sinai” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1986).

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FIGURE 10.7 Poreč, view of the sanctuary showing opus sectile (Photo by Renco Kosinožić, Henry Maguire and Ann Terry Poreč archive, 1990– 2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC)

(noting that she is deceased), and the builder Stephen. Barely 5 meters across, the nave is flanked by a series of annexed chapels and subsidiary spaces, equal in width to the side aisles and integrated into the overall design of the church, functional components of the monastery. Two domed chapels flank the apse, originally open to a small courtyard to the east, where the Burning Bush grew. Plucked out of existence by eager pilgrims, the area was subsequently enclosed. The decoration of the bema stands in striking contrast to the local construction: the apse walls are revetted with imported Proconessian marble, set in elaborate book-matched patterns, while the

FIGURE 10.8 Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine, view of the church, from the west (author)

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FIGURE 10.9 Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine, plan and longitudinal section (George H. Forsyth Jr.; Michigan–Princeton– Alexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai)

conch of the apse and the wall above it are decorated with impressive mosaics—both materials and artisans were brought in from Constantinople. The upper wall features panels of Moses and the Burning Bush and Moses receiving the Tablets of the Law—the two events associated with the site—while the conch is filled with a majestic image of the Transfiguration of Christ, which offers a New Testament theophany (appearance of the divinity) to parallel Moses’s visions of the Divine.15 Like, Poreč, Sinai’s sanctuary adds a Constantinopolitan caste to a provincial building, but in this instance with the direct patronage

of the emperor and the participation of artisans from the capital. The fortifications of the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai were discussed in Chapter 7, as were the secular buildings at the site of Qasr ibn Wardan in Syria, although it is useful to examine its church here.16 Built ca. 561–64, the church at Qasr ibn Wardan was part of the residence of a provincial governor, but it reflects awareness of Constantinople in both its design and its construction (Figs. 10.12 and 10.13). It was a small, domed basilica with galleries, preserved to the level of the dome, which was flanked east and west with

J.  Elsner, “The Viewer and the Vision: The Case of the Sinai Apse,” AH 17, no. 1 (1994): 81–102.

16 Butler, Early Churches in Syria, 191; F. W. Deichmann, “Westlich Bautechnik im römischen un rhomäischen Osten,” MDAIRA 86 (1979): 488–93.

15

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FIGURE 10.10 Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine, interior of the nave, looking east (R. Nelson)

narrow barrel vaults, with clerestory windows beneath the high arches to the north and south—that is, exhibiting the same lack of bilaterally symmetrical bracing as Justinian’s domed basilicas in the capital. Unique for Syria, where most construction was of ashlar, the Qasr ibn Wardan church is built of alternating bands of brick and stone, following the Constantinopolitan construction system and proportions. The bricks were produced locally, however, and their production site has been identified nearby. In contrast to the Constantinopolitan features, the stonework is carefully cut, with local style in the decoration of the lintels. Moreover, the high arches are slightly pointed—a feature that fit better within a regional context. One impressive anomaly in this period is Panagia Ekatontapyliani on Paros (Our Lady of the Hundred Gates, or alternatively Panagia Katopoliani, Our Lady of the Lower City), which also belongs to the period of Justinian, replacing an older basilica on the site of a Roman bath (Figs. 10.14 and 10.15).17 Several subsidiary structures, including a baptistery (much rebuilt), may be 17 H. H. Jewell and F. W. Hasluck, The Church of Our Lady of the Hundred Gates (Panagia Hekantopyliani) in Paros (London, 1920).

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older. The huge church (25 by 39 meters) is unique in the Greek islands, vaulted throughout and laid out on an aisled cruciform plan with galleries, with a central dome rising above pendentives. Much of the lower wall and vault construction is marble spolia—more than two thousand blocks—from ancient sites on the island and is carefully cut and finished. In the high vaults, however, construction shifts to a more lightweight poros stone from nearby islands, laid in alternating course of different colors. Notably, the church has a deep bema forming the eastern arm of the cross, providing symmetrical support to the central dome—an element not found in the surviving Constantinopolitan churches. Side aisles and galleries have both groin vaults and barrel vaults. Distinctively, the nave is separated from the side aisles by columns with Ionic impost capitals, while the gallery has piers with impost capitals supporting an architrave—almost the reverse of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus. In fact, the gallery architrave hides a structural arcade, immediately behind it, on which the vault rests. Like S. Maria Maggiore in Rome, then, the architrave is more for appearances, a distinctive, classicizing feature to the interior design. The furnishings of the

FIGURE 10.11 Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine, view into the apse, with mosaics and marble revetments (R. Nelson)

bema are impressive in their preservation, with a multistepped synthronon, its throne, and a partially reconstructed templon surviving. The columns and capitals of the ciborium over the

altar may be imports from Constantinople, in contrast to local quarrying and production of those of the nave. Traces of the original painted decoration survive in the gallery as well. The

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FIGURE 10.12 Qasr ibn Wardan, church, view from the south (author)

circumstances for the construction of the building remain elusive. One suggestion is that it was built by Justinian as a votive, or thank offering, to the island for providing the marbles for the Blachernai Church in the capital. Indeed, the galleried cruciform plan with associated water features (in this instance a substantial baptistery) may in some way reflect the Blachernai.18 Regional developments. While innovative trends and the shift to centralized and domed architecture is evident across the empire, standard basilicas continued to be built. Galleried basilicas of short proportions, like the Studios Basilica or the Acheiropoietos in Thessalonike, continued to be built across the Balkans. The sixth-century Old Metropolis at Nesebar (Bulgaria), for example, seems to follow a Constantinopolitan model, built of alternating bands of brick and stone, although with piers rather than columns (Fig. 10.16).19 By contrast, the Cathedral of Sofia (Bulgaria), of sixthor possibly seventh-century date, introduces a 18 A.  Tantsis, “The So-Called ‘Athonite’ Type Church and Two Shrines of the Theotokos in Constantinople,” Zograf 34 (2010): 3–11, esp. 7–8.

A. Rachénov, Églises de Mesemvria (Sofia, 1932), 2–13; Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 229.

19

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transept and extended bema, allowing vaulting to  be introduced throughout the building, with a  dome at the crossing—something like the Ekatontapyliani on Paros (Fig. 10.17).20 The churches of Italy and the Adriatic remain relatively conservative. Beyond San Vitale, there is little evidence of innovation. Sant’Apollinare in Classe, for example, is a magnificent building, but it would not have been out of place if it appeared a century earlier—comparable to San Giovanni Evangelista in Ravenna, built ca. 430.21 Founded ca. 532–36 by Julianus Argentarius, the construction of Sant’Apollinare parallels that of his other foundation, San Vitale, and was similarly dedicated by archbishop Maximian, in 549. Elegantly decorated, it preserves twenty-four columns of imported Greek marble, as well as wind-blown capitals, pedestals, and revetments from the Proconessian quarries (Fig. 10.18). The apse mosaic is also from the original building. Only perhaps the apsed side chambers that terminate the aisles signal something new. 20

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 204–207.

Deliyannis, Ravenna, 259–74, 63–70, Deichmann, Ravenna II, 233–80. 21

Galleried basilicas begin to appear in Rome at this time. While similar to the basilicas of the Aegean with U-shaped galleries, their implementation in Rome seems to answer to certain functional needs. San Lorenzo fuori le mura, built ca. 579–90; and Sant’Agnese, built 625–38, lay adjacent to the semi-abandoned fourth-century cemetery basilicas of the same dedication (Fig. 10.19; and see Fig. 3.12).22 Both responded to the increasing popularity of pilgrims visiting the tombs of martyrs in the cemeteries outside the walls by cutting away the hillside above the catacombs and in effect dropping the nave floor to the level of the martyr’s tomb, now directly beneath the altar. Because of the lowered floor level, the church could be entered from the street directly into the gallery, with the martyr’s tomb at the liturgical center. The faithful could thus observe the services from the gallery level or choose to descend into closer proximity with the venerated tomb. While ingenious, in their details, both follow older examples: San Lorenzo retains an architrave above its lower colonnades, while Sant’Agnese incorporates a rich array of spolia. While Italy remained conservative, a number of remarkable works of architecture are to be found in Byzantine North Africa, perhaps reflecting a Justinianic flavor following the reconquest. At El Kef in Tunisia, for example, the basilica known as Dar el Kous (perhaps dedicated to St. Peter) had coupled columns as elsewhere in North Africa, but in this instance they also supported groin vaults in the aisles, which terminate in side chambers flanking the apse (Fig. 10.20).23 The apse itself is covered by a half-dome composed of alternating flat and scalloped segments, similar to the dome of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, but also probably similar to the half-dome described at St. Stephen at Gaza.24 On the outskirts of Carthage, the large complex at Bir Ftouha, perhaps a pilgrimage site, displays a number of unusual geometric flourishes (Fig. 10.21).25 Known only incompletely Brandenburg, Ancient Churches, 236–47; Krautheimer, CBCR 2, 1–144; Krautheimer, CBCR 1, 14–38.

22

23

Krautheimer and Ćurčić, ECBA, 4th ed., 275–76.

H.  Maguire, “The ‘Half-Cone’ Vault of St. Stephen at Gaza,” DOP 32 (1978): 319–25.

24

25 S. Stephens, V. Kalinowski, and H. vanderLeest, Bir Ftouha: A Pilgrimage Church Complex at Carthage (Portsmouth, 2005).

FIGURE 10.13 Qasr ibn Wardan, plan and section (redrawn after H. C. Butler, Early Churches, 1929)

from recent excavation, an enormous basilica was entered through a nine-sided structure, either an atrium or a roofed vestibule, and it terminated with a round baptistery at its head, framed by elegant courtyards with convex colonnades. The contemporaneous structures in Rome seem antiquated by comparison. Elsewhere, architecture continues with regional variations. The idea of the domed basilica is developed in several churches in inland Anatolia. The Church of the Panagia at Tomarza in Cappadocia, now destroyed, was built on a Latin

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FIGURE 10.14 Paros, Panagia Ekatontapyliani, interior looking east (author)

FIGURE 10.15 Paros, Panagia Ekatontapyliani, plan (after H. W. Jewell and F. W. Hasluck, Church of Our Lady, 1920)

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FIGURE 10.16 Nesebar, Old Metropolis, view looking east (author)

cross plan, ca. 500.26 Arches and the apse tend toward the horseshoe in form, and the apse is polygonal on the exterior (Fig. 10.22). Doors opened from the west into the transept arms; there was no narthex. Tomarza’s nave measured approximately 6.75 by 16.52 meters, including the crossing, and with cross arms extending 16.91 meters. It had a banded barrel vault over the nave and a crossing tower covered by a wooden roof, similar to that at Alahan. Its door frames were elegantly carved. A monumental column once stood before the entrance, which may have been for a stylite, similar to Syrian examples. The Kızıl Kilise (Red Church) at Sivrihisar is the best preserved of the early buildings in Cappadocia, although lacking the rich exterior detail of Tomarza (Figs. 10.23–10.25; and see Fig. 5.20).27 Set in an isolated mountain valley above Karbala (Byzantine Gelveri, modern Güzelyurt), it is also constructed M.  Restle, Studien zur frühbyzantinischen Architektur Kappadokiens (Vienna, 1979), 63–73; R. G. Ousterhout, Visualizing Community, 31–35.

26

27 Ousterhout, Visualizing Community, 31–37; Ousterhout, “The Red Church at Sivrihisar,” 1–11.

FIGURE 10.17 Sofia, cathedral, plan (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

on a Latin cross plan sometime in the early to midsixth century, with a nave and crossing measuring approximately 12.5 by 5.15 meters, expanded by an extra side aisle to the north of the nave, as well as transept arms and a horseshoe-shaped apse. The nave and transept had barrel vaults, the side aisle had a quadrant vault, and the dome over the crossing is raised above squinches and an octagonal drum. With the exception of the dome, the vaults are of rubble rather than ashlar. The asymmetrical side aisle was originally separated from the nave by closure panels, as the cuttings in the piers indicate. Thus isolated, the

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FIGURE 10.18 Classe, S. Apolinnare, interior, looking east (Michael Waters)

FIGURE 10.19 Rome, S. Agnese, interior, looking east (author)

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FIGURE 10.20 El Kef, Dar el Kous, looking east (author)

FIGURE 10.21 Carthage–Bir Ftouha, plan of the complex (after S. Stephens et al., Bir Ftouha: A Pilgrimage Church Complex at Carthage, Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplement 59)

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FIGURE 10.22 Tomarza, Church of the Panagia, view from the southeast, 1905 (Gertrude Bell Photographic Archive, University of Newcastle)

FIGURE 10.23 Sivrihisar, Red Church, view from the southeast (author)

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FIGURE 10.24 Sivrihisar, Red Church, plan (author, redrawn after M. Restle, Studien, 1979)

FIGURE 10.25 Sivrihisar, Red Church, view into the dome (author)

aisle was likely the setting for a special burial or  venerated tomb. Scholars have suggested an association with St. Gregory of Nazianzus (who lived ca. 329–90), whose country estate lay somewhere near here, although there is nothing to substantiate this. The isolated inland site known as Binbirkilise (the Thousand-and-One Churches), perhaps to be identified as Barata, preserved several dozen churches a century ago, although fewer survive

today (Figs. 10.26–10.28).28 Of the early monuments, both basilicas and centrally planned churches have been documented, often with evidence of later interventions—notably the introduction of vaulting. Church 1 is the best preserved, although sorting out its construction history is complicated. In its final form, a barrel vault W. M. Ramsay and G. L. Bell, The Thousand and One Churches (London, 1909).

28

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FIGURE 10.26 Binbirkilise, Church 1, nave looking east (author)

FIGURE 10.27 Binbirkilise, plans of Churches 1, 32, and 8 (after W. Ramsay and G. Bell, The Thousand and One Churches, 1908)

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FIGURE 10.28 Binbirkilise, Church 8, view from the southeast, 1887 (John Henry Haynes, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University)

covered the nave and transverse vaults covered the bays of the side aisles, with a three-part narthex. Church 32 also had three aisles, with galleries and a broad narthex framed by chambers to the north and south. For both, construction is of ashlar facing on a rubble core, with arches of slightly horseshoe form. Now completely destroyed, the unusual Church 8 was recorded before its collapse toward the end of the nineteenth century.29 It was octagonal, amplified by barrel-vaulted projections on three sides, rose through a clerestory zone, and was covered by a dome. It has long attracted the interest of scholars, as it appears similar to the martyrium described by St. Gregory at Nyssa.30 R.  G.  Ousterhout, “Binbirkilise Revisited: The 1887 Photographs of John Henry Haynes,” DChAE 34 (2013): 395–404. 29

30 J.  Strzygowski, Kleinasien: Ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte (Leipzig, 1903), 70–90.

Syria similarly continues both traditional and innovative architecture into the sixth century. Within the Limestone Massif of northern Syria, many churches follow the basilican models of the previous century. The East Church at Baqirha, for example, was dedicated in 546 (Fig. 10.29), and the Church of St. Sergius at Dar Qita was dedicated in 537—both with dedicatory inscriptions on their west portals.31 Both are three-aisled columnar basilicas, enlivened by exuberant architectural sculpture. Two centrally planned churches in Bosra in the Hauran (southern Syria) reflect the innovations of the period. The first, dedicated to Sts. Sergius, Bacchus, and Leontius, once thought to be the cathedral, was dedicated in 512/13 31

Butler, Early Churches, 136–39.

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FIGURE 10.29 Baqirha, East Church, west façade (Frank Kidner, Frank Kidner Photographs, 1983–1999, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees of Harvard University)

(Fig. 10.30).32 It measures overall 37 by 50 meters, with a tetraconch core to the nave that opens into a round ambulatory with corner niches, set within the square outer walls of the building—all probably to adjust the curvilinear forms of the tetraconch to the grid of the city. Entrances on three sides emphasize the centrality of the design, which, however, is joined to a fully developed sanctuary to the east; the bema is flanked by chapels. A second centrally planned church, similar in date and scale, its core approximately 45 by 45 meters, was recently excavated and may be the cathedral, as it has a baptistery attached to it.33 It is similar in its outward form, with a circular ambulatory set within a square, with niches at the corners, but the central space is enveloped by a circular colonnade,

10.30 Bosra, Church of Sergius, Bacchus, and Leontius, plan and elevation (after A. H. Detweiler, in J. W. Crowfoot, Churches in Bosra, 1937) FIGURE

Crowfoot, Churches in Bosra; Kleinbauer, “Origin and Function,” 107–108.

32

33 P.-M.  Blanc and P.  Piraud-Fournet, “La grande église à plan centré du quartier est de Bosra,” Hauran V: La Syrie du sud du néolithique à l’antiquité tardive, 1st vol., eds. M.  al-Maqdissi, F. Braemer, and J.-M. Dentzer (Beirut, 2010), 275–87.

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more than 30 meters in diameter, rather than a tetraconch. Its excavators reconstructed it with coupled columns framing large axial arches, one opening to a deep bema framed by chapels. How the immense central space was covered is a matter of conjecture, although both Bosran churches may have had wooden roofs. Liturgical planning. Throughout church architecture of the fifth and sixth centuries, we find a variety of subsidiary spaces flanking the bema, occasionally directly accessible from it, but often not. Their function is not easy to determine. In Syria, as at Qalb Lozeh, for example, usually one chamber opens into the bema and may have functioned in relationship to it, either as a storeroom or as a room for the preparation of the Eucharist; the other may have housed a venerated relic.34 Many of the early churches of Ravenna had side chambers, although none connected directly to the bema and their functions seem to have been diverse.35 At San Vitale, the domed side chambers may have functioned as mausolea or funerary oratories, while the smaller spaces may have served as storerooms for books, liturgical objects, or other church valuables. At Sant’Apollinare in Classe, the side spaces are provided with apses and seem to have functioned as annexed chapels, as had many of the flanking spaces at Sinai and at a variety of sites along the coasts of Anatolia. In all the instances noted here, the subsidiary spaces were part of the original construction, incorporated into its design. Changes in architecture may parallel liturgical changes. Set in privileged positions flanking the most sacred part of the church, throughout the early centuries, these chambers had a variety of functions. They are often erroneously called pastophoria, a term that refers to chambers that relate specifically to the Eucharistic liturgy. Sometime after the sixth century, the tripartite sanctuary was developed, which became standard by the Middle Byzantine period. The central space of the bema is flanked by spaces referred to collectively G.  Descourdes, Die Pastophorien in syro-byzantinischen Osten (Wiesbaden, 1983); Mathews, Early Churches.

as pastophoria and individually as the prothesis (north side) and diakonikon (south side). These were functional extensions of the bema and were connected directly to it by doorways, behind the templon. The appearance of the tripartite sanctuary corresponds with the development of the prothesis rite, documented by the eighth century. In the Early Christian church, gifts were presented at a chamber accessible from the atrium, often called a skevophylakion, and then brought forward during one of the several entrance processions that characterized the early service. When this chamber was replaced by the pastophoria, the structure of the service changed from one of linear processions by the clergy to a more circular movement, in and out of the sanctuary. The more circular movement parallels the development of a more centralized church, the design of which focused on a centrally positioned dome. The introduction of the tripartite sanctuary similarly has architectural implications. Its earliest appearance may be at the sixth-century cathedral at Caričin Grad in northern Serbia— Justinian’s new city, Iustiniana Prima, which was discussed in Chapter 7. There, the bema and pastophoria have a different character than the wooden-roofed basilica to which they were attached.36 Walls are thicker, and the spaces were apparently barrel vaulted. What we see is the juxtaposition of distinct architectural elements, rather than their integration into a unified built form. What is curious here is that the prothesis had a clearly defined liturgical role, but the diakonikon did not—it was more or less a glorified storeroom.37 Its appearance seems to be for symmetry, architecturally balancing the prothesis opposite it. In sum, the architectural experimentation of the fifth and sixth century did not happen for purely formal reasons, but must be viewed hand in hand with functional and symbolic considerations. As we shall see, the concerns of the sixth-century builders set the direction for later architectural developments.

34

J. C. Smith, “Form and Function of the Side Chambers of Fifthand Sixth-Century Churches in Ravenna,” JSAH 49 (1990): 181–204. 35

36

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 211–12.

37

Marinis, Architecture and Ritual.

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PART TWO

,

THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD Seventh to Ninth Centuries

CHAPTER ELEVEN

,

THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD WITHIN BYZANTIUM

T

he economic downturn in the centuries after Justinian is often termed the Byzantine Dark Ages and is sometimes equated with the Iconoclast period (726–843), although here I use the more neutral term “Transitional Period” for the critical period of the seventh through mid-ninth centuries, which witnessed permanent changes across the Byzantine Empire— what we might view as the transition from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Justinian’s death in 565 was followed by significant loss of territory, including the collapse of the Balkan frontier and the loss of North Africa and most of Italy (see Map 3). Emblematic of the empire’s changing fortunes, Iustiniana Prima (Caričin Grad), the city founded by Justinian to honor his birthplace, was destroyed ca. 615 by the Avars, who, as they pushed further into Thrace, severed aqueducts supplying Constantinople.1 In the East, Byzantine forces continued to struggle against the Persians and, after 634, the Arabs, whose invasions destabilized the eastern frontier and portions of Anatolia well into the tenth century.2 At its heart, Byzantine society was disrupted by the so-called Iconoclast Controversy (726–843), a debate over the role of religious images in 1

J. Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century (Cambridge, 1990).

W. Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests (Cambridge, 1992). 2

devotional practices, which often pitted imperial and ecclesiastical authorities against each other.3 Were icons “graven images” to be abjured and outlawed, as the Iconoclasts believed, or should they be officially sanctioned as part of Orthodox devotion, as the Iconophiles believed? The disputes that continued through the period served to divide and ultimately redefine Byzantine society. The economic downturn also resulted in a marked decrease in pan-Mediterranean trade and a decrease in the size of cities, whose existence depended on extended economic networks. As will be discussed in a subsequent chapter, many cities were reduced to fortified citadels, while others were abandoned.4 Both the social and the economic life of the empire shifted from urban to rural, with even Constantinople reduced to a shadow of its former self—although probably not L. Brubaker and J. Haldon, eds., Byzantium in the Iconoclast era (ca. 680–850): The Sources (Aldershot, 2001); L.  Brubaker and J.  Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era c. 680–850: A History (Cambridge, 2011); L.  Brubaker, Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm (Bristol, 2012). 3

4 G.  Broglio and B.  Ward-Perkins, eds., The Idea and Ideal of the Town between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Leiden, 1999); H. Saradi, The Byzantine City in the Sixth Century (Athens, 2006).

Trilye (Zeytinbagı), Fatih Camii, seen from the east (author) 245

[Map 3]

The Byzantine Empire in 780 (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 130)

as small as has sometimes been proposed: urban contraction doesn’t necessarily imply population decline.5 Sometimes characterized as a shift from polis to castrum, defensive walls became a signature feature of a city, as markers of urbanism.6 Some scholars have argued that the nature of Byzantine society shifted from open to closed, from public to private: what had once occurred in the fora, cathedrals, or monumental public spaces of cities now more often took place behind closed doors, in homes or private chapels.7 It may be more correct to say that public social life and the engagement with public space had fundamentally changed.8 Moreover, it was a gradual change that began centuries earlier, with grand public spaces losing their formal and ideological valences, while the church assumed many civic roles—a subject to which we shall return in Chapter 14.9 Although we may begin to find hints of a revival after the mid-eighth century, until the late ninth century, there was limited architectural production, most of it on a reduced scale. Whatever we call it, the Dark Ages, the Transitional Period, or the age of Iconoclasm, the years between the seventh and mid-ninth centuries were conducive to neither architectural production nor its documentation. While most specialists would place the monuments discussed in this chapter into the period in question, frustratingly few are securely dated. The period nevertheless accounts for major social and political transformations within the Byzantine Empire and, for our purposes, dramatic 5 Mango, Développement; C.  Mango, “The Development of Constantinople as an Urban Centre,” in 17th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Main Papers (New Rochelle, 1986), 117–36; countered by P. Magdalino, Constantinople médiévale.; P. Magdalino, “Medieval Constantinople,” in Studies on the History and Topography of Byzantine Constantinople (Aldershot, 2007), 1–111. 6 L. Brubaker, “Topography and the Creation of Public Space in Early Medieval Constantinople,” in Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages, ed. M. de Jong (Leiden, 2001), 31–43, esp. 32–33. 7 Notably  A.  Kazhdan and G.  Constable, People and Power in Byzantium: An Introduction to Modern Byzantine Studies (Washington, DC, 1982), 19–58. 8

Brubaker, “Topography,” esp. 34.

Brubaker, “Topography”; and J.  Baldovin, Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development, and Meaning of Stational Liturgy (Rome, 1987). 9

and permanent changes in Byzantine religious architecture, in both form and scale. It also accounts for significant changes in the architectural profession, to be addressed in a later chapter. How scholars have addressed the period reflects the general methodologies of their age. Scholars like Alexander Van Millingen, writing at the turn of the last century, were dependent on texts and thus familiar with the architectural program of Basil I (r. 867–86), as recounted in the Vita Basilii.10 He thus viewed Basil’s reign as the critical period and consequently dated a variety of the “transitional” churches in Constantinople to the ninth century. None of the buildings mentioned in the Vita survives, however, nor do any other of the great monuments of ninthcentury Constantinople. The palace constructions of Theophilos, breathlessly enumerated by Theophanes Continuatus, have similarly vanished without a trace, and only paltry foundations remain for the well-documented monasteries on the Prince’s Islands.11 Writing in the 1960s, Richard Krautheimer attempted to categorize the monuments typologically, viewing the evolution of the cross-domed church as critical to this period, as it seems to be the transitional link between the Early Christian and the Middle Byzantine church building.12 But buildings rarely fit into neat categories, and by the last revisions of his text in the 1980s, archaeological investigations had convincingly redated many of his key monuments. The Gül Camii (Hagia Theodosia?) and the Kalenderhane Camii (Theotokos Kyriotissa) in Istanbul, for example, clearly belong to the twelfth century (and will be discussed later).13 The dates of two other key monuments continue to be contested. Should the A.  Van Millingen, Byzantine Churches of Constantinople: Their History and Architecture (London, 1912), 333; for the Vita Basilii, see Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 192–99. 10

11

Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 160–65.

Compare  R.  Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (Harmondsworth, 1965), 201–13, with Krautheimer and Ćurčić, ECBA, 4th ed., 285–300. 12

13 H.  Schäfer, Die Gül Camii in Istanbul. Ein Beitrag mittelbyzantinischen Kirchenarchitektur Konstantinoples (Tübingen, 1973); C. L. Striker and Y. D. Kuban, Kalenderhane in Istanbul: The Buildings (Mainz, 1997), and C.  L.  Striker and Y.  D.  Kuban, Kalenderhane in Istanbul: The Excavations (Mainz, 2007); Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 153–57; 163–67.

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Hagia Sophia in Thessalonike be placed toward the beginning or the end of the seventh century?14 Most scholars now date the Koimesis Church at Nicaea to ca. 700 or perhaps even earlier, although the transformation of its apse decoration during and after the Iconoclast period remains central to any discussion of the visual arts.15 While quibbles over chronology might seem nitpicky, they raise the question of whether these monuments should be regarded as paradigms, introducing new architectural forms into the building vocabulary, or whether they are simply following already established designs. Lacking documentary evidence for most building campaigns, scholars have turned to other kinds of evidence for the dating of buildings. Most common has been the reliance on the typological analysis of building forms and on the iconographic analysis of monumental painting. The difficulties of the latter are amply demonstrated by the burgeoning bibliography on the painted rock-cut churches of Cappadocia. Numerous churches are painted with geometric patterning and display prominently images of the cross. Does aniconic decoration indicate an iconoclast date? Key monuments, such St. Basil near Sinasos, have primarily aniconic decoration, into which a few figures have been inserted. Should they be interpreted as betraying an Iconoclasm not fully absorbed or lingering Iconoclast sentiments dating from after the Triumph of Orthodoxy? Or do they have anything to do with Iconoclasm as legislated from Constantinople?16 On similar grounds, “Iconoclast monuments” have been identified in the Pontus, Naxos, Thessalonike, Cherson, Georgia, Crete, Greece, and Turkish 14 K. Theocharidou, The Architecture of Hagia Sophia, Thessaloniki, from Its Erection up to the Turkish Conquest, BAR International Series 339 (Oxford, 1988); and discussion below.

Krautheimer and Ćurčić, ECBA, 4th ed., 290, suggests early eighth century; Mango, Byzantine Architecture (New York, 1977), 172 suggests late sixth century.

15

M. Xenaki, “Recherches sur les églises byzantines de Cappadoce et leur décor peint (Vie–IXe siècles),” (PhD diss., University of Paris 1, 2011), 488–543; A.  Wharton Epstein, “The ‘Iconoclast’ Churches of Cappadocia,” in Iconoclasm, eds. A. Bryer and J. Herrin (Birmingham, 1977), 103–12; N.  Thierry, Haut Moyen-Âge en Cappadoce: Les églises de la région du Çavuşin, 2 vols. (Paris, 1983– 94), I:1–33. 16

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Thrace.17 In almost all, the dating remains insecure, and in any event, the architectural forms of these buildings tend to be simple and conservative—and not indicative of the major architectural changes of the period, less interesting and considerably less problematic than their painting. Dendrochronology may also be useful, but it is far from foolproof.18 Wooden beams were part of the standard system of structural reinforcement in masonry buildings, and when they survive, their pattern of tree rings can be “wiggle-matched” against other wood samples from the same region. As the dendrochronologists insist, the tree-ring data must be used with caution, for their studies provide a date for the wood, not for the building. When bark is preserved on the wood sample and when several samples from the same monument have matching ring patterns, however, they can provide a terminus ante quem within a few years of construction. But older beams might also be reused, while others may be the result of later repairs or remodeling and have nothing to do with the initial foundation. Finally, while dendrochronology may seem scientific, the wiggle-matching of the samples is subject to human interpretation. In what follows, I shall include the most recent data in the discussions of individual buildings. Returning to the problems of formal analysis, the standard approach to Byzantine architecture has been typological, with buildings categorized according to ground plan and spatial definition. Although typology provides a useful system of description, as Cyril Mango once noted, “Buildings are labeled and pigeon-holed like biological specimens according to formal criteria: where a resemblance is found a connection is assumed even across a wide gulf in time and space.”19 When

17

Brubaker and Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, 19–36.

Compare P. I. Kuniholm, “New Tree-Ring Dates for Byzantine Buildings,” Byzantine Studies Conference Abstracts of Papers 21 (1995): 35; with P. I. Kuniholm, C. L. Pearson, T. J. Ważny, and C. B. Griggs, “Of Harbors and Trees: The Marmaray Contribution to a 2367Year Oak-Tree-Ring Chronology from 97 Sites for the Aegean, East Mediterranean, and Black Seas,” in Istanbul and Water, eds. P.  Magdalino and N.  Ergin (Peeters, 2014), 45–90. [NB: all dendrochronological dates noted below come from this report]. 18

C. Mango, “Approaches to Byzantine Architecture,” Muqarnas 8 (1991): 41.

19

what is simple becomes simplistic, a system of categorization can easily misdirect scholarly inquiry. Moreover, a typological approach fails to provide an adequate explanation of the relationship between different types of buildings. Traditional scholarship presents four major steps of development that mark the transition between the Early Christian basilica and the domed Middle Byzantine church.20 The domed basilica makes its appearance in the sixth and possibly already in the late fifth century, marking an important change from wooden-roofed to vaulted forms, best witnessed at Hagia Sophia or Hagia Eirene in Constantinople or Basilica B in Philippi, discussed in a previous chapter. With the introduction of bilaterally symmetrical bracing for the dome, as occurred in the rebuilding of Hagia Eirene (discussed below), a cross-domed unit was introduced on the gallery level. This was repeated in the ninth-century domed basilica at Vize in Thrace.21 A similar structural unit became the core of the cross-domed church, as at the Koimesis in Nicaea or the Hagia Sophia in Thessalonike, with supports defining a cruciform naos. This type, significantly, exists in two versions: the larger, which was similar in organization to the domed basilicas, and the smaller, with the cruciform naos framed by four corner chambers, as at Atik Mustafa Paşa Camii in Constantinople.22 There are examples from the smaller version as early as the fifth century, as at Hosios David in Thessalonike.23 By the end of the eighth century, a more open design was developed for small churches, with the central dome supported above four piers or columns and the naos divided into nine bays, in the crossin-square church type, as at the Fatih Camii (Hagios Stephanos?) at Trilye. The fully developed type appears at the Myrelaion in the early tenth century, with the structural system clearly R. G. Ousterhout, “Architecture of Iconoclasm,” in Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (ca. 680–850): The Sources, eds. L. Brubaker and J. Haldon, esp. 8–15.

20

F. A. Bauer and H. Klein, “The Church of Hagia Sophia in Bizye (Vize): Results of the Fieldwork Seasons 2003 and 2004,” DOP 60 (2006): 249–70.

expressed on the exterior by semicylindrical buttresses and the square naos balanced east and west by a tripartite sanctuary and a three-bay narthex.24 It is tempting to see an evolutionary process here, with one building type providing the impetus for the next stage of development. In a long process of experimentation, something like this must have occurred, but the process of transformation was neither neat nor linear, and other factors must be taken into consideration. Often omitted from the discussion is the importance of scale (Fig. 11.1).25 Following the changes in patronage and worship during this period, churches became smaller and more centralized, accommodating smaller congregations and a more static liturgy. The sixth-century Hagia Sophia in Constantinople had a dome measuring 100 Byzantine feet in diameter; almost the entirety of the Hagia Sophia from Thessalonike fits inside its domed bay: excluding the sanctuary, the main block of the building measures almost exactly 100 by 100 Byzantine feet.26 The Koimesis Church was smaller still, and the dome of the Myrelaion Church is barely one tenth the diameter of Hagia Sophia’s. From a practical point of view, churches of different scales demanded different structural systems. From the sixth century onward, the dome remained a central theme in church design, and the new building types resulted from the reduction in scale and simplification of the domed basilica. Galleries and ambulatories were unnecessary in a building of smaller scale; internal supports could be reduced to either piers or columns. The cross-domed church offered an effective structural design for a church of intermediate proportions; for a church with a dome of less than 20 Byzantine feet in diameter, the cross-in-square format proved most effective.27 Within the development, then, there was a good deal of trial and error, with more than one church type and numerous variations existing side by side and at different scales.

21

T.  F.  Mathews and E.  Hawkins, “Notes on the Atik Mustafa Paşa Camii in Istanbul and Its Frescoes,” DOP 39 (1985): 125–34.

22

23

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 109–10.

C.  L.  Striker, The Myrelaion (Bodrum Camii) in Istanbul (Princeton, 1981). 24

25

As I have emphasized: Ousterhout, Master Builders, esp. 30.

26

Theocharidou, Architecture of Hagia Sophia, 24–29.

27

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 15–33.

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FIGURE 11.1 Plans drawn to the same scale, compared to Hagia Sophia, Constantinople (right); (A) Hagia Sophia, Thessalonike; (B) Koimesis, Nicaea; (C) Fatih Camii, Trilye; (D) Myrelaion, Constantinople (redrawn by author)

Another important consideration is that many of the monuments under discussion represent the reconstruction or remodeling of older buildings. That is, rather than representing a new theoretical model, they express the very real concerns of a society in transition and its builders. Hagia Eirene, for example, is still most often discussed as a Justinianic building, although almost all of its superstructure—and its reformulated structural system—is later. In many examples of Early Christian basilicas, we find a reduction in scale as a new church was constructed on the same foundations, while reemploying many of the same architectural elements, but with its basic design transformed.28 Other key buildings, such as the Hagia Sophia in Thessalonike, the Hagia Sophia at Vize, or St. Mary at Ephesus, were built on or over the foundations of older basilicas (see Fig. 6.14). The lower church at Amorion represents a reformulation of an older basilica (see Figs. 18.1 and 18.2), restructured to include vaulting, transforming the older basilica into a cross-domed 28

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 86–127.

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church.29 The same seems to have happened at the Cumanin Camii in Antalya (see Fig. 8.23).30 Although it was centrally planned in its first phase, the remodeling thickened the supports to include vaulting, probably in the eighth century. The reinvestment in older buildings accords the renovation program of Constantinople, reported in the biography of Basil I. For example, at the Church of the Resurrection and St. Anastasia, Basil is said to have replaced the wooden roof with a stone one.31 But it remains unclear if new building types emerged through the reformulation of existing churches or if the remodeling simply follows established patterns. In this chapter, the monuments are organized by building type for the sake of convenience. This E. A. Ivison, “Amorium in the Byzantine Dark Ages (Seventh to Ninth Centuries),” in Post-Roman Towns, Trade and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium. Vol. 2: Byzantium, Pliska, and the Balkans, ed. J. Henning, Millennium Studies, 5, no. 2 (Berlin, 2007), 25–60. 29

30

G. Kaymak, Die Cumanin Camii in Antalya, 69–70.

31

Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 193.

should in no way suggest an evolutionary development. Rather, this grouping tends to bring together buildings of similar scale. The distinctions between building types reinforce the limitations of typological analysis. For example, the section on domed basilicas includes several large churches that maintain a basilican plan on the ground level while introducing a cross-domed unit on the upper level. Cross-domed churches exist in two distinct subcategories. Similarly, a distinction between cross-domed churches and cross-in-square churches may be based not so much on the types of support (e.g., columns vs. piers), but on whether the corner spaces function as part of the naos. Domed basilicas. The domed Basilica of St.  Nicholas at Myra has been attributed to the eighth century on archaeological grounds (Figs. 11.2 and 11.3).32 The church was built to enshrine the tomb of the sainted fourth-century bishop Nicholas, whose tomb exuded aromatic myrrh (holy oil) that attracted numerous pilgrims—including Italian merchants from Bari who stole his body in 1087. It remains unclear where within the rather complicated building the venerated tomb was located (see Chap. 4). Built on the foundations of an Early Christian basilica, elements of the older building were incorporated into the atrium and south chapels. The church was rebuilt as a domed basilica, with a dome, approximately 7.70 meters in diameter, braced to the east and west by narrow barrel vaults and enveloped by lateral aisles and a narthex on the ground floor, with galleries above, but no clerestory. Triple arcades open on three sides of the naos. Rebuilt by the Russians in 1862–63, the dome was replaced by a groin vault, giving the interior a truncated impression. The church also included a second aisle to the south, with arcosolia, joining the south chapel. The sanctuary preserves a multistepped synthronon, much restored. Additional constructions expanded the building on all sides, dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. There do not appear to have been proper pastophoria in the eighth-century church: the bema opened to double chapels on the south and to a rectangular space to the north, originally with a door in its 32

Peschlow, “Die Architektur der Nikolaoskirche in Myra,” 303–59.

FIGURE 11.2 Myra (Demre), St. Nicholas, plan and reconstructed view (after U. Peschlow, in J. Borchhardt, Myra, 1975)

east wall. Opus sectile pavements may be from the eighth century, although the surviving fresco decoration is later. Justinian’s Hagia Eirene in Constantinople was destroyed in the earthquake of 740 and substantially rebuilt (Figs. 11.4 and 11.5, and see Chap. 8).33 Although it is sometimes attributed to Constantine V (r. 741–75), dendrochronology suggests a date after 799. Whatever the date, the reconstruction maintained the scale of the sixthcentury building, as well as the basilican plan at ground level, but it introduced a cross-domed unit on the gallery level, providing transverse barrel vaults to the north and south of the dome—in effect pushing the clerestory zone to the outer walls, with round-headed windows organized into two registers above those of the gallery. The cross-domed unit corrected a major structural flaw in the original—indeed, one that 33 Peschlow, Die Irenenkirche; Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 256–57.

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FIGURE 11.3 Myra (Demre), St. Nicholas, interior of the nave, looking east (author)

had plagued most of the earlier domed basilicas. Hagia Eirene’s dome measures close to 50 Byzantine feet in diameter, rising above a windowed drum. With the reformulation of the vaulting throughout the building, an elliptical domical vault was introduced over the western bay of the nave, braced by transverse barrel vaults on the gallery level, quite similar to the eastern bay, with two registers of windows. Characteristic Early Christian features, such as the atrium and the synthronon, were maintained, but the vault of the apse was given a slightly pointed form and decorated with the simple, twodimensional image of a cross against a gold background. Construction is often sloppy, however, and much of the marble decoration is reused. Hagia Sophia in Vize is similar in design and may be dated sometime after 847, based on dendrochronology. It seems likely that this was the episcopal Church of Byzantine Bizye, associated with events mentioned in the vita of St. Mary the Younger (Figs. 11.6 and 11.7).34 Basilican on the

ground level, the gallery includes a cross-domed unit, with barrel vaults bracing a dome approximately 6 meters in diameter, raised above a windowed drum. The corner compartments are isolated on the gallery level, not unlike the considerably later churches of Mystras. Minor vaults are an admixture of groin vaults, domical vaults, and barrel vaults. An arcosolium in the south aisle appears to be original. The church was originally built of alternating bands of brick and stone, but this had been much repaired in rough stonework. Built above the remains of an older basilica, the foundations are exposed to the east. Cross-domed churches. Although its date remains contested, Hagia Sophia of Thessalonike is nevertheless crucial for our discussion (Figs. 11.8–11.10). Most scholars hold that the church was built in two phases during the seventh century, replacing the older basilica although incorporating its two-storied narthex, whose foundations survive to the west of the present building.35

C. Mango, “The Byzantine Church at Vize (Bizye) in Thrace and St. Mary the Younger,” ZRVI 11 (1968): 9–13; Bauer and Klein, “Church of Hagia Sophia.”

35

34

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K.  Theocharidou, Architecture of Hagia Sophia; Ch. Bakirtzis, “Neoteres paratiriseis sten ktetorike epigrafe tou troullou tes Agias Sofias Thessalonikis,” Byzantina 11 (1982): 167–80 (in Greek)

FIGURE 11.4 Constantinople, Hagia Eirene, plan at the ground floor and gallery levels, with shading to show the cross-domed unit (author, after Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

The construction technique evident in the lower walls and apses is of alternating bands of brick and  stone, like that of Constantinople. Major for the early dating; this is accepted by Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 257–60; R.  Cormack, “The Arts during the Age of Iconoclasm,” in Iconoclasm: Papers Given at the Ninth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, eds. A. A. M. Bryer and J. Herrin (Birmingham, 1977), 35, dates the building ca. 780–87; in Cormack’s notes accompanying the reprint of this article in The Byzantine Eye: Studies in Art and Patronage (London, 1989), 6–7, he is skeptical of Theocharidou’s chronology and still prefers the later date.

restorations of the eighth, tenth, and eleventh centuries mostly affected the form of the galleries. In many ways, the church represents a smaller, simpler, and heavier version of its namesake in the capital, with a dome approximately 11 meters in diameter, set into a massive square drum. The dome is raised above a cruciform naos, with narrow barrel vaults to brace it on all sides. These vaults terminate in thermal windows (the lunette subdivided by mullions) to the north, south, and west—perhaps following the Constantinopolitan model, although now opening under the elevated

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gallery roof of the eleventh century. Unlike the domed basilicas just discussed, the corner piers project into the naos, creating a distinctly cruciform plan on the ground level. The piers are broken by tunnels on two levels that visually lighten their rather heavy forms. A U-shaped envelope formed by the narthex, lateral aisles, and galleries surrounds the core of the building. A tripartite sanctuary projects to the east, poorly integrated into the building’s overall design, as the pastophoria connect awkwardly to the side aisles. Much of the marble decoration is reused, and the mosaics are mostly from the eighth and ninth century. Closely related to the design of Hagia Sophia in Thessalonike, the Koimesis (Dormition of the Virgin) Church at Nicaea in Bithynia was destroyed in the 1920s, although it was studied twice before then and its remains were subsequently excavated (see Fig. 11.1B). Dated perhaps ca. 700 and identified with the Monastery of Hyacinthus, it similarly has an atrophied Greekcross plan with the cruciform naos enveloped by

FIGURE 11.5 Constantinople, Hagia Eirene, interior looking east (Thomas F. Mathews, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees of Harvard University, Washington, DC)

FIGURE 11.6 Vize, Hagia Sophia, view from the southeast (author)

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a narthex, aisles, and a tripartite sanctuary.36 It is smaller in scale, however, with a dome diameter of approximately 6.30 meters, and it lacks galleries above the side aisles. The corner piers of the naos are solid, and the overall length and width of the plan have been brought into balance. For its analysis, we should consider the excavation of a remarkably similar church at Kramolin, near Lovech, Bulgaria, which the excavators dated to the second half of the sixth century.37 It thus encourages the early dating of the Koimesis Church—that is, if we are to trust typology as a guide. At Kramolin, the scale and the organization of the pastophoria are similar to that of the Koimesis, although the presence of a stair tower may indicate a gallery, similar to Hagia Sophia. Destroyed in 1921, the atrophied cruciform core of the Church of St. Clement in Ankara opened to enveloping spaces through triple arcades on two levels (Fig. 11.11).38 Corner compartments were isolated to the east and west on both levels. Studied before its destruction, only a fragment of the bema now stands, hidden behind modern shops. A dating in the period of the seventh to ninth centuries is suggested, based on the similarities with the Koimesis of Nicaea and Hagia Sophia in Thessalonike. A sixth-century Justinianic date might be argued as well, based on the masonry and the fact that the pumpkin dome lacked a drum. A comparison of the masonry with the citadel walls may suggest a date closer to the midninth century; moreover, the pastophoria are fully developed, and this would encourage a later date. A structure that began its life as a market basilica, in its third phase the Church of the Theotokos at Ephesus was transformed into a cross-domed church, a reduction in scale of the fourth-century

36 T.  Schmit, Die Koimesiskirche von Nikaia (Berlin, 1927), U.  Peschlow, “Neue Beobachtungen zur Architektur und Ausstattung der Koimesiskirche in Iznik,” IstMitt 22 (1972): 145–87. 37

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 234.

G.  de Jerphanion, “L’eglise de Saint-Clément à Angora,” in Mélanges d’archéologie anatolienne: monuments préhelléniques, grécoromains, byzantins et musulmans de Pont, de Cappadoce et de Galatie, Mélanges de l’Université St. Joseph 13 (1928), 113–43; U.  Peschlow, Ankara: die bauarchäologishchen Hinterlassenschaften aus römischer und byzantinischer Zeit, 2 vols. (Vienna, 2015), 1: 187– 244, oddly reconstructs the church as single storied. 38

FIGURE 11.7 Vize, Hagia Sophia, plan at the ground floor and gallery levels (after F. A. Bauer and H. Klein, DOP, 2006)

cathedral (see Fig. 6.14).39 Dated to the eighth century or perhaps somewhat earlier, little of its superstructure remains, but it was nevertheless a substantial building, with a dome approximately 12 meters in diameter raised above corner piers. Aisles extend to the north and south, and what appear to be pastophoria flank but do not connect to the apse. A second, smaller version of the cross-domed church is represented by the church now known as Atik Mustafa Paşa Camii in Constantinople (Figs. 11.12B and 11.13).40 Here the cruciform plan of the naos is brought out to square, but enclosed by chapels or subsidiary spaces at the corners. Its small, compact form apparently found currency in the period, providing a setting appropriate for the worship of a small congregation. In this and similar buildings, the arms of the cross are more pronounced 39

Karydis, Early Byzantine Vaulted Construction, 4–8, 135–54.

Mathews and Hawkins, “Notes on the Atik Mustafa Paşa Camii,” 125–34; Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 123–25.

40

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FIGURE 11.8 Thessalonike, Hagia Sophia, view from the east (author)

than in the previous examples; here the central dome has a diameter of approximately 5 meters. Although scholars continue to maintain a ninthcentury date, it has never been convincingly identified. The cross arms originally opened with triple arcades into lateral porches. The eastern chapels connected to the bema and must be interpreted as pastophoria. The function of the western corner spaces is not clear. Details revealed in the recent remodeling indicate that there were originally corner chambers on two levels. The church on Büyükada, Amasra, is known only from foundations but is similar in plan and scale to Atik Mustafa Paşa Camii (Fig. 11.12A).41 The eastern chapels, however, do not connect to the bema. A date in the eighth century has been proposed, based on its typology, perhaps the monastery of patriarch Cyrus (705–12?). Architecturally, it may represent the reconfiguration of an older basilica. The Monastery of St. Constantine on Lake Apolyont in Bithynia is similar to

aforementioned examples, although the crossdomed church had elaborated corner compartments and a unique western apse—possibly lateral apses as well (Fig. 11.14).42 The dome had a diameter of approximately 4.3 meters, supported above complex piers. Within the narthex, niches flank the entrance to the naos. A dating in the ninth or tenth century is proposed, along with a very tentative association of the monastery with one on the island of Thasios visited by St. Ioannikios in 825. Another variation has the domed bay set within an atrophied cross, with narrow barrel vaults rising above corner piers. The Church of the Archangels at Sige (Kumyaka) preserves its core, although the impression is complicated by many later additions, as it continued to be used though the Ottoman period.43 Like several of the examples from this

S. Eyice, “Amasra Büyükada’sında bir Bizans kilisesi,” BTTK 15 (1951): 469–96.

43

41

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M.  Kappas and S.  Mamaloukos, “The Church of St. Constantine on Lake Apollonia, Bithynia, Revisited,” DChAE 38 (2017): 87–104.

42

H. Buchwald, The Church of the Archangels in Sige near Mudania (Vienna, 1969).

FIGURE 11.9 Thessalonike, Hagia Sophia, plan and section (after C. Mango, Byzantine Architecture, 1974)

period, it lies on the south shore of the Sea of Marmara, opposite Constantinople, in Bithynia, a region known for its monastic communities during the transitional period. The dome here is approximately 6.5 meters in diameter. The apse, semicircular on the interior and polygonal on the exterior, extends almost the full width of the naos, with no traces of pastophoria or lateral apses. Arcades originally opened to the north and south. A date of ca. 780 is recommended, partially on stylistic grounds, partially on the interpretation of a lost inscription. Although it no longer survives, the Cathedral of Herakleia Perinthos (Ereğli), on the Marmara coast of Thrace, appears to have been similar to the church at Sige, with a square core and a broad apse, apparently built on the site of an older church.44 E. Kalinka and J. Strzygowski, “Die Kathedrale von Herakleia,” ÖJh 1 (1898): 3–28.

44

Cross-in-square churches. Picturesquely set at the center of the historic town of Trilye-Zeytinbağı on the south shore of the Sea of Marmara, the Fatih Camii (Hagios Stephanos?) has long been recognized as a significant early example of the cross-in-square church type (Figs. 11.15–11.17).45 It can now be securely placed in the early ninth century by dendrochronology, with a post quem date of 793 for the wood analyzed from the building. The naos is close to square in overall plan, with a dome just under 5 meters (approximately 15 Byzantine feet) in diameter, raised on a tall drum above four columns. The cross arms are covered by barrel vaults. The corner compartments are somewhat uneven, isolated by projecting pilasters and covered by ovoid domical vaults. The pastophoria were quite large—the diakonikon is now missing—with their lateral walls projecting beyond the width of the naos. The bema has an extra bay before the apse, which was curved on the interior and polygonal on the exterior, opened by three windows. The pastophoria each included a setback before the apse, which was semicircular on both interior and exterior. To the west is a broad, barrel-vaulted narthex, preceded by a colonnaded portico. Exposed remains of architectural sculpture and additional marbles littering the site suggest that the original building was lavishly outfitted. Much of the sculpture, including the capitals of the naos and closure panels, is reused from the sixth century, although some, including the capitals of the lateral arcades and some of the cornice patterns, may be ninth century. The interior was originally decorated with mosaics, the presence of which was noted during the period of Greek occupation in 1920–22, when the building was briefly reconverted to a church. Mosaics in a simple grid of oversized tesserae survive in the soffits of the south arcade and east windows. A restoration of 1995–96 opened the arcades on the north and south sides of the naos. Fragments of opus sectile were uncovered at the same time. Another early example of the cross-in-square plan, the ruinous foundations of Church H at C. Mango and I. Ševčenko, “Some Churches and Monasteries on the Southern Shore of the Sea of Marmara,” DOP 27 (1973): 235–77, esp. 236–38; M. S. Pekak, Trilye (Zeytinbağı) Fatih camisi Bizans kapalı Yunan haçı planı (Istanbul, 2009). 45

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FIGURE 11.10 Thessalonike, Hagia Sophia, interior, looking southeast (author)

11.11 Ankara, St. Clement, isometric section (after G. de Jerphanion, Mélanges d’archéologie, 1928) FIGURE

Side exhibits a lack of coordination in its details (Fig. 11.18A).46 Four freestanding columns would have supported a dome approximately 3.2 meters in diameter. However, wall thicknesses vary, the chambers flanking the apse (pastophoria?) project slightly outward, and the church appears to incorporate older remains. While the foundations may be older, the church is likely from the ninth century, as the city declined after that time. The

chapel in the Episcopal Palace at Side is similar in scale and details to Church H, also built on older foundations (Fig. 11.18B).47 Decorated marble pilasters are reused, built into the lateral walls. A stepped synthronon is set into the apse; flanking rooms are square, without niches. Although the excavators would place it earlier, a date between 750 and 850 seems more likely. The identification of the famed monastery of Megas Agros at Kurşunlu, on the Bithynian coast of the Sea of Marmara, is not entirely certain (Fig. 11.18C).48 The monastic gate survives, and the local Greek tradition associated the site with Megas Agros. The church is only partially preserved, however, but enough to indicate a crossin-square plan with columns supporting a dome approximately 4 meters in diameter. The construction is rough, of alternating brick and stone bands. Like the church at Trilye, the main apse is polygonal on the exterior, while the pastophoria apses are semicircular. Both pastophoria 47

S. Eyice, “L’église cruciforme byzantine de Side en Pamphylie,” Anatolia 3 (1958): 34–42.

46

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A. M. Mansel, Die Ruinen von Side (Berlin, 1963), 168–69.

Mango and Ševčenko, “Some Churches and Monasteries,” 253–67. 48

FIGURE 11.12 (A) Amasra-Büyükada, church plan (author, after Ćurčić, JSAH, 1979); (B) Constantinople, church known as Atik Mustafa Paşa Camii, plan (after V. Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 2014)

have niches in their lateral walls, and the prothesis has a cruciform loculus in the apse, similar to that at the Theotokos tou Libos (ca. 907). The date is uncertain. If this were the church built by Theophanes the Confessor, it would date shortly before 787, although it could easily be later. Similarities with the church at Trilye encourage a Transitional Period dating. Located a few kilometers west of Trilye, the Monastery of St. John of Pelekete played a prominent role in the Iconoclast period (Figs. 11.18D and 11.19).49 An early version of the cross-in-square plan, the eastern part of the building is preserved, its neat, alternating bands of brick and stone encased in modern masonry. The southeast naos column still stood when Mango and Ševčenko Mango and Ševčenko, “Some Churches and Monasteries,” 242–48.

49

studied the building, and the dome diameter was estimated at 4 meters. A finely carved marble cornice and capital are Early Christian spolia. The north and south crossarms may have been opened by tribela. These and other details recommend a comparison with the Fatih Camii in Trilye. It may be slightly later in date, although the ninth century seems highly probable. Variations on the domed basilica. Two large churches with cruciform cores are worth including here. St. Titus at Gortyna on Crete has been dated variously between the sixth and tenth centuries, but likely belongs to period of Bishop Synesios, named in an inscription, shortly after the earthquake of 796 and before the Arab conquest of 827 (Figs. 11.20 and 11.21).50 Constructed of fine ashlar, the design is complex, with a threepart sanctuary, a triconch bema, a pronounced crossarm terminating in lateral apses, and a dome at the crossing. Measuring 26 by 35 meters overall, the scale is huge for the period. Indeed, nothing about the church is typical of Crete, although it finds interesting parallels in Armenia, as at the seventh-century church at T’alin (see Figs. 12.11 and 12.12), which is almost identical in scale. The Church of the Koimesis at Skripou (Orchomenos) in Boeotia, credited to an imperial official named Leo and dated by inscription to 873–74, is similarly unusual and out of character for the Greek mainland in this period (Figs. 11.22 and 11.23).51 Measuring approximately 20 by 28.5 meters overall, with a projecting transept, its heavy construction includes a variety of spolia from ancient Orchomenos, prominently displayed on the exterior, where it is mixed with newly carved sculptures and inscriptions (Fig. 11.24). From the latter, we learn that the lateral chapels flanking the bema were dedicated to Peter and Paul. These and the side aisles are isolated from the nave by heavy piers. Continuation of traditional forms. Two churches at Amasra, on the Black Sea, may date from this period but are single aisled without 50 S. Mamaloukos, “Zetemata anaparastases tes archikes morphes to Naou to Agiou Tito ste Gortyna,” DChAE 34 (2013): 11–24.

A.  Papalexandrou, “The Church of the Virgin at Skripou: Architecture, Sculpture, and Inscriptions in Ninth-Century Byzantium,” PhD diss., Princeton University, 1998; Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 234. 51

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FIGURE 11.13 Constantinople, church known as Atik Mustafa Paşa Camii, view from the east (author)

domes.52 The single-aisled basilica now known as the Fatih Camii measures about 9 by 17 meters internally, including the nave and narthex—the wall between the two has been removed, and there is no other indication of internal divisions (Fig. 11.25). Most distinctive is the masonry, which alternates bands of brick and stone, including bands of reticulate stonework. The so-called Kilise Mescidi is smaller but also a single-aisled basilica and must be close in date. It measures about 5 by 10 meters, including a narthex covered by three groin vaults. The mural masonry is also similar, alternating brick and stone courses, including bands of reticulate revetment. Liturgical planning. Changes in the liturgy also parallel the architectural changes. Sometime after the sixth century, the tripartite sanctuary was developed, which became standard by the Middle Byzantine period. The central space of the bema is flanked by pastophoria, the prothesis and diakonikon. These were functional extensions of the bema and connected directly to it.

11.14 Lake Apolyont/ Apollonia, Church of St. Constantine, restored plan and longitudinal section (M. Kappas and S. Mamaloukos, DChAE, 2017) FIGURE

S.  Eyice, “Deux anciennes églises byzantines de la citadelle d’Amasra,” CahArch 7 (1954): 97–105.

52

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FIGURE 11.15 Trilye (Zeytinbağı), Fatih Camii, seen from the east (author)

The appearance of the tripartite sanctuary corresponds with the development of the prothesis rite, documented in the eighth century.53 The more circular movement of the processions during the Divine Liturgy parallels the development of a more centralized church, the design of which focused on a centrally positioned dome. The introduction of the tripartite sanctuary similarly has architectural implications. Its earliest appearance may be at the sixth-century cathedral at Caričin Grad in northern Serbia—Justinian’s new city, Iustiniana Prima. There, the bema and pastophoria have a different character than the woodenroofed basilica to which they were attached.54 Walls are thicker, and the spaces were apparently barrel vaulted. What we see is the juxtaposition of distinct architectural elements, rather than their integration into a unified built form. This lack of integration continued in most of the surviving churches from the following two centuries. At Hagia Sophia in Thessalonike, the tripartite sanctuary is narrower than the main block of the church, and the entrances from the aisles are noticeably off center.

In terms of design, they are a separate concern. The same is true at the Koimesis Church in Nicaea and at the Fatih Camii in Trilye, where the pastophoria project beyond the lateral walls of the naos. Full integration of the tripartite sanctuary became common only after the period under discussion, as, for example, at the Theotokos tou Libos (907) and the Myrelaion (920) in Constantinople. In addition to pastophoria, subsidiary chapels become common in this period.55 The design of small cross-domed churches like that on Büyükada at Amasra encouraged the incorporation of functional spaces into the corners. At Atik Mustafa Paşa Camii, these spaces apparently existed on two levels—as later occurs at the Theotokos tou Libos (see Chap.  13).56 Larger churches at Ankara and Vize had chapels on the gallery level, and the spaces flanking the bema of Hagia Eirene may have been similar. Although we are uncertain how any of these spaces were used in the preserved examples, they were obviously regarded as functional necessities. Here we suppose that architectural design S. Ćurčić, “Architectural Significance of Subsidiary Chapels in Middle Byzantine Churches,” JSAH 36 (1977): 94–110.

55 53

Mathews, Early Churches; Marinis, Architecture and Ritual.

54

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 211–12.

56

Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 123.

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FIGURE 11.16 Trilye (Zeytinbağı), Fatih Camii, plan and isometric section (author, after S. Pekak, Trilye, 2009)

FIGURE 11.18 Plans of cross-insquare churches: (A) Side, Church H; (B) Side, chapel in the Episcopal Palace, (C) Megas Agros (Kurşunlu); (D) St. John of Pelekete (author, after A. Mansel, Side, 1963; and C. Mango-I. Ševčenko, DOP, 1973)

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FIGURE 11.17 Trilye (Zeytinbağı), Fatih Camii, interior, looking south (author)

FIGURE 11.20 Gortyna, St. Titus, reconstructed plan and section (after S. Mamaloukos, DChAE, 2013)

FIGURE 11.19 St. John of Pelekete, interior, looking southeast (author)

FIGURE 11.21 Gortyna, St. Titus, interior, looking northeast (author)

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FIGURE 11.22 Skripou, Koimesis, isometric cutaway (Petros Koufopoulos and Marina Myriantheos-Koufopoulou, in Sofia KalopissiVerti and Maria Panayotidi-Kessisoglou, eds., Multilingual Illustrated Dictionary of Byzantine Architecture and Sculpture Terminology, Crete University Press, Herakleion, 2010)

FIGURE 11.23 Skripou, Koimesis, exterior view from the northeast (author)

intersected with changes in worship, creating smaller, annexed spaces for veneration, commemoration, or possibly burial.57

, While the changes evident in the Transitional Period are poorly documented and leave many 57

G. Babić, Les chapelles annexes des églises byzantines (Paris, 1969).

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questions unanswered, they are fundamental to the transformation of Byzantine architecture. At the time of Justinian and perhaps for some time after, we were still in the realm of Late Antiquity: both architects and patrons followed Roman practices, with innovative forms carried out on a grand scale. Lavish building materials were still accessible, even in far-flung locations across the Mediterranean; cities were prosperous and maintained a vibrant intellectual life. By the

FIGURE 11.24 Skripou, Koimesis, detail of inscription (author)

FIGURE 11.25 Amasra, Fatih Camii, view from the northeast (J. Pickett)

ninth century, everything had changed, including the architectural profession, the nature of patronage, the scale of construction, and the

nature of worship. In short, we are leaving the world of Antiquity behind and entering the Middle Ages.

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CHAPTER TWELVE

,

TRANSFORMATION AT THE EDGES OF EMPIRE

V

iewed from the perspective of Constantinople, the architecture of the seventh through ninth centuries tells a tale of decline and retrenchment, as the Byzantine Empire addressed major political, social, and economic changes. The edges of the empire recount a somewhat different story—or rather, stories. With the breakdown in pan-Mediterranean trade and exchange, regional developments dominate—that is, architecture developed in relative isolation but occasionally with remarkable originality. And in contrast to the center of the empire, much of the “marginal” construction is well documented and securely dated. Italy provides a useful starting point for our discussion. After the sixth century, Italy was politically fractious but religiously coherent under the domination of the papacy.1 When in 727 Pope Gregory II did not accept the decree of Iconoclasm, the gap between Italy and Byzantium widened. Perhaps reflecting this, architecture remained conservative, rooted in its past, with the majority of churches small, three-aisled basilicas reflecting their grand Early Christian ancestors. These were R.  Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City 312–1308 (Princeton, 1980); C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford, 2005).

1

often built from spolia, as at Sant’Agnese fuori le mura (mid-seventh century) (see Fig. 10.19).2 Spoliation abounded in seventh- and eighthcentury Rome, with even mosaic tesserae reused. Nevertheless, by the end of the eighth century and particularly with the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne (in 799), large-scale architecture returned. After this point, however, we witness a parting of the ways, as Western European architecture charts its own course, distinct from the developments in the Eastern Mediterranean. Along the eastern and southern borders of the empire, architecture developed independent of the trends that characterized Constantinople and areas under its direct influence. During the seventh century in the Caucasus, for example, Armenia and Georgia witnessed a remarkable period of architectural production and creativity. In Mesopotamia, Syriac Christianity flourished, notably in the Ṭ ur ‘Abdin region, with distinctive architectural forms. Similarly, the island of Cyprus developed unique vaulted architecture in relative isolation. With the emergence of Islam in the Near East and North Africa, by the end of the seventh century, new architectural forms were developed to serve the 2

Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome, 235–55.

Vagarshapat, Church of St. Hṙipsimē, view into the dome (author) 267

new religion, dependent on the earlier Byzantine tradition and probably executed by Byzantine artisans. At the same time, Christian architecture continued under Arab rule, often with distinctive regional styles. The Caucasus. Although faced with political difficulties similar to those experienced in the heartland of Byzantium, there is hardly a Dark Ages in the Caucasus, at least during the seventh century.3 A frontier zone between warring Byzantines and Persians and subsequently Byzantines and Arabs, the architecture of the region is distinctive both for its quality and for its abundance. The remarkable flourishing of architecture in the Caucasus is unparalleled in contemporary Byzantium, with finely constructed stone buildings and the introduction of a variety of new and innovative building forms. These monuments should be considered alongside the main line of Byzantine developments. Although structural systems differ in the details, the dome emerges as the central design feature in Caucasian church architecture, as it had in Byzantium. A number of vaulted basilicas in both Armenia and Georgia incorporate fully developed cross-domed units and spatial organizations similar to those discussed in the previous chapter. While there was a heightened awareness of events outside the region, what is most distinctive is the coalescing of local architectural forms. There were, of course, some opportunities for the transmission of architectural ideas, such as Armenian elites visiting Constantinople or imperial military campaigns in the region, but it may be best to view the architectural production of the seventh-century Caucasus as a parallel development to what we have observed within Byzantium. While their architectural forms are remarkably similar, Armenia and Georgia were distinctive both linguistically and ecclesiastically. Armenian is an Indo-European language somewhat similar to Persian, while Georgian is unique, unrelated to 3 C. Maranci, “Building Churches in Armenia: Art at the Borders of Empire and the Edge of the Canon,” ArtB 88 (2006): 656–75; C.  Maranci, Vigilant Powers: Three Churches of Early Medieval Armenia (Turnhout, 2015); A. Kazaryan, Tserkovnaia arkhitektura stran Zakavkas’ia VIII veka: formirovanie I razvitie traditsii, 4 vols., in Russian with English summary (Moscow, 2012); A.  Alpago Novello, Art and Architecture in Medieval Georgia (Louvain, 1980).

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any other linguistic group; each has its own alphabet. Armenia is said to be the first state to adopt Christianity ca. 301/314 (the date of 303 is often given), although as Miaphysite, it maintained its own ecclesiastical hierarchy and patriarch. In contrast, Georgia remained Chalcedonian, recognizing the religious authority of Constantinople. In spite of these significant distinctions, the borders between Armenia and Georgia were fluid and permeable— and indeed, the two were religiously united through much of the sixth century—and the architectural developments are best discussed together. That is no easy task, in light of the history and historiography of the region.4 Modern political boundaries do not reflect historical ones, with scholarship often entrenched along notions of national identity, while the standing monuments are spread across several modern states with less than friendly borders. Indeed, it may be impossible to draw a historical map of the medieval Caucasus on which all current stakeholders would agree. The historic nucleus of both Armenia and Georgia extends into eastern Turkey, and it once included areas now within Azerbaijan or under Russian control. In addition to the Armenian and Georgian languages, much of the scholarship on the architecture has been in Russian. A notable exception is the work (in German) of the Austrian Josef Strzygowski, writing in the early twentieth century, who viewed the monuments through the lens of race, arguing that the origins and diffusion of the domed, centrally planned church represented an “Aryan” creation.5 While much of his formal analysis of the monuments remains valid, subsequent generations have been put off— understandably so—by his proto-Nazi sentiments. More recent scholarship maintains the approach of formal analysis, however, while occasionally attempting to situate the monuments within their political and social contexts. Nevertheless, the remarkable inventiveness of the builders deserves special attention, with new elements introduced into plans, vaulting, and surface articulation.

4

J. Forsyth, The Caucasus: A History (New York, 2013).

J.  Strzygowski, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1918); C.  Maranci, Medieval Armenian Architecture: Constructions of Race and Nation (Louvain, 2001).

5

FIGURE 12.1 Ereroyk’, basilica, view from the west (author)

Roman heritage may be a critical component to understanding the architecture of the region. While few Roman monuments survive in the region today—the restored temple at Gaṙni is a notable exception—a strong Roman presence is documented. For most of our examples, the wall construction is of finely cut ashlar facing on a mortared rubble core, following the Roman model—and distinct from the pure ashlar construction of Syria, with which it is often compared. Moreover, archaeology has revealed reused Roman building components in the foundations of early churches, as at the Church of St. Hṙip’simē, discussed below. Early churches often retain distinctive temple-like features. The fifthcentury basilica at Ereroyk’, for example, rises above a stepped base, originally with lateral porticoes—when fully standing, from a distance, its profile might have been confused with that of a temple (Fig. 12.1). Barrel vaults and banded barrel vaults also follow the Roman tradition, as at the fifth-century (?) Kazakh Basilica at Aparan; there and in a variety of other examples, cruciform or compound piers reflect the structural system. Domes normally rise above squinches in the

transitional zone, however, apparently following Persian prototypes, although pendentives occasionally appear, as at the large seventh-century churches at Aruch or T’alin. In striking contrast to the Byzantine churches discussed in the preceding chapter, the Caucasian churches are exceptionally well documented, with public inscriptions on their exteriors. “Cross-domed basilica” may be the best term to categorize many of the Armenian churches. The Cathedral at Mren, for example, completed before ca. 640, is remarkable for its scale and tall proportions (26.5 by 45.7 meters in plan, rising approximately 25 meters). Its centrally positioned dome rises above four compound piers and is braced by barrel vaults on all four sides—that is, it has all the characteristics of the Byzantine crossdomed church, while maintaining an elongated plan (Figs. 12.2 and 12.3).6 As is common in the Caucasus, there is no narthex, with portals on the west, north, and south façades, and the sanctuary is flanked by lateral chapels. The dome rises above trumpet squinches and a tall drum, emphasizing 6

Maranci, Vigilant Powers, 23–111.

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FIGURE 12.2 Mren, cathedral, view from the southwest (C. Maranci)

the height of the interior. With the exception of architectural sculpture concentrated at the portals, the architecture is austere, with planar surfaces and prismatic volumes and the rooflines stepping up from the corner compartments, to the cross arms, to the octagonal dome. Nowadays abandoned and in ruins, on the closed Turkish frontier with Armenia, the current situation of the church belies its historic importance. Probably constructed under the patronage of the newly appointed imperial official Prince Dawit‘ Saharuni, the sculptural program seems to affirm allegiances to both the Byzantine emperor Heraclius and the local Armenian lord Nerses Kamsarakan; all are mentioned in the dedicatory inscription at the west portal, along with the local bishop T‘eop‘ighos. These may be the three figures flanking Christ, Peter, and Paul on the lintel of the west portal. The lintel above the north portal may make a reference to the recovery of the True Cross by Heraclius (in 630), with the emperor kneeling before the cross flanked by an

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officiating bishop, perhaps Modestus of Jerusalem (Fig. 12.4). Neither figure is identified, however, and the scene could also be read as a dedication rite and the players as Armenian. In sum, the church could be “read” as a nexus of negotiations between Byzantines and Armenians at a critical point in their history, with an imagery accessible to both. For our purposes, however, the building is a purely Armenian creation, distant from Constantinople. The Church of St. Gayanē at Vagarshapat (or Echmiatsin, the religious center of Armenia) is similar in plan, although smaller, with a centralized dome on squinches (Fig. 12.5). Marking the site of the martyrdom of an early Armenian martyr (and companion of Hṙipsimē), the church was constructed ca. 630 by the Katholikos Ezra I. Its western portico is considerably later. The church at Bagavan, now destroyed, was of similar date, but larger and more attenuated in length. In Georgia, the Church of the Ascension at Zromi, built ca. 626–35, shares many of these

FIGURE 12.3 Mren, cathedral, plan and elevation (after T. T’oramanyan from J. Strzygowski, Baukunst, 1918; and A. Kazaryan, Cerkovnaja, 2012)

characteristics, with a cross-domed unit at its core (Figs. 12.6 and 12.7). The dome, now reconstructed, rose above four compound piers, with trumpet squinches at the transition and narrow barrel vaults on four sides. The naos is close to square, with little decoration on the façades. The design is considerably more complex, including a narthex with flanking chambers and probably lateral arcades as well. Within the interior, a gallery extends above the narthex and western corner bays. On the east façade, the planar surface is broken by two tall V-shaped recessed that flank the

apse—distinctive features that we find in both Armenian and Georgian churches. Within Armenia, the large church at Aruch maintains an elongated basilican character, with a transept and dome at its center, supported above piers engaged to the lateral walls, with a remarkably unified and monumental interior (Figs. 12.8 and 12.9). The dome is now missing but rose above pendentives. On the exterior, the apse is framed by V-shaped indentations, and the window arches are topped by decorative hood moldings. According to inscriptions, the church was built by Grigor Mamikonian and his wife Heghinē and may be dated to the 660s. The large church at T’alin must be roughly similar in date, with an elongated interior and the dome rising above pendentives, but it is considerably more complex in form and detailing, with lateral aisles flanking the nave (Figs. 12.10 and 12.11). In addition to the eastern apse being expressed on the exterior, the cross arms also terminate in apses. These, as well the dome drum, are faceted on the exterior and articulated by arcades with engaged coupled colonnettes. The small commemorative chapel near the large church at T’alin was constructed slightly later by the nobleman Kamsarakan, according to inscription, for the salvation of his wife and son (Fig. 12.12). Typical of the small-scale buildings of the period, the chapel is cruciform on the exterior and a triconch on the interior. The dome rises above squinches and an octagonal drum. Similar chapels are found at Karmravor and Lmbatavank’, both cruciform on the interior. The contrast between the stark simplicity of Mren and Zromi and the elaborations evident at T’alin indicate the variety possible in the seventhcentury Caucasus. In addition to the decorative features, there are also significant variations in plans and structural systems, many of which presage later developments in Byzantium. The Church of the Holy Cross at Jvari, rising prominently on a hill above the medieval Georgian capital of Mtskheta, may be dated 586–604 and introduces a remarkably different architectural design (Figs. 12.13 and 12.14). The centralized nave is extended by apses on four sides, with small niches at the corners opening to subsidiary spaces at the corners. Squinches at the corners

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FIGURE 12.4 Mren, cathedral, sculpted lintel above the north portal (C. Maranci)

FIGURE 12.5 Vagarshapat (Echmiatsin), St. Gayanē, interior view into the dome (author)

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FIGURE 12.6 Zromi, Church of the Ascension, east façade (author)

support an octagon drum, with sets of smaller squinches transitioning to a hemispherical dome. Small windows appear in four facets of the drum, which appears as a tall octagon on the exterior. The four apses project on the exterior, joined to the corner compartments by blind arcades, with figural sculpture enlivening many surfaces. Throughout there is an experimental quality to the building, with details not fully resolved: for example, the squinches spring from the haunches of the arches and do not relate visually or structurally to the eight piers below. The church was built on the site where traditionally St. Nino, the Apostle of Georgia, is credited with the conversion of King Mirian III of Iberia to Christianity, where she erected a huge, miraculous cross on the site of a pagan temple. Inscriptions mention the builders and their titles: Stephanos (Erismtavari Stepanoz I, Prince of Iberia) with the title patrikios, along with Demetrius and Adarnase, both titled hypatos. One wonders if the unusual design of the church could reflect current

events, as Stepanoz reversed the policies of his father and sided with the Persians against the Byzantines, even briefly turning away from Chalcedonian Christianity. The return to Orthodoxy in 608 resulted in the rupture between the Armenian and Georgian churches. Heraclius emerged victorious, however, and had Stepanoz flayed alive in 627, with the Georgian Church remaining in the Orthodox fold. Whatever its origins and possible political implications, the new forms seen at Jvari found rapid popularity across both Georgia and Armenia. The Sioni Church at Ateni (Georgia) is quite similar to Jvari although probably slightly later in date. The Church of St. Hṙipsimē at Vagarshapat (Armenia), dated 618–30, is similar in many ways, although—characteristic of the Armenian churches—less sculptural on the exterior, which is brought out to square (Figs. 12.15– 12.17). The positions of the apses are marked only by V-shaped indentations, with a gable rising above the midsection of each façade. The four

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FIGURE 12.7 Zromi, Church of the Ascension, plan and section (after A. Alpago Novello, Art and Architecture, 1980)

façades are virtually identical, differentiated only by the addition of a late medieval belfry on the west side. The dome rises as a polygonal drum with a conical cap. The interior regularizes many of the awkward features of Jvari: squinches rise directly from the piers, and the transition to the drum is marked by a cornice. The drum is pieced by twelve windows, organized in sets of three, and the intrados of the dome is articulated by roundels and a radiating cross composed of twelve rays, aligned with the windows. The small Armenian church at Pemzashēn gives some sense of the architectural priorities in the seventh century (Fig. 12.18). Although partially in ruins, it preserves some elegant figural and architectural sculpture on its exterior. The cruciform interior was dominated by a tall dome (now 274

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missing), raised above a complex transitional zone, with stepped trumpet squinches making a transition to an octagonal drum, the latter zone articulated on the interior as an octaconch, with windows in the cardinal niches. Above this, a second set of eight squinches appears, replete with elegant, fanlike carving, in effect rotating the octagon by 30 degrees, before, finally, minuscule pendentives smooth the octagon into a circle at the springing of the dome. Structurally, very little of this was necessary, but the builders’ interests were clearly more formal than structural. Seen against these developments, the Church of the Vigilant Powers (Zuart‘noc‘), on the outskirts of Vagarshapat, Armenia, is an oddity, but like Mren, it testifies to Byzantine–Armenian relations, here expressed more architecturally than pictorially (Figs. 12.19 and 12.20).7 Built by the Katholikos Nersēs III ca. 645–60 as a part of his palace complex, the church is now in ruins—it collapsed in the tenth century. The reconstruction of the elevation is problematic, although the plan is clear: an aisled tetraconch, set into a circle. The eastern conch was treated as a solid wall to frame an elevated sanctuary, while a small circular crypt is set centrally into the floor. The projecting space to the east seems to have included stairs to access an upper level. Set on a high stepped base, portals open to the west, north and south, with secondary portals between them, all with projecting porches. The exterior façade was arcaded, decorated with lavish sculpture, and rose through several levels. Because it collapsed in the tenth century, the proportions and exact details are unclear: the middle zone may have been cylindrical or perhaps the tetraconch form was expressed on the exterior.8 Unique in the seventh-century Caucasus, the tetraconch form seems to follow variations seen a century earlier in Syria, as at Bosra or Apamea, but which were found throughout the Byzantine Empire. Even freestanding columns were unusual in Armenian architecture at this time. The forms of the impost capitals with pronounced volutes seem to derive from Byzantine forms as well— they are heavier versions of those in Hagia Sophia, 7

Maranci, Vigilant Powers, 113–200.

C. Maranci, “The Archaeology and Reconstruction Theories of Zuart‘noc‘,” DOP 68 (2015): 69–115. 8

FIGURE 12.8 Aruch, large church, view from the southeast (author)

FIGURE 12.9 Aruch, large church, interior, looking east (author)

and they are similarly decorated with monogram roundels, providing Nersēs’ name and title in Greek—again, unique in Armenia. Taken together, the combination of unique architectural

elements would have spoken clearly to Nersēs’ political and cultural allegiance with Byzantium. Toward the late seventh century, as political fortunes shift, architecture declines but does not

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12.10 T‘alin, large church, view from the southeast (author) FIGURE

FIGURE 12.11 T‘alin, large church, plan and elevation (after A. Kazaryan, Cerkovnaja, 2012)

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FIGURE 12.12 T‘alin, memorial chapel, plan and section (after A. Kazaryan, Cerkovnaja, 2012)

disappear, with construction in the better protected highlands. The two small cruciform churches at Sevanavank‘, on an island in Lake Sevan, from the eighth or ninth century, are heavy and without the refinement of earlier examples. Both have triconch interiors and octagonal drums above squinches. According to an inscription on one of the churches, Marian, the daughter of Ashot I, founded the monastery in 874, but it is hard to see the rough construction here signaling the revival of Armenian culture. For this we must wait until the tenth century. Mesopotamia. Christianity came early to Mesopotamia, with Edessa (Urfa, Turkey) adopting it as a state religion in the early third century.9 Despite its importance, virtually nothing is preserved of 9 L. W. Bernard, “The Origins and Emergence of the Church in Edessa during the First Two Centuries A.D.,” Vigilae Christianae 22 (1968): 161–75.

Christian Edessa, however, and across most of Mesopotamia, church construction is known only from excavation. Most were simple basilicas with tripartite sanctuaries, often squared off. An example at Ctesiphon, perhaps from the seventh century, had its nave covered by a catenary barrel vault, similar to the famous Taq-i-Kisra at the same site.10 The best evidence for the region is preserved in the Ṭ ur ’Abdin: the Syriac churches and monasteries near Midyat and Mardin in northern Mesopotamia (now southeast Turkey).11 Several continue to function for the local Aramaic-speaking population, with long and complex histories. The Syriac Orthodox Church did not accept the doctrine of the two natures of Christ recognized by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and subsequently established its own ecclesiastical authority. By the sixth century it had also developed distinct architectural forms. While some village churches maintain a longitudinal plan, the development of a transversally barrelvaulted nave with a tripartite sanctuary is unique to the monasteries of the region. Also distinctive is the elaborate architectural sculpture, which, although stylized, follows classical norms. Earlier scholars had viewed the Muslim conquest of the region in 640 as marking the end of Christian architectural construction, but more recent analyses indicate continued production into the first century of Arab rule—that is, bridging the transition from Byzantine to Arab control. Indeed, Arab rule seems to have provided stability to a region that had been a hotly contested frontier in the preceding century. Mor Gabriel (Qartmin) is the oldest of the monasteries, traditionally said to have been founded in 397, claiming imperial patronage from Arcadius through Theodora, and its main church may have been the model for later monastic churches (Fig. 12.21). Uniquely, it preserves mural mosaics in its sanctuary and an opus sectile 10 U. Monneret de Villard, Le chiese della Mesopotamia, OCA 128 (Rome, 1940). 11 Bell, The Churches and Monasteries of the Ṭ ur A ‘ bdin; H. Hollerweger, Turabdin (Linz, 1999); E. Keser Kayaalp, “Églises et monastères du Ṭ ur ‘Abdin: les débuts d’une architecture ‘syriaque,’” in Les églises en monde syriaque, ed. F. Briquel Chatonnet (Paris, 2013), 269–88; A.  Palmer, Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of the Tur A ‘ bdin (Cambridge, 1990).

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FIGURE 12.13 Jvari (Mtskheta), Church of the Holy Cross, view from the west (David Khoshtaria)

FIGURE 12.14 Jvari (Mtskheta), Church of the Holy Cross, plan and section (after A. Alpago Novello, Art and Architecture, 1980)

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FIGURE 12.15 Vagarshapat, Church of St. Hṙipsimē, view from the southeast (author)

floor, both of which would support the later claim of patronage by the emperor Anastasius and a date ca. 512.12 It was constructed of rough ashlar; the transverse nave was covered by a barrel vault, constructed of brick, divided into three bays by stone arches. Both stone and brick are used in arch construction. The three rooms that constitute the sanctuary are treated as separated units, with only small doors opening to them. A domed octagonal structure of uncertain purpose immediately to the northwest seems to be contemporary with the church. The monastery known as Dayr al-Za‘faran, near Mardin, became the most important in the region (Figs. 12.22 and 12.23). Founded in the late fifth century, it served as the seat of the Syrian Orthodox patriarch from 1160 to 1932. Its main church, which may be sixth century in date, offers another model. Square in plan, it has apses P. Blanc, A. Desereumaux, and S. de Courtois, “Report on the State of the Preservation of the Byzantine Mosaics of the Saint Gabriel Monastery of Quartamin, Tur Abdin (southwest Turkey): October 10th–14th, 2006,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 12, no. 1 (2009): 5–19.

12

projecting from three walls, the largest in the long east wall. It is distinctive for its elaborately carved cornices, which join to the arches framing the apses. The carving included band after band of classically based moldings, replete with Christian symbols. The funeral chapel to the south is either contemporary or slightly earlier. Neither space preserves its original roofing, although they were perhaps domed. Mor Ya‘qub at Ṣalaḥ offers the most clarity in its architectural forms, likely a conservative, eighth-century construction, according to a dated inscription incorporated into its façade (Figs. 12.24A and 12.25). Its plan follows that of Mor Gabriel, with a three-bayed, transversally barrel-vaulted nave. As are visually articulated in the gables of the lateral façades, the porch to the west balances the tripartite sanctuary. Only the apse of the central sanctuary projects beyond the block of the building. Compared to Mor Gabriel, the construction is much neater and the carved decoration more restrained, but with decorative patterns introduced into the brick vaulting. El-‘Adhra (Church of the Virgin) at Ḥāḥ, dated ca. 700, is perhaps the most elaborate monument

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of the region (Figs. 12.24B, 12.26, and 12.27). Although it maintains the transverse nave, it introduces an octagonal brick cloister vault above the central bay, with squinches at the transition. The lateral bays are covered half-domes of ashlar, with squinches at the corners. The central sanctuary opens to the nave, its half-dome decorated with a carved cross, rising above engaged colonnettes and niches. Throughout, the sculpture is lavish, and the heavy cornices are detailed with bands of desiccated classical motifs. On the exterior, the cloister vault rose above a square base, lined with coupled colonnettes and decorated niches (now much altered, with the upper zone of niches added in the twentieth century). A variety of other buildings may be dated to the early eighth century. At Habsenas, the local bishop, Symeon of the Olives, constructed a parochial church on a longitudinal plan, following earlier models, its pitched brick barrel vault rising above wall arcades, with the narthex set parallel to it (Fig. 12.28). Its sculptural decoration compares with that of Ḥāḥ. Outside the village, Symeon built the Monastery of Mor Lazoor, now in ruins, with a stylite column at the center

FIGURE 12.16 Vagarshapat, Church of St. Hṙipsimē, plan and section (after A. Kazaryan, Cerkovnaja, 2012)

FIGURE 12.17 Vagarshapat, Church of St. Hṙipsimē, view into the dome (author)

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FIGURE 12.18 Pemzashēn, small church, view into the drum, showing the complex transition to the dome (now missing) (author)

FIGURE 12.19 Vagarshapat, Church of the Vigilant Powers (Zvart‘nots‘), view of ruins from the south (author)

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12.20 Vagarshapat, Church of the Vigilant Powers (Zvart‘nots‘), plan and possible reconstructed elevations (Kazaryan); (top right) T‘oramanyan; (bottom right) Mnac‘akanyan (after A. Kazaryan, Cerkovnaja, 2012; T. T‘oramanyan, from J. Strzygowski, Baukunst, 1918; and S. Mnats‘akanyan, Arhitektura, 1952) FIGURE

of its courtyard.13 By ca. 800, however, new church construction ceases in the region, perhaps coinciding with a ban on church building, issued by al-Mutawakkil in 853. Cyprus. There are a variety of churches belonging to the Transitional Period in Cyprus, although the traditional discourse has viewed the island’s architecture in light of contemporaneous developments in Constantinople.14 While this may make sense for earlier and later periods when there are strong connections with the capital, it makes more sense to see the Transitional Period architecture of Cyprus as almost purely regional, albeit dynamic within a closed group. The island was isolated for much of the period under discussion, with an Arab occupation that lasted from 649 to 965. Although this corresponds to the Transitional Period in Byzantium, the typology is quite different. A number

of churches, particularly in the northeast, were barrel vaulted, such as the Panagia Chrysiotissa or the Asomatos at Afentrika (Fig. 12.29).15 Most of these appear to date to the eighth century and represent the rebuilding of older, timber-roofed basilicas. Another group, beginning with the Salamis Cathedral of St. Epiphanius, was covered by multiple domes (Fig. 12.30). Rebuilt with three domes in the early eighth century, St. Epiphanius seems to have set a model for other churches on the island, an independent regional phenomenon.16 The standard design has three domes above a longitudinal nave, as at St. Lazarus in Larnaca and St. Barnabas near Salamis (Fig. 12.31). It has been suggested that the repetition of three domes may relate to important actions in the liturgy or perhaps to the Trinity, but it is just as likely that the proportions of the nave required three bays to be fully vaulted. C. A. Stewart, “The First Vaulted Churches in Cyprus,” JSAH 69 (2010): 162–89.

15

G. Wiessner, Christliche Kultbauten im Tur Abdin (Wiesbaden, 1981).

13

A. H. S. Megaw, “Byzantine Architecture and Decoration on Cyprus: Metropolitan or Provincial?” DOP 28 (1974): 57–88; S.  Ćurčić, Middle Byzantine Architecture on Cyprus: Provincial or Regional? (Nicosia, 2000). 14

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C.  A.  Stewart, “Domes of Heaven: The Domed Basilicas of Cyprus,” PhD diss., Indiana University, 2008; T. Papacostas, “The Medieval Progeny of the Holy Apostles: Trails of Architectural Imitation across the Mediterranean,” in The Byzantine World, ed. P. Stephenson (London, 2010), 386–405, esp. 402–403.

16

FIGURE 12.21 Qartmin, Mor Gabriel, plan (after H. Hollerweger, Turabdin, 1999; and G. Bell, Churches and Monasteries of the Tur ‘Abdin, 1913, with the author’s modifications)

The related five-domed churches, such as those of St. Paraskevi at Yeroskipou and Sts. Barnabas and Hilarion at Peristerona, maintain the longitudinal three-domed nave, but with two smaller domes added to the side aisles, although these are visually cut off from the nave and do not mark cross arms or transepts (Fig. 12.32). While it is tempting to see these five-domed churches as followers of Justinian’s Holy Apostles in Constantinople, they are spatially very different, maintaining a longitudinal character. Rather than following models developed elsewhere, the unusual Cypriot church design seems to have developed in isolation. Notably, after the Byzantine  reconquest of the island in 965, the

multiple-domed format was abandoned in favor of the single-domed church, more in keeping with Middle Byzantine standards. Palestine and Jordan. The “Holy Land” of Early Christian times had a complicated history after the sixth century.17 The Byzantine–Persian war of 608–28 saw Jewish revolts, Christian backlash, a brief Persian occupation of Jerusalem (614–29), and the relic of the True Cross taken hostage. Emperor Heraclius returned the relic to Jerusalem at the end of the conflict in 630, but 17 Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century; Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests; H. Evans and B. Ratliff, eds., Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition (New York, 2012).

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FIGURE 12.22 Mardin (near), Dayr al-Za‘faran, plan (after Hollerweger, Turabdin, 1999, with the author’s modifications)

Byzantine domination of the region did not last long; in 637 Jerusalem surrendered to the Arab caliph Umar. With the rise of Islam, the followers of Mohammed (ca. 570–632) sought religious and political cohesion. Under the Caliphs who succeeded Mohammed (632–61) and the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), who established their capital at Damascus, the Near East, North Africa, and Spain were rapidly conquered. Persia under the Parthians and Sasanians had regularly and repeatedly challenged the eastern frontiers of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in previous centuries, but by 651 Persia had also become part of the growing Islamic state. 284

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The rise of Islam is unprecedented historically, permanently altering the nature of the political discourse across the Mediterranean—a topic to which we shall return in succeeding chapters. For our purposes, several points are worth emphasizing. First, Islam as a religion did not arrive with an established set of architectural forms. Arabia did not have a strong architectural tradition, at least in permanent materials, although their new centers in Palestine and Jordan had a long history of Roman and Byzantine construction on which to draw. While much of the regional population remained Christian, new architectural forms were deemed necessary as part of the symbolic

FIGURE 12.23 Mardin (near), Dayr al-Za‘faran, interior of the church, looking east (author)

appropriation of the land.18 Thus begins a process of adoption and adaptation of existing forms, comparable to the process witnessed earlier with the official acceptance of Christianity and the beginnings of Christian architecture. Second, for the early centuries, Muslims remained a minority in the region, and church construction continued, as it had in the Ṭ ur ‘Abdin and elsewhere. Often noted for the lavish floor mosaics, architectural forms remain relatively conservative, with the three-aisled basilica as the standard form. While Christianity and Islam stand in stark opposition in today’s political discourses, they have much in common, and this is reflected in their early architecture. Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam was a monotheistic religion, with a strong basis in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament). Along with Abraham and the Patriarchs, Islam recognized Jesus as a prophet, and his mother Mary also figures prominently in the religion. For all, Jerusalem loomed large in the religious imaginary as the city of the Temple. Moreover, as Islam

FIGURE 12.24 Churches of the Ṭ ur ’Abdin: (A) Ṣalaḥ, Mor Ya‘qub, plan; (B) Ḥ āḥ, el-‘Adhra (Church of the Virgin), plan (author, redrawn after G. Bell, Churches and Monasteries of the Tur ‘Abdin, 2013)

18 O.  Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art, rev. ed. (New Haven, 1987).

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FIGURE 12.25 Ṣalaḥ, Mor Ya‘qub, church seen from the southwest (author)

spread into areas that were formerly part of the Byzantine Empire, we find a process of adaptation to create a setting appropriate to Muslim worship, probably with the participation of Byzantine artisans. Perhaps the best evidence of this is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, completed by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik in 691 (Figs. 12.33 and 12.34; and see Fig. 2.2).19 Built on the site of the Roman Capitoline Temple, which superseded the Jewish Temple at the same site, it should be understood as a commemorative building, rather than a mosque. In this, the octagonal plan follows the model of earlier Byzantine centralized martyria, such as the Kathisma Church.20 Indeed, the geometry of its design, formed by concentric octagrams, conforms to Byzantine design practices as well. The central octagon, 20.2 meters in diameter, is covered by a wooden dome (the present 19 O. Grabar, The Shape of the Holy (Princeton, 1996); O. Grabar, The Dome of the Rock (Cambridge, 2006); W.  A.  C.  Creswell, A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture (Harmondsworth, 1958), 17–40.

R. Avner, “The Dome of the Rock in Light of the Development of Concentric Martyria in Jerusalem: Architecture and Architectural Iconography,” Muqarnas 27 (2011): 31–50.

20

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represents a rebuilding of the eleventh century) and enveloped by two ambulatories, the central area filled by an exposed outcropping of rock. Picturesquely isolated on the Temple Mount (the Haram al-Sharif ), the Dome of the Rock may be the perfect example of a Byzantine centralized monument. Even the columns, capitals, and mosaic decoration follow established Byzantine practices. The exterior was also decorated with mosaics, replaced by glazed tiles in the Ottoman period. While the architectural design could not be clearer, the motivation for its construction remains disputed. If it is a commemorative structure, what exactly does it commemorate? A later tradition associates the building with Mohammed’s Night Journey, marking the spot from which he ascended to heaven. Early written sources are silent on the matter. Associations with the Jewish Temple, Mount Moriah, and the Sacrifice of Abraham are also possible. Perhaps most importantly, it marked the conquest of the city, offering a monumental Islamic presence to compete with the Christian shrines; notably, the dome diameter is almost exactly the same as that of the Anastasis Rotunda at the Holy Sepulchre.

FIGURE 12.26 Ḥ āḥ, el-‘Adhra (Church of the Virgin), view from the southwest; the upper arcade of the dome tower is a modern fabrication (author)

The Great Mosque of Damascus stands in a similar dialogue with the past, on a site of previous Christian and pagan shrines (Figs. 12.35 and 12.36).21 The Roman Temple of Jupiter, surrounded by a walled temenos (97 by 156 meters overall), was

converted into the Church of John the Baptist in 391. After the Umayyad conquest of the city in 634, a prayer hall for Muslims was added to it. Christians and Muslims thus worshiped side by side, in separate areas. Cohabitation seems to have been the rule

F. B. Flood, The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Making of an Umayyad Visual Culture (Leiden, 2001); Creswell, Short

Account, 43–81; M.  Giudetti, In the Shadow of the Church: The Building of Mosques in Early Medieval Syria (Leiden, 2017).

21

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FIGURE 12.27 Ḥ āḥ, el-‘Adhra (Church of the Virgin), view into the dome (author)

FIGURE 12.28 Habsenas, Mor Lazoor, courtyard with stylite tower (author)

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FIGURE 12.29 Afentrika (Cyprus), Panagia Chrysiotissa, reconstructed isometric cutaway, showing the first two phases (C. A. Stewart, JSAH, 2010)

FIGURE 12.30 Salamis, Cathedral of St. Epiphanius, plan showing construction phases, with reconstruction of the eighth-century form (after C. A. Stewart, “Domes of Heaven,” 2008)

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FIGURE 12.31 Larnaca, St. Lazarus, interior, looking east (domes now missing) (author)

12.32 Yeroskipou, St. Paraskevi, view from the northeast (author) FIGURE

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of the day. Under al-Walid, both structures were demolished in 706 to make way for a large congregational mosque. Rather than being centrally positioned, as the earlier buildings were, the mosque was set against the south wall of the temenos, its three aisles filling almost half of the enclosure, with porticoes along the other sides. In form it was a three-aisled basilica, set transversally, with an axial transept, and mihrab niches in the long south wall directed the worshippers toward Mecca, the qibla, or direction of prayer. Columns, capitals, and other construction materials were spolia taken from the earlier monuments, and the north façade opened to the exterior by an arcade, now closed. In addition to the reused materials, the architectural forms are also repurposed— indeed, all are familiar from Early Christian church architecture: the timber-roofed basilica, divided into aisles by colonnaded arcades; the transept; and the atrium are all familiar, but rearranged here for a different type of worship, communal prayer, with the orientation across the space rather than movement along the longitudinal axis. The design of the Damascus mosque is followed in many other early mosques, as in that constructed by Hisham at Resafa (ca. 724–43), a large, three-aisled

FIGURE 12.33 Jerusalem, Qubbat al-Sakhra, Dome of the Rock. Interior from Qibla (© 1992 Said Nuseibeh)

transverse hall preceded by a courtyard, measuring 40 by 56 meters overall (see Fig. 7.27).22 It was inserted into the northern courtyard, its qibla wall joined directly to the reduced courtyard of St. Sergius, with a door in the qibla wall providing access between them. And while building materials were reused from other Christian shrines, the Basilica of St. Sergius was maintained. All of this suggests that the Muslims had embraced the cult of the Christian saint. Drawing on the integrative power of the military saint, the mosque would have been both a place of worship and a site of mediation between potentially conflicting groups. The Church of St. Stephen at Umm ar-Rasas (Kastron Mefa’a, Jordan) gives some sense of the continued Christian presence under Islamic rule (Fig. 12.37).23 Dated by mosaic inscriptions, the conservative three-aisled basilica is sixth century (with a mosaic dedication of 587), but was refurbished in 22

D. Sack, Die Grosse Moschee von Resafa (Mainz, 1996).

M.  Piccirillo, The Mosaics of Jordan (Amman, 1992), 238–39; R. Schick, The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule (Princeton, 1995).

23

FIGURE 12.34 Jerusalem, Qubbat al-Sakhra, Dome of the Rock, axonometric, showing the design geometry (after A. Choisy, Histoire de l’architecture, 1903)

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FIGURE 12.35 Damascus, Great Mosque, courtyard, looking southeast (Jerzy Strzelecki, Wikimedia Commons)

FIGURE 12.36 Damascus, Great Mosque, plan (redrawn after O. Grabar, Shape of the Holy, 1996)

785. The floor mosaics were subsequently partially reset to eliminate all figural images, scrambling the tesserae in the process. While in accord with Islamic decorative practices, the Iconoclasm seems to have been generated from within the 292

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local Christian community.24 There are a number of similar examples of Christian Iconoclasm in F.  B.  Flood, “Christian Mosaics in Early Islamic Jordan and Palestine: A Case of Regional Iconoclasm,” in Byzantium and

24

FIGURE 12.37 Umm ar-Rasas, Church of St. Stephen, view of the mosaic floor (author)

the region. While the growing corpus of mosaic inscriptions from the churches of the Near East indicates continued activity by Christian artisans well into the Umayyad period, most commemorate simple repairs of a secondary nature and not major building campaigns. The evidence speaks against the notion, however attractive, of a building boom that might represent a flowering of Christian communities in the seventh and eighth centuries. Egypt. With the Arab conquest of Egypt in 642, Christian communities found themselves in reduced economic circumstances and cut off from developments elsewhere. Although occasionally called Copts, derived from the Arabic version of the Greek Aigyptos, Qibt, the term Copt refers to a Christian Egyptian, appropriate only after the Arabization of the Christian population in the ninth and tenth centuries.25 The Coptic language, however, was a late form of Islam: Age of Transition, eds. H.  Evans and B.  Ratliff (New York, 2012), 117. See comments by A.  Papaconstantinou, “Historiography, Hagiography, and the Making of the Coptic ‘Church of the 25

ancient Egyptian, which came to be written in Greek characters and gradually supplanted Greek as the liturgical language. Under the authority of the Patriarch of Alexandria, the Egyptian Church was Monophysite—that is, in opposition to the central authority in Constantinople. Basilican architecture continued from Late Antiquity, but post-Conquest churches tended to be smaller, with brick (rather than ashlar) as the standard construction material. The interiors grew increasingly compartmentalized, with a transversal emphasis. Sometime in the seventh century, a space called the khurus (from the Greek choros, choir) was introduced, an oblong, transept-like area separating the nave and the sanctuary, reserved for the clergy. The sanctuary proper, called the haikal, was flanked by sacristies and closed by a curtain, invisible to the laity in the nave.26 An early example of this transformation is Martyrs’ in Early Islamic Egypt,” DOP 60 (2006): 65–86; and Bolman, The Red Monastery Church, xxv–xxvi. E. S. Bolman, “Veiling Sanctity in Christian Egypt: Visual and Spatial Solutions,” in Thresholds of the Sacred, ed. S.  E.  J.  Gerstel (Washington, DC, 2006), 73–104.

26

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293

FIGURE 12.38 Wadi Natrun, Church of the Virgin (al-‘Adra’, Dayr alSuriān), restored plan of the eighth-century church (redrawn after P. Grossmann, Mittelalterliche Langhauskuppelkirche, 1982)

FIGURE 12.39 (A) Dayr al-Shuhadā, church, plan and elevation; (B) Dayr al-Kubāniyyah, church, plan and elevation (after P. Grossmann, Mittelalterliche Langhauskuppelkirche, 1982)

the Church of the Virgin at the Syrian Monastery in Wadi Natrun (Dayr al-Suriān), which dates from the early eighth century, a basilica originally covered by a wooden roof (Fig. 12.38).27 Dayr Anbā Bishoi in the Wadi Natrun, perhaps ninth century in date, was similar. After this time, older churches were commonly remodeled to include a khurus and a less visible sanctuary. In subsequent centuries, as Egypt came under the control of the Fatamids (after 969), vaulted P.  Grossmann, “Church Architecture in Egypt,” The Coptic Encyclopedia (New York, 1991), 2: 552–55; P. Grossmann, “Dayr alSuryān: Architecture,” Coptic Encyclopedia, 3: 879–81.

architecture became the norm. In Lower Egypt, barrel vaults were more common, while in Upper Egypt, the dome was the preferred covering, often used in series. At Dayr Anbā Hadrā of the early eleventh century, for example, the two-bayed nave was covered by two octagon domes raised above squinches.28 The church at Dayr al-Shuhadā is similar, although less regular (Fig. 12.39A). By the twelfth century, a more centralized, single-domed church type had emerged, as at Dayr al-Kubāniyyah (Fig. 12.39B). While the octagon-domed churches

27

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P.  Grossmann, Mittelalterliche Langhauskuppelkirchen und verwandte Typen in Oberägypten (Glückstadt, 1982).

28

FIGURE 12.40 Old Dongola, cathedral, archaeological plan (redrawn after P. M. Gartkiewicz, Dongola II, 1990)

may bear a superficial resemblance to a common Middle Byzantine type—as seen in the katholikon of Hosios Loukas (see Fig. 13.8)—the more immediate inspiration must have been Fatimid mosque architecture. That is, while maintaining characteristics of Byzantine architecture, later developments in Egypt are by and large regional, determined by local customs rather than typologies established elsewhere. Nubia. Although Christianized from Egypt and under the authority of the Monophysite Patriarch of Alexandria, Nubia maintained significant differences from Egypt. Greek, rather than Coptic, remained the language of the liturgy. And in contrast to the developments in Egypt, the basilica plan prevailed in Nubia.29 Most are undated, placed generally between the sixth and the twelfth centuries. The earlier churches often had a wide central nave flanked by multiple aisles. At Faras and Old Dongola (the so-called Church of the Granite Columns), a type of cruciform basilica had been developed by the eighth century, which found no precedents in Egypt (Fig. 12.40).30 With multiple aisles and a central transverse axis terminating in apses, the origins of the building type continue to be debated. Known 29 P.  Grossmann, “Nubian Christian Architecture,” Coptic Encyclopedia 6: 1807–11;

P. M. Gartkiewicz, Dongola II: The Cathedral in Old Dongola and Its Antecedents, Nubia I (Warsaw, 1990).

FIGURE 12.41 Faras, North Church, plan and elevation (after G. S. Mileham, Churches in Lower Nubia, 1910)

from excavated remains, the details of the superstructure are unclear. Longitudinal plans were more common, with the development of barrel-vaulted, pillared basilicas, such as the North Church at Faras, perhaps of the eighth century. Early researchers termed this architecture “dromic” rather than basilican, because of the low barrel vaults, heavy supports, and absence of a clerestory (Fig. 12.41).31 Vaults are invariably constructed of pitched brick. Entrances were on the north and south sides, rather than the west; the windows are small. The khurus, commonplace in Egypt, does not enter the architectural vocabulary of medieval Nubia; the apse is sometimes squared, but if it is semicircular, it is never expressed on the exterior. By the tenth or eleventh century, the dome had taken on greater importance, and a four-pillared church with a central dome had been developed. Occasionally the plan begins to resemble a Middle Byzantine cross-in-square church, but more commonly, as at domed churches at East Serreh, the bays are isolated, with all but the central bay barrel vaulted (Fig. 12.42). Ethiopia (Abyssinia). Further to the south, Abyssinia was at the zenith of its power in Late Antiquity, controlling international trade through the Red Sea. Although Abyssinia allied with the

30

31

G. S. Mileham, Churches in Lower Nubia (Philadelphia, 1910).

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FIGURE 12.42 East Serreh, north and south domed churches, plans and elevations (after G. S. Mileham, Churches in Lower Nubia, 1910)

Byzantine Empire, it was never part of it; Byzantine writers occasionally confused Ethiopia with India. Christianized from Syria-Palestine in the fourth century, the plans of early basilicas excavated at the Red Sea port of Adulis may reflect this cultural connection.32 By the sixth century, the capital Aksum had become the spiritual center of Ethiopia, a sort of New Sion, whose churches set the model for later developments. Although nominally Monophysite, with its bishops appointed by the Patriarch of Alexandria, Ethiopia never seems to have been drawn into the theological debates of the period and remained on good terms with all factions. With the rise of Islam and the loss of control of trade routes, however, Ethiopia became

32 N.  Finneran, “Ethiopian Christian Material Culture: The International Context. Aksum, the Mediterranean, and the Syriac Worlds of the Fifth to Seventh Centuries,” in Incipient Globalization? Long-Distance Contacts in the Sixth Century, ed. A.  Harris (Oxford, 2007), 75–89; R.  Paribeni, “Richerche nel luogo dell’antica Adulis,” Monumenti antichi 18 (1907): 437–72.

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increasingly isolated, and, like Nubia to its north, architectural developments remained localized. Construction techniques and architectural details are both regionally distinctive and conservative, making chronology difficult to determine. Building practices reflect the pre-Christian of Aksum, although little is preserved in Christian Aksum itself.33 The famed church at Debre Damo, from the sixth or seventh century, provides a good model of early forms (Fig. 12.43). Dramatically isolated atop a plateau surrounded by precipitous cliffs, the monastery is still only accessible by climbing a 17-meter rope up the cliff face. The plan is basilican, and the nave is framed by side aisles and galleries, preceded by a narthex terminating in a three-part sanctuary, with its bays squared off. The construction is half timber, with wooden framing exposed on the facades, alternating with slightly raised courses of masonry, which were originally plastered. Above each timber course, 33 D. Matthews and A. Mordini, “The Monastery of Debra Damo, Ethiopia,” Archaeologia 87 (1959): 1–58; D. W. Phillipson, Ancient Churches of Ethiopia (New Haven, 2009), 51–64.

FIGURE 12.43 Debra Damo, main church, plan and elevation (redrawn after D. W. Phillipson, Ancient Churches of Ethiopia, 2009)

crossbeams extend through the thickness of the walls as binders, exposed and rounded off on the exterior—what are known as “monkey-heads.” The nave piers are monolithic, with a frieze and gallery above, covered by a pitched, wooden-beamed ceiling, which was destroyed in 1984 and replaced by the present flat ceiling. Strikingly, wood and stone are used almost interchangeably, detailed similarly in construction and decoration; the arid climate has preserved much of the wood. Several of the Ethiopian churches were constructed in caves, and this has added to their preservation. At Mika’el Debra Selam, for example, which may date anywhere between the seventh and tenth centuries, the plan is similar to that of Debra Damo, while the exterior preserves the distinctive banding of wood and plastered masonry, with the projecting monkey-heads (Fig. 12.44).34 Set in a cave, the upper portion of the interior is—uniquely—carved into the rock ceiling, continuing identical architectural detailing from masonry into rock carving. Although several centuries later—perhaps twelfth century or slightly later, the Yemrehane Kristos is similar in 34

Phillipson, Ancient Churches, 68–71.

its cave setting and preservation and maintains a similar plan. Construction is also similar, although without the exposed monkey-heads. Its well-preserved, timber-trussed roof is noteworthy— indeed, the surviving timber roofs from Ethiopian churches may significantly expand our limited evidence from the Byzantine Empire (Fig. 12.45). As Debra Selam demonstrates, the interchangeability of building materials extends into rock carving, where features developed in wood and stone are replicated with exactitude. Three large rock-carved churches preserved in Tigray have multipillared interiors, with carving reminiscent of masonry forms.35 Most famous in this respect are the rock-carved churches of Lalibela, an extensive site developed over a period of several centuries, which became a sort of New Aksum and New Jerusalem; it remains a popular pilgrimage destination.36 Beta Emmanuel (thirteenth century?) stands as a good example. It replicates the standard plan—with a narthex and nave flanked by side aisles surmounted by galleries, terminating in a three-part sanctuary, all carved from the living rock. Isolated within a sunken courtyard, the exterior replicates banded masonry, standard window and door frames, and even occasional projecting bosses (Fig. 12.46). The interior carving replicates traditional arcades and friezes. Like the other churches at Lalibela, Beta Emmanuel appears as a tour de force, challenging our expectations, while emphasizing that the sanctity of the site is quite literally embedded in the landscape.37

, From this examination of regional developments, we may draw several conclusions. First, Phillipson, Ancient Churches, 98–107; C. Lepage and J. Mercier, Les églises historiques du Tigray (Paris, 2005).

35

Phillipson, Ancient Churches, 123–81; F.-X.  Fauvelle-Aymar, L.  Bruxelles, R.  Mensan, and C.  Bosc-Tiessé, “Rock-Cut Stratigraphy: Sequencing the Lalibela Churches,” Antiquity 84 (2010): 1135–50; for the symbolism of the churches, see M. Heldman, “Architectural Symbolism, Sacred Geography and the Ethiopian Church,” Journal of Religion in Africa 22 (1992): 222–41; M. Heldman, “Legends of Lalibela: The Development of an Ethiopian Pilgrimage Site,” Res 27 (1995): 25–38.

36

37 The level of exactitude in the Ethiopian rock-carved churches stands very much in contrast to those of Cappadocia, to be discussed in Chapter 18.

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FIGURE 12.44 Mika’el Debra Selam, view of the inner church façade (M. Muehlbauer)

most do not depend on the larger international currents of the preceding centuries. For example, the Cypriot domed churches do not derive from the Justinianic Holy Apostles, as both the spatial and the structural disposition differ. Indeed, the typologies of Cypriot churches are best treated as a more or less closed group. All the same, they maintain a variety of features widespread at that time, such as the introduction of vaulting, often to be found in the reconstruction of older buildings, and the preference for domes on pendentives. We find elements of the universal, but the regional characteristics dominate. This may be comparable to the situation in the Caucasus. Second, during this period experimentation seems to have happened on a local level before it affected wider developments. With the political decline in the Caucasus in the eighth and ninth centuries, for example, many of the new developments there may not have found their way into the mainstream until after the end of Iconoclasm and the Arab incursions. Thus, for example, the complex design of the seventh-century cathedral at T‘alin may lie behind the similarly complex 298

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design of St. Titus at Gortyna on Crete, which dates to the early ninth century, before the loss of Crete to the Arabs in 824 (discussed in the previous chapter). The scale of the two buildings is virtually identical. Similarly, the octagon-domed plans of the Caucasus, seen widely in the seventh century, are revived in the tenth and eleventh centuries in Armenia and Georgia, as well as in Constantinople and Greece. But the Transitional Period also witnessed a decline in pan-Mediterranean trade and cultural exchange. The sort of international exchange of architectural ideas and plans that characterized Late Antiquity had ended as well. Changes in architectural practices (to be discussed in a later chapter) also contributed. Thus, while architecture had flourished in the Caucasus in the seventh century, it required several centuries and a period of renewed exchange for the regional developments to find their way into the mainstream. Although it is distinctive, the new architectural developed in the Ṭur ‘Abdin remains regional, perhaps rooted in local liturgical practices. In Cyprus, with the reconquest of the island by the Byzantines in 965, the “transitional” designs were

FIGURE

12.45 Yemrehane Kristos, view into the nave roofing, looking east (M. Muehlbauer)

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FIGURE 12.46 Lalibela, Beta Emmanuel, view of the west façade (M. Muehlbauer)

abandoned. Instead of multidomed, longitudinally organized churches, renewed contact with the Byzantine capital led to the adoption of the centrally planned naos, dominated by a single dome. In contrast, under Islamic rule, Jordan and Palestine witness increased architectural activity, often drawing upon the models developed in the seventh and eighth centuries. As the center of Islamic power shifts northward into former Persian territory, to Baghdad in 762, architectural forms become more “Persian,”

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as the Islamic state develops its own distinctive architectural identity. Discussions of Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia after the rise of Islam have taken us well beyond the Transitional Period. The key factor in all three regions is the continuation and subsequent transmutation of forms established in earlier periods. In all, however, with weakened international ties, architecture developed and continued in relative isolation, with local features dominating.

PART THREE

,

THE MIDDLE BYZANTINE CENTURIES Ninth to Twelfth Centuries

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

,

NEW CHURCH ARCHITECTURE AND THE RISE OF MONASTICISM

B

y the end of the ninth century, Byzantium emerged from the Transitional Period as a smaller entity, limited for the most part to Asia Minor, Greece, and the southern Balkans (see Maps 4 and 5). The ninth century had witnessed a gradual revival of culture and the emergence of significant patronage, stimulated by a growing economy, fiscal reforms, and a systematization of the bureaucracy. With the transition from Late Antiquity into the medieval period, however, we find the society and its institutions transformed.1 As with the scale of the empire, the scale of the architecture diminished. Most of the new churches were small and intimate, with a centrally positioned dome and a lavishly decorated interior, characteristic of the Middle Byzantine (843–1204) and Late Byzantine (1261–1453) periods. Unlike the grand projects of an earlier era, new churches tended to be private foundations, the result of private benefaction, rather than imperially sponsored public projects, situated within episcopal authority.2 In addition, many of the new constructions were monastic, as monasticism emerged as a major social force in

1 For background, see M.  Whittow, The Making of Byzantium, 600–1025 (Berkeley, 1996). 2

J. P. Thomas, Private Religious Foundations in the Byzantine Empire.

Byzantine society, with monasteries also the product of private endowment. The new type of church architecture was perfectly suited to the private worship of a family or a small congregation, whether lay or monastic, in dramatic contrast to the great basilicas serving the large-scale public worship of earlier centuries.3 Rather than resulting from an economic downturn or the lack of necessary technology (as is often suggested), the churches of the era were smaller to better suit the changed worship practices of a changed society. Devotion became increasingly private, based on the personal interaction, often in the form of prayer, between an individual and a religious image that represented the holy figure to whom the prayer was directed. The private nature of Byzantine worship resulted in the small, personal scale of most churches, as well as in the addition of numerous ancillary chapels. Thus, as Byzantine society changed, so too did the art and architecture that served its spiritual needs. The so-called Triumph of Orthodoxy, which marked the end of the Iconoclast Controversy in 843, resulted in the development of a theology of images that both established their place in Byzantine worship and informed the development 3

For what follows, see Ousterhout, Master Builders, 7–38.

Göreme, Cappadocia. Karanlık Kilise, view into the main dome (Murat Gülyaz) 303

[Map 4]

The Byzantine Empire in the mid-eleventh century (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 178)

[Map 5]

The Byzantine Empire in the twelfth century (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 188)

of the decorative program of the Middle Byzantine church. This had profound effects on church design, both in terms of the development of a standardized program of decoration and in a concomitant standardized building design, both of which reflected the hierarchy of Orthodox belief. The legislation of the Transitional Period had insisted on uniformity in an attempt to maintain order through turbulent times, and this policy clearly extended into religious matters. The insistence on uniformity also affected the nature of Byzantine religious art in the period that followed. For example, it is difficult to talk about a standard decorative program for the Early Christian church, whereas, right or wrong, this has been the usual approach to Middle Byzantine church art. The spatial organization of the interior was thus matched by the development of a standardized decorative program, in mosaic or fresco. The pyramidal massing of forms, culminating in the central dome, provided an ideal framework for figural imagery. New architectural forms and new decorative programs developed in concert—with the meaning of one enhanced by the other. There is a uniformity to both subject matter and organization that suggests a sort of codification: as Orthodox belief was rethought and redefined, so too was its visual expression.4 Similarly, there is a uniformity and conservatism in the architecture of the period, which was built to address similar spiritual concerns. Reflecting the hierarchal system of Orthodox belief, a common church type and a standard system of decoration seem to have been developed simultaneously. For the organization of figural imagery, the church interior may be understood as having three zones, with the holiest at the top (Fig. 13.1).5 The dome, with its connotations of heaven, was given to Christ, usually represented as a bust in a roundel, called the Pantokrator, or  ruler of all. In the drum of the dome he is often surrounded by prophets. The second most H. Maguire, “The Cycle of Images in the Church,” in Heaven on Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium, ed. L. Safran (University Park, 1998), 121–51. 4

O. Demus, Byzantine Mosaic Decoration (London, 1948), for the classic formulation; for a critique, see T. F. Mathews, “Sequel to Nicaea II in Byzantine Church Decoration,” Perkins Journal 41, no. 3 (1988): 11–21, among others. 5

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important space, the apse, is usually devoted to the Theotokos, normally shown holding the Christ child to emphasize her role in the Incarnation and often flanked by angels. The middle zone is devoted to framed narrative scenes of major events from the lives of Christ and the Theotokos. These scenes commonly appear in the vaults and wall areas of the crossarms and often continue in the narthex. While sometimes called the Feast Cycle or Dodekaorton, the scenes selected often reflect the major celebrations in the annual liturgical cycle. These scenes helped to mystically transform the church into an image of the Holy Land that had witnessed these events. The lowest zone comprised the Choir of Saints, frequently grouped by type: church fathers, sainted deacons, and patriarchs appeared in or near the apse; the martyrs were in the naos, and the holy monks were in the western part of the church. These could be busts, half-length portraits, or life-size standing figures. Often unframed, they seem to occupy the same space as the viewer; in effect, they became a part of the congregation that peopled the church. Like the architectural forms, the subject matter of the decoration could also vary, depending on its scale, context, and medium. Following the model already developed ca. 800 at St. Stephen at Trilye (see Chap.  11), the cross-in-square church emerged as the standard church type. The Myrelaion Church (now Bodrum Camii) in Constantinople is a good example (Figs. 13.2–13.5).6 Originally constructed as the palace chapel of Romanos I Lekapenos, sometime before he ascended the throne in 920, the church is worth describing in detail, for it gives a sense of the potential of the building type at the highest level of patronage, as it achieves a balance between the articulation of the structural system and the coordination of the interior spaces. Forms are massed in a pyramidal manner, cascading down from the high, centrally positioned dome, which rises above an octagonal drum pierced by windows. Below, vaults extend outward in four directions: this forms the cross, set within the square of the plan beneath it— hence the term, which defines the building type 6

C. L. Striker, The Myrelaion (Bodrum Camii) in Istanbul.

FIGURE 13.1 Göreme, Cappadocia. Karanlık Kilise, view into the main dome (Murat Gülyaz)

spatially, in three dimensions, rather than as a floor plan. The eastern arm extends to join the vault of the bema. Four columns support the dome, subdividing the naos into nine bays— those in the corners are the lowest and smallest, their vaults corresponding in height to those of the narthex and pastophoria. Pilasters with heavy half-columns correspond to the internal walls and supports; blind arcades reflect the heights of the vaults inside. There is a clarity and rationality to this system, through which one can “read” the internal disposition from the external articulation. While in many ways it is typical of a Middle Byzantine cross-in-square church, the Myrelaion also has a variety of unusual features. The church was constructed as a palace chapel attached to a

private residence. The palace itself was constructed on a platform created by a giant rotunda, apparently the remains of a Late Roman palace— and the juxtaposition of the Late Roman and the Middle Byzantine phases dramatically illustrates the changes in scale that architecture had undergone. To adjust the church to the height of the palace, tall substructures had to be constructed for it as well, creating a lower level similar in plan to the upper. These have provided the present, Turkish name for the building: Bodrum Camii means “Basement Mosque.” Excavations indicate that the lower level served simply as a substructure throughout the Middle Byzantine period, but in the Late Byzantine period, the lower level was adapted to serve as a funerary chapel.

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FIGURE 13.2 Constantinople, Myrelaion (Bodrum Camii), view from the north (author)

FIGURE 13.3 Constantinople, Myrelaion, plan and perspective cutaway of the church (after C. L. Striker, Myrelaion, 1981)

FIGURE 13.4 Constantinople, Myrelaion, view into the dome before restoration (Thomas F. Mathews, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees of Harvard University, Washington, DC)

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FIGURE 13.5 Constantinople, Myrelaion, hypothetical reconstruction of the Myrelaion Palace, showing its relationship to the Late Antique rotunda, which was converted into a cistern and used as the substructure (C. L. Striker, Myrelaion, 1981)

A corbelled walkway extended around the church on the main level, and the design of the building was remarkably open, as the reconstruction drawings suggest. Most unusually, Romanos constructed the Myrelaion to house his own burial, as well as those of his family. Historians tell us that he had ancient sarcophagi brought into the building for this purpose, but unfortunately there is no evidence as to where within the building they were placed. In situating his imperial burial within the family chapel, Romanos broke with the tradition of his predecessors for entombment at the Church of the Holy Apostles, perhaps because of the insecurity of his position on the throne. He later converted the palace and its chapel into a nunnery. In function and setting, then, the building was far from typical. Similarly, some of the architectural forms are unusual within the context of a cross-in-square church, as may be compared with the Fatih Camii in Trilye. The vaulting is elaborate: the dome and drum have a fluted surface, what is known as a pumpkin dome, and the cross arms of the naos are topped by groin vaults rather than by simpler barrel vaults. On the exterior, the proportions are tall, and the impression is dominated by the heavy

half-columns engaged to each set of stepped pilasters. Although half-columns appear in other Byzantine examples, none is as massive as this, and it is unclear whether their primary function is formal—that is, to visually articulate the façade— or functional—to increase the structure at the critical points. The small, round windows are also unusual. Many of these features, as well as the allbrick construction of the Myrelaion, appear in early Islamic architecture as well, and the decorative glazed tiles from the interior are Sasanian in flavor; considering the fashion for Arab architecture in the preceding century, this would not be surprising, In short, the designer was not simply perfecting a building type; he was also addressing special site requirements and special functions, developing an architectural vocabulary appropriate to its setting and to the elevated status of the patron. Bricks and mortar were only a portion of the final product. Architecture is by its nature abstract, and to bring it into an understandable context, a Byzantine church was decorated with frescoes or mosaics. Sadly, most churches have lost their decoration: in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey, many were converted to mosques, and the Christian decorations were removed. These buildings were also provided with prayer niches to reorient them to Mecca and minarets for the call to prayer. The Myrelaion was converted to a mosque after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, and it has subsequently been devastated by both fires and heavy-handed restorations. The original columns have been replaced with stone piers and the windows have been reduced. The marbles and mosaics have vanished, although some tesserae, marble pieces, fragments of opus sectile, and glazed ceramic tiles were found in the excavations. It is difficult to realize the elegance of the original when all that is left is a much-altered skeleton. But originally, the Byzantine church and its decoration functioned together, the one enhancing the other, forming an artistic unity, a Gesamtkunstwerk, and it may give a false impression if we attempt to discuss the architectural forms without considering the decorative surfaces. Although many other churches follow this basic configuration, the coordination of elements at the Myrelaion is noteworthy. The naos is balanced east and west by a three-bayed narthex and a tripartite sanctuary. While maintaining a longitudinal

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FIGURE 13.6 Reconstruction of a Middle Byzantine bema (author)

liturgical axis, terminating at the altar, the dome inserts a vertical axis, highlighting the central performance space. This architectural juxtaposition actually conformed with the necessities of the mature Byzantine worship service. There were really two performance areas. More sacred activities were restricted to the bema, centered at the altar (Fig. 13.6). The other performance area was the central space of the naos, accentuated by the dome.7 As the processional nature of the early service was transformed, the processional axis of the Early Christian church was de-emphasized, and this fact helps to explain the centralized design of most Byzantine churches: celebrants emerge from the sanctuary and return to it: their movement is circular rather than linear. The atrium, solea, and ambo were eliminated; the synthronon was either reduced to a single bench or eliminated as well. The liturgy was reduced to a series of appearances, and for most of the service, the templon effectively separated the clergy from the congregation. The centrally positioned dome served to highlight the appearances of the 7

Marinis, Architecture and Ritual.

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celebrants at the door of the templon. At the same time, the active participation of the congregation was curtailed. A final consideration is the importance of natural light to the building’s design. Window openings are large and appear at many levels: eight in the drum, thermal windows in the cross-arm lunettes, a large three-light window in the apse. Windows appeared on two levels within each bay, above closure panels—much of this was lost in later restorations. The consistent use of groin vaults allowed the development of a light, skeletal structure with a remarkable degree of openness— a defining characteristic of Constantinopolitan architecture at its finest, harking back to the innovative, open structure of Hagia Sophia. It is curious that as the cross-in-square type was disseminated across the empire, the importance of natural light was not: invariably outside Constantinople, windows are fewer and smaller, walls more solid, and interiors darker. The cross-in-square type is widespread, first appearing in Greece in the late tenth century at the Panagia Church at Hosios Loukas monastery, where the plan was slightly skewed as it was laid out, resulting in a parallelogram-shaped plan rather than a square (Figs. 13.7 and 13.8, and see Fig. 13.23).8 The same building type appeared in central Anatolia, southern Italy, the Balkans, and Russia, with many variations and serving a variety of functions, as palatial, domestic, monastic, parish, or funerary churches. The common denominator in all was the small scale appropriate to small groups of worshippers; scale rather than function seems to have determined the choice of plan. Variations in church design abound during the Middle Byzantine period (843–1204), and our terminology is often insufficient to describe them briefly. Indeed, the term used here, cross-in-square, is sometimes criticized because the naos plan often isn’t exactly square or has been merged with the sanctuary. The term “inscribed cross plan” also appears, as well as “fourcolumn church” and “quincunx”—the last, from the pattern of five dots on a die, might better be applied to multidomed churches. In French, the R. Schultz and S. Barnsley, The Monastery of St. Luke of Stiris in Phokis (London, 1901); P. Mylonas, Mone Osiou Louka tou Steirote (Athens, 2005); and Ch. Bouras, He architektonike tes Mones tou Hosiou Louka (Athens, 2015). 8

FIGURE

13.7

Hosios Loukas Monastery, Panagia Church, interior looking east (author)

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FIGURE 13.8 Hosios Loukas Monastery, Panagia Church, isometric cutaway of Panagia Church (left) and Katholikon (right) (author, after R. Schultz and S. Barnsley, Monastery of St. Luke, 1901)

type is called an église à croix inscrite; in German, it is a Kreuzkuppelkirche. None of these terms addresses the full range of design possibilities—and the last translates as “cross-domed church,” which in English connotes something else entirely. The basic design of the cross-in-square church was flexible: columns could be replaced by piers, with varying degrees of closure. Many churches of early Rus’ follow the cross-in-square model, but the cruciform piers (rather than columns) isolate the corner compartments, as at the Holy Trinity at the Monastery of the Caves, Kiev (1106–8) (Fig. 13.9A). The distinction between what we would call a crossin-square church and a cross-domed church with corner compartments depends on the degree of spatial integration: if the naos is a unified space, it is the former; if the corner compartments are architecturally isolated, then it is the latter, as at the church known as Atik Mustafa Paşa Camii in Constantinople, of the late ninth century, or St. Nicholas at Aulis, from the early eleventh century (Fig. 13.9B). The tripartite sanctuary could be merged with the nine-bayed naos to create a compact plan, as happened frequently outside of Constantinople—as, for example, at Sts. Sergius and Bacchus at Kitta in the Mani (Fig. 13.10B). Two of the columns could be replaced by piers, forming a “two-column church,” as may be found in many Greek churches, for example, at the Transfiguration 312

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at Amphissa (Fig. 13.10C). Piers could also replace columns, as at St. Sozon at Geraki (Fig. 13.10D). The whole could even be narrowed so that the dome was supported above pilasters engaged to the lateral walls, as at St. Stephen at Rivio in Epirus (Fig. 13.10E).9 The critical element in all these designs, no matter how we term them, is that the dome is braced by high vaults on four sides. The core could also be elaborated: churches could be built with or without narthexes or with external porticoes, galleries, and subsidiary chapels. Detailed typological distinctions are the stuff of modern systems of architectural classification, however, and may not accurately reflect the thinking of a Byzantine mason, who was capable of building on a variety of scales and following a variety of plans. In this respect, construction techniques may be more characteristic to a region or to a workshop than building types. The cross-in-square church in all its variations existed side by side with a variety of other church types, for which scale, rather than function, was a determining factor. Most cross-in-square churches have domes measuring 10 to 15 Byzantine feet in 9 M. Kappas, “E Eparmoge to Stauroeidous Engegrammenou ste Mese kai ten Ystere Byzantine Periodou” (PhD diss., Aristotle University, 2009); also S.  Kalopissi-Verti and M.  PanayiotidiKesisoglou, Multilingual Illustrated Dictionary of Byzantine Architecture and Sculpture Terminology (Heraklion, 2010).

FIGURE 13.9 (A) Kiev, Holy Trinity at the Monastery of the Caves, Kiev, a cross-in-square church with cruciform piers (after H. Faensen and V. Ivanov, Early Russian Architecture, 1975); (B) Aulis, St. Nicholas, a cross-domed church with corner compartments (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

diameter (i.e., less than 5 meters). The south church at the Pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople has a diameter of about 7.5 meters, the largest surviving (discussed in Chap. 14). Beyond this scale, the system became increasingly unstable, with the dome resting precariously above four freestanding columns. If the church were on a smaller scale, the internal subdivisions would have been unnecessary. At the Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus at Kitta in the Mani, the dome is less than 2 meters in diameter and seems miniaturized by comparison. We often find free-cross plan churches on a small scale, common in the tenth century, as at St. Basil at the Bridge, near Arta, as well as more elaborate forms with triconch or tetraconch plans, as at the Koubelidike in Kastoria or the Eleousa at Veljusa, where the dome diameters are close to 2 meters (Fig. 13.11).

If the limited scale of the cross-in-square church seemed too small or too plain, builders had several options. The octagon-domed church, for which several eleventh-century examples survive, provides eight points of support for a larger dome, as well as more elaborate interior designs and complex surfaces for mosaic decoration. With squinches providing the transition to the dome, the design may be derived from Arab or Caucasian models, and its origin remains much debated. The eleventh-century katholika of Hosios Loukas monastery and Nea Mone on Chios are elegant and sophisticated, both probably designed by master builders from Constantinople, and they suggest the degree of variations possible (Figs. 13.12 and 13.13).10 At Hosios Loukas, the tall naos is extended by transept arms and is enveloped by galleries and annexed chapels on two levels; the hemispherical dome (with an internal diameter of 8.5 meters) rises above trumpet squinches at the corners (see Fig. 17.15). Minor spaces are covered by groin vaults, creating a sophisticated structural system, with loads concentrated in a point-support system and the external walls opened by large windows. At Nea Mone, the footprint of a cross-in-square church was maintained, along with low vaults to the tripartite sanctuary and narthex, while the naos appears tower-like, its dome rising above a tall drum.11 An octaconch makes the transition from the square plan of the naos to the circular plan of the dome. The ring of niches has conches at the corners and recesses set into the four walls. Originally, thin, coupled colonnettes marked the supports along the interior walls. The unusual design and lavish decoration with marbles and mosaics may be the result of imperial patronage by Constantine IX Monomachos and the work of artisans from Constantinople. Indeed, the church may have been begun as a cross-in-square church, transformed during construction to accommodate the extensive, imperially themed mosaic program. The original dome was nine sided and ribbed with Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 383–87; but see M. Chatzidakis, “A propos de la date et du fondateur de Saint Luc,” CahArch 19 (1969): 127–50; N. Oikonomides, “The First Century of the Monastery of Hosios Loukas,” DOP 46 (1992): 245–55. 10

11 Ch. Bouras, Nea Moni on Chios: History and Architecture (Athens, 1982); R. G. Ousterhout, “Originality in Byzantine Architecture: The Case of Nea Moni,” JSAH 51 (1992): 48–60.

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FIGURE 13.10 Isometric sections of variations of the cross-in-square church type, all at the same scale: (A) fully developed, with a tripartite sanctuary (Vefa Kilise Camii, Constantinople); (B) simple, lacking an extended sanctuary and narthex (Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, Kitta); (C) two columns (Transfiguration, Amphissa); (D) simple, with piers (St. Sozon, Geraki); (E) compact, with engaged pilasters (St. Stephen, Rizio) (A, C, D, and E: Petros Koufopoulos and Marina Myriantheos-Koufopoulou; B: Stavros Mamaloukos in Sofia Kalopissi-Verti and Maria Panayotidi-Kessisoglou, eds., Multilingual Illustrated Dictionary of Byzantine Architecture and Sculpture Terminology, Crete University Press, Herakleion, 2010)

scalloped segments; it had an estimated internal diameter of 6.4 meters, rising 15.6 meters above the floor. The dome collapsed in the earthquake of 1881 and was subsequently replaced by a simpler dome of similar scale, while the coupled colonnettes were replaced by heavy pilasters. There are numerous variations on this octagondomed design that appear in later centuries (Fig. 13.14). In mainland Greece, the design of Hosios Loukas was adopted at the Panagia Lykodemou in Athens and at Daphne Monastery already in the eleventh century (see Figs. 17.16–17.19). On Chios, the Nea Mone finds a following at a number of churches, with the elegant Panagia Krina (late twelfth century) particularly noteworthy (see Fig. 16.19). Indicative of the experimental nature 314

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of the original design, the Panagia Krina offers several correctives: heightening the secondary spaces and extending the eastern conch of the transitional zone into the bema. Versions of the same type are found on Cyprus as well.12 For churches of a scale larger than a cross-insquare design could maintain, the cross-domed church also could provide a more stable structural system and a more unified interior space, while allowing for a larger dome. Following the models developed in the Transitional Period, the design is again popularized in the twelfth century. The Ch. Bouras, “Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Variations of the Single Domed Octagon Plan,” DChAE 9 (1977–79): 21–34; Ch. Bouras, Chios (Athens, 1974).

12

FIGURE 13.11 Free-cross and triconch churches: St. Basil of the Bridge, Arta; and the Koubelidike, Kastoria (after P. L. Vocotopoulos, Ekklesiastike Architektonike, 1975; and A. K. Orlandos, ArchBME, 1938)

FIGURE 13.12 Chios, Nea Mone Monastery, Katholikon, isometric section of the naos, narthex, and thirteenth-century exonarthex (Petros Koufopoulos and Marina MyriantheosKoufopoulou, in Sofia Kalopissi-Verti and Maria Panayotidi-Kessisoglou, eds., Multilingual Illustrated Dictionary of Byzantine Architecture and Sculpture Terminology, Crete University Press, Herakleion, 2010)

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FIGURE 13.13 Chios, Nea Mone Monastery, katholikon, interior, looking northeast (author)

13.14 Variations in the domed-octagon scheme seen at Nea Mone on Chios and related churches (after Ch. Bouras, DChAE, 1977–79)

FIGURE

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FIGURE 13.15 Atrophied Greekcross church plans: (A) Chora katholikon, Constantinople; (B) St. Abercius, Kurşunlu; (C) St. Nicholas, Kuršumlija; (D) ruined church at Yusa Tepesi (author)

katholikon of the Chora Monastery in Constantinople was rebuilt in the early twelfth century on an atrophied Greek-cross plan, with heavy piers engaged at the corners, supporting narrow barrel vaults.13 The design was imitated in the suburbs of Constantinople, as well as in a variety of areas under Constantinopolitan influence, from Bithynia to Serbia, discussed in subsequent chapters (Fig. 13.15). The rebuilding of the Theotokos Kyriotissa in Constantinople at the end of the century assumes the form of a large cross-domed church (see Figs. 14.15, 15.16, and 15.17).14 Domed basilicas also reappear in the same period, again probably attributable to the desire for larger churches in the twelfth century, but also reflecting the more conservative atmosphere of the Komnenian period (ca. 1081– 1185)—that is, looking deep into Byzantine history for appropriate models, rather than exotic, possibly 13 R. G. Ousterhout, The Architecture of the Kariye Camii in Istanbul (Washington, DC, 1987). 14 C. L. Striker and Y. D. Kuban, eds., Kalenderhane in Istanbul, The Buildings.

foreign solutions, as at the churches now known as the Fatih Camii at Enez or the Gül Camii in Constantinople (see Figs. 15.18–15.21). Sometimes variations addressed specific functions. For example, the ambulatory-plan church, such as the twelfthcentury Pammakaristos in Constantinople, may have been intended to provide additional spaces for burial in close proximity to the naos (see Fig 15.35). Variations with ambulatories appear in northern Greece and Albania, apparently following the model of Hagia Sophia in Thessalonike (Fig. 13.16).15 Similarly, triconch churches appear in the monastic environment of Mt. Athos, with the addition of lateral apses to a standard cross-in-square plan (Figs. 13.17–13.19). The lateral apses, called choroi, provided a setting for the choirs of monks who sang the liturgy. It is unclear if the new church type emerged by means of later additions or modifications, but the new feature clearly responded to the requirements of the monastic service. At the Great Lavra, the katholikon begun 15

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 318–21.

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FIGURE 13.16 Plans of crossdomed churches with ambulatories: (A) Pieria, Koundouriotissa (ca. 800); (B) Pydna (late ninth century); (C) Lambova, Koimesis (tenth to thirteenth centuries?); (D) Drama, Hagia Sophia (tenth century) (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

in 963 was expanded gradually, with the addition of lateral apses to the naos, domed subsidiary chapels flanking the narthex, and an outer narthex (discussed further below).16 At Vatopedi (ca. 972– 85) and elsewhere on Mount Athos, the katholika appear to have triconch plans from the inception, although it was expanded with annexed chapels shortly afterward. We may wonder if the remodeled Lavra provided the model for Vatopedi or vice versa. In its complex form, with choroi and subsidiary chapels, this is sometime called the “Athonite church type.”

P. Mylonas, “Le plan initial du catholicon de la Grande-Lavra au Mont Athos et la genèse du type du catholicon athonite,” CahArch 32 (1984): 98–112; updated by S.  Mamaloukos, To Katholiko tes Mones Vatopediou. Istoria kai Architektonike (Athens, 2001); S.  Mamaloukos, “A Contribution to the Study of the ‘Athonite’ Church Type of Byzantine Architecture,” Zograf 35 (2011): 39–50.

16

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Annexed chapels and more complex plans appear regularly in the Middle Byzantine period, either as additions (as in the Athonite examples just noted) or as part of the initial design. As several of the above examples illustrate, subsidiary spaces were often part of the original design and served a variety of functions. From their decorative programs, Gordana Babić suggested that annexed chapels could provide settings for additional litanies or commemorative services, since the church would only have one altar, and according to custom, only a single liturgy could be celebrated there in the course of the day—although commemorative services may not have required an altar.17 Chapels could house relics or tombs, and they could provide spaces for private devotion. Slobodan Ćurčić has sorted out the various possible arrangements— which he classifies as satellite, compact, and gallery 17

G. Babić, Les Chapelles annexes des églises byzantines.

FIGURE 13.17 Mount Athos, Great Lavra Monastery, view of the katholikon from the east (Paul L. Mylonas, gift to the author)

(Fig. 13.20).18 While the diagram may appear abstract, there are good examples to correspond with each arrangement, either planned from the beginning or developed subsequently. Often a single chapel is set to one side of the building, as at the Church of the Eleousa at Veljusa, ca. 1080, clearly part of the initial design (Figs. 13.20, IA, and 13.21). In one of the most elaborate designs, the monastic Church of the Theotokos tou Libos in Constantinople, built ca. 907 as a cross-in-square church, included six subsidiary chapels from its inception, with two flanking the bema and four tiny chapels on the gallery level (Figs. 13.20, IC and IIIC, and 13.22; and see Figs. 15.1 and 15.2).19 A stair tower attached to the 18 S. Ćurčić, “Architectural Significance of Subsidiary Chapels in Middle Byzantine Churches.”

narthex provided access to the western chapels, while the eastern two were accessible by a corbelled catwalk. Too small for more than a few people to use at once, each of the upper chapels had its own narthex, was elaborated as a quatrefoil, and was equipped for the liturgy. The katholikon of Hosios Loukas has eight chapels, organized on two levels, situated at the corners of the building (Fig. 13.20, IIC and IIIC; Figs. 13.8 and 13.23). These subsidiary spaces have been interpreted as settings for private devotions or possibly private liturgies, or as primarily commemorative spaces, but they are clearly integrated into the overall design of the building. Similar in date, scale, and detail to the Myrelaion, the design of the Theotokos tou Libos demonstrates that as the cross-in-square church was being perfected, more complex variations were developed.

A. H. S. Megaw, “The Original Form of Theotokos Church of Constantine Lips,” DOP 18 (1964): 249–77; and reassessment by V.  Marinis, “The Original Form of the Theotokos tou Libos Reconsidered,” in Daskala: Apodose times sten Omotime Maire

Panagiotide-Kesisoglou, eds. P.  Petrides and V.  Foskolou (Athens, 2014), 267–303, who reconstructs the upper chapels without domes.

19

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FIGURE 13.18 Mount Athos, Great Lavra Monastery, katholikon, showing stages of enlargement (after P. L. Mylonas, CahArch, 1984)

FIGURE 13.19 Mount Athos, Vatopedi Monastery, katholikon, plan and section (after S. Mamaloukos, Katholiko, 2001)

FIGURE 13.20 Diagram showing possible arrangements of subsidiary chapels in Middle Byzantine churches (from S. Ćurčić, JSAH, 1979)

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FIGURE 13.21 Veljusa, Church of the Eleousa, plan and section (redrawn after P. Miljković-Pepek, Veljusa, 1981)

Like the churches of Mount Athos, few Byzantine churches standing today represent a single period of construction. It is common to focus on the moment of conception and to discuss buildings in an ideal state. But buildings grew and changed, along with the society that used them, and the process of transformation is instructive. At the katholika of Vatopedi, Iviron, and Lavra, for example, changes began almost immediately after the first phase of construction, with major additions completed within a century.20 For the most part, there is an orderliness to the process: chapels flank the narthex, more or less symmetrically, while the narthex is expanded westward, often with an exonarthex added to allow access to new spaces or to house N. Stanković, “At the Threshold of the Heavens: The Narthex and Adjacent Spaces in Middle Byzantine Churches of Mount Athos (10th–11th Centuries)—Architecture, Function, and Meaning” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2017).

20

FIGURE 13.22 Constantinople, Theotokos tou Libos, plans at the ground and gallery levels (after Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

additional functions associated with the narthex (see Fig. 13.18). All three katholika included galleries above the narthex from the beginning, apparently for the founder’s use. What is significant in all of this is the additive process of design, by which new building “types” could be created and new functions housed, without altering the core elements of the building. Monasteries and monasticism. While monastic communities existed from the early days of Christianity, their architectural settings remain somewhat elusive (see Chap. 3). Although there was an attempt to regulate monastic life from an early date—notably the early sixth-century Rule of St. Benedict—in Western Europe, it did not find a coherent architectural expression until the ninth century, with the “ideal plan” drawn up for

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the reorganization of St. Gall monastery.21 While structuring the daily life in detail, with the cloister at its center, there is little surviving architectural evidence of its adoption before the eleventh century. Byzantine monasteries never developed into “orders” like their Western counterparts and were much more loosely structured and tended to be much smaller. One might argue they never found an architectural “ideal,” as the West did with the St. Gall plan. In the heartland of the Byzantine Empire, monasteries often followed the rule introduced by Basil of Caesarea.22 This encouraged monasteries of reduced size, in both urban and rural settings. It discouraged excessive acts of asceticism (as Symeon Stylites had indulged), with daily life structured by manual labor and discipline. Within the community, the monks observed absolute obedience to the hegoumenos (abbot). Most that have left architectural remains are koinobia, organized around a cenobitic, or common, life. Governing the work and worship within the community was the foundation charter, or typikon, usually prepared by the founder, which specified the organization, administration, behavior, and liturgical observances.23 By the time of the Triumph of Orthodoxy in 843, monasticism was a dominant force in Byzantine society, as reflected in architectural projects after that time. Many of the surviving churches were the centers of monasteries, although most were founded by private initiative. An intimate sense of daily life and spiritual concerns is provided by the many surviving typika of the Middle and Late Byzantine periods, although they are almost exclusively aristocratic and imperial foundations and thus tend to represent large monasteries at the upper echelons of society. But, like Byzantine families, monasteries could be big 21 Visualized in great detail by W. Horn and E. Born, The Plan of St. Gall: A Study of the Architecture & Economy of, & Life in a Paradigmatic Carolingian Monastery, 3 vols. (Berkeley, 1979); see also W. Braunfels, Monasteries of Western Europe: The Architecture of the Orders (Princeton, 1972).

and small, rich and poor, well planned or ad hoc—that is, representing all aspects of Byzantine society. Legislation indicates some concern about what constituted a monastery (there are many instances of houses and households, rich and poor, converted to monasteries) as well as how many monks or nuns were necessary to form a community—sometimes as few as three.24 Frustratingly, few monastic buildings survive from the Byzantine period, and many may have been constructed of ephemeral materials, although we can reconstruct their general organization.25 Monasteries of the Middle Byzantine period commonly had the church as the central element, freestanding within a walled enclosure, the latter lined with the monastic cells and other buildings. Often the refectory was set in relationship to the church building, either opposite or parallel to it, as the monks would come together for worship and dining—the latter treated ceremonially as well. With most examples, however, the original church building is preserved, but the other buildings have either disappeared or undergone numerous reconstructions—providing us with an “idea” of a Byzantine monastery rather than the architectural or archaeological evidence. Because of the site specificity and long construction history, it remains difficult to determine a “standard” Middle Byzantine monastery type. Hosios Loukas is perhaps the most famous of the monasteries and a good place to start (Figs. 13.23 and 13.24). The monastery developed gradually around the dwelling and tomb of the holy hermit known as the Blessed Luke (d.  953) at Steiris in Boeotia. He had acquired some fame in his lifetime for miraculous healings and his ability to predict the future, and he continued to perform miracles after his death. He had built the first church with some local assistance, dedicated to St. Barbara, subsequently replaced by  the Theotokos Church in the later

See entries “Monastery,” and “Monasticism,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 2nd vol., ed. A. Kazhdan (Oxford, 1991), 1391–94; A.-M.  Talbot, “An Introduction to Byzantine Monasticism,” Illinois Classical Studies 12 (1987): 229–41.

A.-M. Talbot, “A Comparison of the Monastic Experience of Byzantine Men and Women,” GOTR 30 (1985): 4 and n. 15; the minimum of three was established by Novel 14 of Leo VI, in P. Noailles and A. Dain, eds., Les novelles de Leon VI le Sage (Paris, 1944), 57–58. The minimum was later increased to eight to ten monks by Basil II; cf. PG 117.625D–628A.

J. P. Thomas and A. Hero, eds., Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, 5 vols. (Washington, DC, 2000).

25 Most examples in A. K. Orlandos, Monasteriake Architektonike (Athens, 1958) are post-Byzantine.

22

23

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24

FIGURE 13.23 Hosios Loukas Monastery, churches seen from the east, near the original entrance (author)

FIGURE 13.24 Hosios Loukas Monastery, plan (redrawn after E. Stikas, Oikodomikon Chronikon, 1970)

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FIGURE 13.25 Hosios Meletios Monastery, Katholikon seen from the southeast (author)

tenth century—the latter with an expanded narthex, or lite, for monastic services. As he requested, Loukas was buried beneath his cell. As the vita of Loukas relates, the tomb was later raised and decorated and enclosed in an eukterion, a building of some sort, while cells for the monks and a hostel for visitors were added. Sometime in the early eleventh century the katholikon was constructed, incorporating parts of the eukterion into its crypt. The relics of the saint were subsequently translated upstairs (probably in 1011) and placed in a space where the two churches join together, opening off the north transept. As the monastery grew, it included a refectory, set parallel to the katholikon, a gatehouse, stables, a cistern, a belfry, and other buildings, as well as cells for the monks along the perimeter wall and a pilgrims’ hostel outside the monastery enclosure. The two churches were left freestanding to accommodate movement around them. While much of what is visible at the monastery today represents later reconstruction, it nevertheless provides a good image of a Byzantine monastery.26 26

As above, Note 10.

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The Monastery of Hosios Meletios in Attica is similar in many ways, founded in 1081 by the homonymous saint (d. 1105) (Figs. 13.25 and 13.26).27 Like Hosios Loukas, the church is freestanding, enveloped by an enclosure of approximately 60 by 50 meters, with other monastic buildings set against the enclosure wall. The church’s narthex was subsequently expanded into a lite, with an accommodation for the saint’s relics at the north end. A crypt below may have been the original location of the saint’s tomb. The refectory is set into the west wing, while the others are lined with cells. One of the most important areas of monastic development in the period was Mount Athos, an isolated peninsula in the Chalkidike of northern Greece (Fig. 13.27). Although the beginnings of monasticism on the so-called Holy Mountain are unclear, an imperial document of 885 recognizes it as an exclusively monastic territory, limiting its population to male monastics and hermits—as it A.  K.  Orlandos, “He Mone tou Hosiou Meletiou kai ta paralauria aute” ArchBME 5 (1939–40): 79–83; Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 390–91.

27

FIGURE 13.26 Hosios Meletios Monastery, plan (redrawn after A. K. Orlandos, ArchBME, 1939–40)

FIGURE 13.27 Mount Athos, view, with Stavronikita Monastery at the center (author)

FIGURE 13.28 Zygos Monastery, plan (author, redrawn after S. Ćurčić, 2010; and J. Papangelos, Pemptousia, 2015)

remains today, with twenty active monasteries. The foundation of the Great Lavra in 963 by Athanasios the Athonite marked the beginning of coenobitic monasticism, supported by the imperial benefaction of Nikephoros Phokas and his successors and thus closely connected to the capital, and this accounts for the exceptional quality of the church architecture. Other monastic buildings were not so carefully built, and most of what survives is from the Ottoman period. Nevertheless, the ensembles reflect their Byzantine predecessors, and their organization is similar to the above examples: fortified, inward turning, with cells along the walls, and often with prominent refectories and chapels. Immediately outside the present confines of  the Holy Mountain, the remains of the Monastery of Zygos (or Frankokastro), dedicated to the Prophet Elijah, add significantly to a picture of Middle Byzantine monasticism (Fig. 13.28).28 The site marked St. Athanasios’s Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 392; J. Papangelos, “The Holy Monastery of Zygos, in Athos,” Pemptousia, updated 24 August 28

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entry to the Holy Mountain in 958, where he submitted himself to a holy hermit, before moving deeper into the peninsula to found the Great Lavra. By the eleventh century Zygos ranked as one of the most important monasteries on Athos. By 1199, however, it was abandoned, and its property transferred to the control of Hilandar. Subsequently occupied by the Franks (and thus the name Frankokastro) and abandoned by 1211, all phases of construction belong to the Middle Byzantine centuries. Masonry walls, reinforced by towers, enclose a site of 5,500 square meters, which slopes from south to north, with a fortified entrance to the south and a guard tower at the highest point, to the north, to which the Franks added a barbican. The katholikon, freestanding in the lower eastern area of the enclosure, was begun during the first half of the eleventh century as a 2015, http://pemptousia.com/2015/08/the-holy-monastery-of-zygos/, consulted 16 January 2018; and earlier notices on the same website.

FIGURE 13.29 Mount Athos, Great Lavra Monastery, plan (author, after P. L. Mylonas, 2000)

cross-in-square church following the Constantinopolitan model, with a tripartite sanctuary and narthex. The church expanded rapidly with the addition of annexed burial chapels to the north and south and an exonarthex. That to the north connected to a range of buildings that probably included the residence of the hegoumenos at a higher level, as well as a range of monastic cells. Throughout, the church was lavishly decorated with architectural sculpture, opus sectile floors, and wall paintings. A large, two-aisled trapeza stood to the west, on the opposite side of an open court, as well as a kitchen with two ovens, an olive press, a wine press, a smithy, and what may have been a treasury or library to the east of the church. The water source of the monastery is not certain, but a large cistern to collect rainwater lies under one of the south towers, with apparently laundry facilities above it. The Zygos Monastery uniquely combines a limited life span, historical documentation, and a careful excavation. It allows us to speak with greater authority when examining the still-functioning monasteries on Mount Athos, for which most components are post-Byzantine. At the Great Lavra, for example, the trapeza, set facing the Katholikon, was built in 1512; while the phiale (holy water font) is seventeenth century, and the current exonarthex to which it is now attached is nineteenth century (Figs. 13.29 and 13.30; and see

Fig. 13.17).29 The formal organization corresponds to that at Zigos, and we can assume it reflects the Byzantine organization. Similarly, post-Byzantine records of life in the monastery, such as the drawings by Vasilii Barskii, who visited Athos twice in 1725 and 1744, illustrate the continuation of Byzantine ceremonies: the antiphonal liturgy in the katholikon, as well as the recessional procession in the trapeza (Fig. 13.31).30 At other sites, for which there is no documentation, the exact function of certain spaces is a matter of speculation. The evocative ruins at Kisleçukuru in southwest Anatolia, for example, are likely those of a Middle Byzantine monastery.31 The excavators have tentatively identified the katholikon, trapeza, kitchen, gatehouse, cells, storerooms, cisterns, a funeral chapel, and the remains of an aqueduct, all constructed of a rough rubble, in the mountains above Antalya (Fig. 13.32).

29 P.  Mylonas, Pictorial Dictionary of the Holy Mountain Athos (Tübingen, 2000).

P.  Mylonas, ed., Vasili Gkregkorovits Mparski: ta schedia apo ta taxidia tou sto Hagion Oros, 1725–1726, 1744–1745 (Thessalonike, 2010).

30

A. Tiryaki, “Kisleçukuru Manastırı: Antalya’da On İkinci Yüzlıla Ait bir Bizans Manastırı,” in First International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Symposium, Proceedings, eds. A.  Ödekan, E.  Akyürek, and N. Necipoğlu (Istanbul, 2010), 447–57. 31

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FIGURE 13.30 Mount Athos, Great Lavra Monastery, panorama of the courtyard, with the trapeza to the left and the phiale and exonarthex of the katholikon to the right (author)

FIGURE 13.31 Eighteenth-century plans of the katholikon and the trapeza, with ceremonies in progress (V. G. Barskii, 1885–87, from P. Mylonas, Vasili Gkregkorovits Mparski, 2010)

The same system of organization is found across the Balkans and into Russia. At Studenica in Serbia, for example, founded toward the end of the twelfth century, the church is centrally positioned, and with the exception of a few freestanding chapels, other monastic structures were built against the outer wall, which forms a roughly 328

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circular plan (see Figs. 22.29 and 22.30). With a cruciform church at its center, the monastic plan has been called “the cross in the circle,” and its basic features were followed across medieval Serbia.32 32 S. Popović, Krst u Krugu. Arhitektura manastira u srednjovekovnoj Srbiji (Belgrade, 1994).

FIGURE 13.32 Kisleçukuru Monastery. Left: archaeological plan: (1) katholikon; (2) entrance; (3) courtyard; (4) cells; (5) trapeza; (6) kitchen; (7) water tower; (8) reservoir; (9) cistern; (10) storeroom; (11) aqueduct; (12) road; (13) funeral chapel. Right: hypothetical reconstruction (redrawn after A. Tiryaki, “Kisleçukuru Manastırı,” 2010)

FIGURE 13.33 Soğanlı Valley, Cappadocia, Geyikli Monastery, view from the northwest (Jordan Pickett)

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FIGURE 13.34 Soğanlı Valley, Cappadocia, Geyikli Monastery, plan (author)

FIGURE 13.35 Soğanlı Valley, Cappadocia, Geyikli Monastery, interior of the trapeza, looking south (author)

Even in the Ottoman-era monasteries in Moldavia, as at Suceviţa, the church is freestanding, at the center of a rectangular fortified enclosure (see Fig. 26.41). There are also numerous well-preserved examples of monasteries in Cappadocia.33 At Göreme, 33

Ousterhout, Visualizing Community, 371–480.

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a cluster of small monastic ensembles developed in the Middle Byzantine period, each equipped with its own church or chapel and a trapeza with a rock-cut table and benches. These seem to have developed out of a cemetery at the site, with very few monks charged with tending the tombs. The Geyikli Kilise Monastery in the Soğanlı Valley includes a lavishly carved refectory, although the

other monastic spaces are irregularly disposed and the church is single aisled, covered by a barrel vault (Figs. 13.33–13.35). Planning in these examples was by necessity site specific and often similar to domestic complexes, although the identification of individual monastic cells remains problematic. The basic features of Byzantine monastic architecture, established by the Middle Byzantine period, continue into later centuries. In many examples, the narthex was expanded and enlarged, or new construction was added, to serve monastic worship. The churches on Athos witnessed a rapid elaboration of the narthex area, while in Serbia, most of the churches had a large outer narthex added at a later date (see Chap. 22). In Armenia, by the twelfth century, many monastic churches that had no narthex originally were provided with a large vestibule, called a gavit or zamatun, which would be the site of intensive architectural experimentation in the thirteenth century (discussed in Chaps. 19 and 23). In all, it

is clear that neither monastic life nor the architecture that housed it was static, as the written sources for Byzantine monasticism amply testify. The systematization of church design and monastic planning that emerges in the Middle Byzantine centuries marks both as different from their predecessors—with fixed components, small scale, and hierarchical structure. Within both, however, there was remarkable variation, depending on siting and security, levels of patronage, availability of artisans and construction materials, and the experience of the mason in charge. Indeed, in several instances, sources note that a saintly figure had directed the project and the construction was executed by monks or villagers—hardly a recipe for innovative design. Moreover, despite their similarity, churches could serve a variety of different functions: monastic, parochial, private, funerary. Monasteries could also serve a range of missions, attended by large or small congregations. In short, for both churches and monasteries, the architecture was both responsive and adaptable.

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,

SECULAR ARCHITECTURE AND THE FATE OF THE CITY

W

ith the disruptions of the Transitional Period, many Byzantine cities were reduced to villages or simply abandoned. The evidence from across the empire indicates loss of the urban infrastructure, formal spaces converted to utilitarian or industrial purposes, and an emphasis on security. Constantinople (discussed below) continued as a major center, thanks to a radical restructuring and consolidation begun in the eighth century, and there are signs of urban revival there and elsewhere after the ninth century.1 Excavations at Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, and elsewhere provide evidence of a vibrant daily life, with houses, baths, markets, fortification systems, and other urban structures. Nevertheless, For much of what follow in this chapter, see R. G. Ousterhout, “Secular Architecture,” in The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261, eds. H. Evans and W.  Wixom (New York, 1997), 193–99; and R.  G.  Ousterhout, “Houses, Markets, and Baths: Secular Architecture in Byzantium,” in Heaven & Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections, eds. A.  Drandaki, D.  Papanikola-Bakirtzi, and A.  Tourta (Athens, 2013), 211–13. See also Ch. Bouras, “City and Village: Urban Design and Architecture,” JÖB 31, no. 2 (1981): 611–53; L. Lavan, ed., Recent Research in Late Antique Urbanism, JRA Supplement 42 (Portsmouth, 2001), among many others.

1

the setting of everyday life is perhaps the most elusive aspect of Byzantine society after the ninth century. Although many examples of church architecture survive throughout the Byzantine Empire, there is frustratingly little physical evidence for houses, palaces, towns, and urban architecture—that is, beyond the rudimentary archaeological data, although this may be combined with literary descriptions, wills, and other legal documents to provide a picture of Byzantine secular architecture. The wide-scale social transformation of the Transitional Period cannot be overemphasized. In a process of ruralization, large centers were depopulated or abandoned, with a demographic shift to the countryside. Often the inhabited area of a city was reduced to its fortified acropolis or to a smaller fortified area at the city center—from city to citadel. At Ankara, Sardis, and Corinth, for example, the remainder of the ancient city was virtually abandoned. Even Constantinople witnessed something of a cultural break in this period. Its population had declined from perhaps four hundred thousand at its height at the end of the fifth century to less than one hundred thousand in the eighth century. Following the devastating plague of 747, Constantine V found it necessary

Ephesus, view looking eastward, with the ruins of the Temple of Artemis in the foreground and the hill of Ayasoluk with the Church of St. John in the distance (author) 333

to resettle peasants from Greece and the Aegean islands in the capital.2 Portions of the city fell into ruin, and public services were neglected. A cultural revival began after the middle of the eighth century, and the peaceful period of the ninth through the eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed an increase in urban populations and a reinstitution of trade and industry, although cities never achieved their former prominence. Moreover, life in the Middle Byzantine period was considerably different that it had been before. Although urban contraction doesn’t necessarily imply population decline, public social life and the engagement with public space had fundamentally changed.3 Moreover, it was a gradual change that began centuries earlier, as Byzantium was gradually transformed from a Late Antique to a medieval empire. Thus, although the period of the fourth to the sixth century had been characterized by public activity in open, urban spaces, in the subsequent period, Byzantine society often became more private and inward turning, with the home and the extended family as the dominant social focus. Architecture followed a similar course. The significant monuments of the earlier period were public in their character, integrated into the larger design of the city. The Middle Byzantine period is distinguished instead by private patronage at the expense of urban unity. Public architecture was limited almost exclusively to small churches and to defensive systems. Excavations are only beginning to reveal the changing patterns of habitation in the later Byzantine centuries.4 Some centers were apparently abandoned and resettled with new names— the older name forgotten, as, for example, ancient Abdera, which became Polystylon in its medieval incarnation, or Sparta, which was resettled as Lacedaemonia.5 Settlements that were not abandoned shrank in size, and in either case, new,

smaller circuits of fortifications were constructed, incorporating the standing remains of older buildings. Texts often refer to these as kastra (fortresses) rather than as poleis (cities). The few new towns of the period were developed because of their strategic location, either during the Transitional Period, as at Monemvasia, or during the Latin Occupation of 1204–61 or afterward, as at Mystras (see Chap.  25).6 In all examples, security was the primary concern, and urban development was completely dependent on the topography of the site. In Cappadocia, numerous new settlements date from the tenth and eleventh centuries, cut into the soft volcanic rock formations—again, the organization was governed by the natural landforms. Whether the site was old or new, defense was normally the most important consideration in urban definition. Thus, at Ephesus, the ancient center on the harbor shrank significantly during the Dark Ages and then was gradually abandoned in favor of the more easily defended hill of Ayasoluk, several kilometers inland. Its sturdy fortifications still survive, around the Church of St. John (Fig. 14.1).7 A similar pattern may be observed at Sparta, where the ancient acropolis was reinhabited beginning in the ninth century and then abandoned in the thirteenth century, when the entire settlement was relocated to Mystras, on the steep slope of a nearby hill. The site of Kastro Apalirou on Naxos provides a fascinating example of a new town, founded in the second half of the seventh century, indicative of the insecurity of island and coastal sites with the naval expansion of the Arabs (Figs. 14.2 and 14.3).8 The evidence indicates the decline of the ancient harbor center (Chora) and a movement of the population inland to more secure sites. Prospects, 1973–1987,” Byz 14 (1989): 41–58; Bouras, “City and Village,” 621–22. See Ch. Bouras, “Byzantine Cities in Greece,” Heaven & Earth: Cities and Countryside in Byzantine Greece, eds. J.  Albani and E.  Chalkia (Athens, 2013), 49–73; and other essays in the same volume, notably S.  Kalopissi-Verti, “Mistra: A Fortified Late Byzantine Settlement,” 224–39. 6

Mango, Développement urbain; Mango, “The Development of Constantinople,” 60–87; tempered by Magdalino, Constantinople Médiévale.

2

3

Brubaker, “Topography.”

See, among others, P.  Niewöhner, ed., The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia (Oxford, 2017). 4

5 Ch. Bakirtzis, “Western Thrace in the Early Christian and Byzantine Periods: Results of Archaeological Research and

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7

Ladstätter, “Ephesus.”

D. Hill, H. Roland, and K. Ødegård, “Kastro Apalirou, Naxos: A  Seventh-Century Urban Foundation,” in New Cities in Late Antiquity: Documents and Archaeology, ed. E.  Rizos (Turnhout, 2017), 281–91. 8

FIGURE 14.1 Ephesus, view looking eastward, with the ruins of the Temple of Artemis in the foreground and the hill of Ayasoluk with the Church of St. John in the distance (author)

Apalirou was built on a mountaintop, 6 kilometers from the coast, at an elevation of 485 meters, surrounded by sheer crags and steep slopes. A visit today still requires almost an hour of hiking up a rugged, 45-degree slope. Clearly defense was the critical concern. The elongated enclosure, of about 2 hectares, slopes downward from east to west, with streets parallel to the slope, crossed by stairways leading up. With no natural source of water, a series of channels collected rainwater in cisterns along the lower, west wall. The administrative and ecclesiastical center was isolated in a walled citadel filling out the northern portion of the site, where the Church of St. George is the most prominent building today. The citadel was accessed by a monumental stairway from the street along the west wall, which connected to a bent entrance to the kastro. The southern portion of the site appears to have been residential, filled with small, rectangular houses. Survey on the lower slopes beneath Kastro Apalirou are providing evidence of an agricultural hinterland.9

In many older sites, the main streets continued to function, but around them new patterns of growth emerged within the rubble of the ancient city. At Nicaea, both the cardo and the decumanus of the ancient city continued to be used, as they are today, but this is an almost unique example (Fig. 14.4).10 Rather than following the regularly defined orthogonal street systems of antiquity, the new areas of settlement in Byzantine cities were characterized by growth in a dynamic, ad hoc manner. Urban development was invariably the result of private endeavor. In their most basic forms, streets appeared as the area between private properties, varying considerably in width and direction, and they were normally unpaved and unmaintained. The new street systems also responded to the topography or to the accumulated debris of the ancient city. Such patterns have been observed in the areas of medieval settlement excavated at Corinth and Athens (Fig. 14.5).11

9 J. Crow, S. Turner, and A. Vionis, “Characterizing the Historic Landscapes of Naxos,” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 24 (2011): 111–37.

11

10 U. Peschlow, “Nicaea,” in The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia, ed. P. Niewöhner (Oxford, 2017), 203–16.

D.  Athanasoulis, “Corinth,” in Heaven & Earth: Cities and Countryside in Byzantine Greece, eds. J. Albani and E. Chalkia (Athens, 2013), 192–209; Ch. Bouras, “Byzantine Athens, 330–1453,” in

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polluting industries, such as the slaughterhouses, were moved outside the walls. Market fairs and other large gatherings must have taken place outside the walls as well. Conversely, some activities that would have been extramural in ancient times moved within the confines of the medieval city. Vegetable gardens, necessary to provide fresh produce, must have been close to the population: in Constantinople, large areas immediately within the Land Wall were devoted to gardens.12 More significantly, cemeteries and burial grounds, which had been forbidden by Roman law within the city limits, gradually penetrated the city, many of them associated with religious foundations. Another defining factor in the Byzantine city was the amount of remains of the ancient city. Standing ancient buildings could be reused, or, more likely, given new functions, and standing walls, foundations, and colonnades could be employed in new constructions. Even individual building elements, such as ashlar blocks, bricks, roofing tiles, and architectural sculptures, were reused as spolia. At Pergamon, for example, an unpretentious medieval town arose within the grand ruins of its ancient predecessor. In the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, a dense settlement developed on the slope of the hill, composed of irregular rooms and constructed almost entirely of spolia, incorporating the remains of ancient walls (Fig. 14.6).13 When he visited Pergamon, the Byzantine emperor Theodore Doukas Laskaris (1254–58) was struck by the contrast of the ancient and the medieval monuments:

FIGURE 14.2 Naxos, Kastro Apalirou, plan (author, redrawn after Norwegian Survey 2010–14; D. Hill, H. Roland, and K. Ødegård. “Kastro Apalirou,” in E. Rizos, New Cities, 2017)

Between the [ancient] buildings are low hovels, which appear, as it were, to be the remnants of the houses of the departed, and the sight of them causes much pain. For, as mouse holes are compared to the houses of today, so one might say the latter are compared to those that are being destroyed.14 Similarly, public spaces—the agoras and forums of antiquity—were abandoned and their functions replaced by streets of mixed use, with shops, workshops, and residences together. Some of the more Heaven & Earth: Cities and Countryside in Byzantine Greece, eds. J. Albani and E. Chalkia (Athens, 2013), 168–79; and Ch. Bouras, Byzantine Athens: 10th–12th Centuries (Routledge, 2017). 336

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J. Koder, “Fresh Vegetables for the Capital,” in Constantinople and Its Hinterland, eds. C. Mango and G. Dagron (Aldershot, 1995), 49–56.

12

T. Otten, “Pergamon,” in The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia, ed. P.  Niewöhner (Oxford, 2017), 226–30; C.  Rheidt, Die Stadtgrabung 2: Die byzantinische Wohnstadt, Altertümer von Pergamon 15.2 (Berlin, 1991).

13

14

For text, Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 245.

FIGURE 14.3 Naxos, Kastro Apalirou, view of the church in the citadel (author)

FIGURE 14.4 Nicaea (İznik), plan showing evidence of historic streets and monuments (after U. Peschlow, in P. Niewöhner, Archaeology of Anatolia, 2017)

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FIGURE 14.5 Corinth, plan of the forum area, eleventh to thirteenth centuries (after D. Athanasoulis, “Corinth,” in Heaven & Earth, 2013)

Another element necessary to the city was water. Roman cities were well equipped with a system of aqueducts for the public distribution of water.15 With the declining urban populations, most fell into disrepair. The aqueducts supplying Constantinople and Thessalonike were maintained only with difficulty. A few new aqueducts were constructed in the Middle Byzantine period, as at Thebes, and an extensive hydraulic system was developed in some parts of Cappadocia as well. Elsewhere, as at Corinth and Bursa, natural springs solved the water problem. In most cases, however, public systems of waterworks were replaced by private ones, with wells or small cisterns to collect rainwater. 15

Crow, Bardill, and Bayliss, Water Supply.

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An essential feature of Roman urban life, public baths were still functioning in Late Antiquity, and new ones were constructed as spaces for hygiene, sports, and cultural entertainment. Christians often were uneasy with public bathing, however, because of associations with paganism, vice, and superstition.16 This brought about a change in bathing and bath construction. In fact, already in Roman times small neighborhood baths or private baths were far more common than the grand imperial foundations. Issues of privacy led to the demise of the common bathing pool, which was replaced by individual tubs. Moreover, with See discussion by Saradi, Byzantine City, 325–43; F.  Yegül, Bathing in the Roman World (New York, 2010), 181–98; A. Berger, Das Bad in der byzantinischen Zeit (Munich, 1982).

16

FIGURE 14.6 Pergamon, reconstruction of a Byzantine neighborhood and a house (K. Rheidt, Stadtgrabungen, 1991)

changes in the economy, it grew increasingly difficult for great baths to be maintained. Most new constructions were on a small scale. The sixth-century bath building excavated in the Panagia Field at Corinth is a good example (Fig. 14.7A).17 Measuring less than 8 by 18 meters overall, the apodyterium or dressing room was entered from the north and fills half the area. The frigidarium, or cold room, is long and thin, with bathing tubs in its apsidal ends. The heated rooms are considerably smaller, sitting above hypocausts along the southern side. The tepidarium is a simple rectangle, and the caldarium is less than 2.5 meters square, with rectangular niches containing bathing tubs. It is hard to imagine the facilities being used by more than three or four people at once. Similar small baths have been excavated at Athens, Philippi, Messenia, Thessalonike, and elsewhere. This type of small bath continued to be built and 17 G. D. R. Sanders, “A Late Roman Bath at Corinth. Excavations in the Panayia Field, 1995–1996,” Hesperia 68 (1999): 441–80.

used throughout the Byzantine centuries. A small bath excavated at Sparta, dated to the twelfth or thirteenth century, measures 5.8 by 10.5 meters overall, resting above hypocausts, its central room perhaps domed, expanded by recesses containing tubs.18 A larger example of a neighborhood bath of similar date survives in Thessalonike, where it was in use until 1940 (Figs. 14.7B and 14.8).19 With a ground plan measuring 12.5 by 17.5 meters, it has an apodyterium, tepidarium, and caldarium of two bays each, as well as a water storage tank. Interiors are barrel vaulted, with the exception of the caldarium, which is covered by a dome and a groin vault. 18 Ch. Bouras, “Ena byzantine loutro ste Lakedaimonia,” ArchE (1982): 99–112.

A. Xyngopoulos, “Byzantinos loutron en Thessalonike,” Epeteris Philosophikes Skoles Panepistemiou Thessalonikes 5 (1940): 83–97; R.-S. Tripsiani-Omirou, “Byzantine Baths. Thessaloniki, Greece,” in Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500, and Its Preservation, eds. S. Ćurčić and E. Hadjitryphonos (Thessaloniki, 1997), 314–17.

19

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FIGURE 14.7 Corinth, bath complex in the Panagia Field, plans; (B) Thessalonike, Byzantine bath, plan (author, redrawn after G. Sanders, courtesy of ASCSA; and Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities)

FIGURE 14.8 Thessalonike, Byzantine bath complex, view (author)

Another elusive element is the administrative apparatus of the city. Although it was housed in a variety of buildings in Antiquity, by the Byzantine period, the civic administration was normally concentrated in the residence of the governor, who was often a military appointment, and within its churches. The governor’s palace was usually located in the acropolis or in the most 340

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secure part of the city, and it might include rooms for special purposes, such as the treasury, lodging for troops, and the prison.20 Churches could be used for civic meetings, and after the sixth century, standards for weights and measures were kept in a church as well. 20

Bouras, “City and Village,” 645–46.

14.9  Armatova (Elis), recon­ struction of a country house (S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

figure 14.10  Athens, excavation plan of a Byzantine neighborhood near the Agora (author, redrawn after ASCSA)

figure

The houses of Byzantium have left few remains. Those of the lower classes hold little architectural interest: Nikolaos Mesarites described village houses made of reeds plastered with mud and covered with thatched roofs. A few are known from excavation, such as a simple country house at Armatova in Elis (Peloponnesos), composed of small rectangular rooms and a porch (Fig. 14.9). Houses of Late Antiquity reveal little difference from their classical predecessors. The simplest arrangement had rooms arrayed around a courtyard or peristyle, with rooms facing inward, away from the street (see Chap. 7). Similar domestic organizations endured into the Middle Byzantine centuries, although on more modest scales. Good examples are found at Corinth (see Fig. 14.5, no. 23).21 Two neighboring houses of the tenth to twelfth centuries near the South Stoa center on courtyards with wells and ovens, surrounded by rooms and storerooms, which communicated with the courtyard but rarely directly with each other. Similar domestic neighborhoods have been excavated in Athens (Figs. 14.10 and 14.11). Because of the nature of the remains, it is often R. Scranton, Medieval Architecture in Central Corinth, Corinth 16 (Princeton, 1957); D. Athanasoulis, “Corinth,” in Heaven & Earth: Cities and Countryside in Byzantine Greece, eds. J.  Albani and E. Chalkia (Athens, 2013), 192–209.

21 



difficult to distinguish one house from another or to determine whether spaces were roofed or unroofed. At Pergamon, the houses consist of several rooms, often with a portico, arranged around a courtyard set off the irregular pattern of alleys and cul-de-sacs (see Fig.14.6). Often in houses of the period, one room is larger than the others for the main daily activities. Similar house forms have been excavated in Thebes, Athens, and Pergamon.22 Not all houses were equipped with courtyards, however, and others were isolated blocks or had their rooms organized in a linear fashion. Although offering a small degree of comfort and efficiency, virtually no concern for esthetics is evident. By the fourteenth century, detached one- and two-story houses are common, as found at Geraki, and similar forms were developed at Mystras (discussed in Chap. 25).23 In two-story houses, the lower level Ch. Bouras, “Houses in Byzantium,” DChAE 11 (1982–83): 1–26; see also C. Rheidt, “Byzantinische Wohnhäuser des 11. bis 14. Jahrhunderts in Pergamon,” DOP 44 (1990): 195–204.

22 

For Geraki, see A.  M.  Simatou and R.  Christodoulopoulou, “Observations on the Medieval Settlement of Geraki,” DChAE 15 (1989–90): 67–88; for Mystras, see A. K. Orlandos, “Ta palatia kai ta spitia tou Mystra,” ArchBME 3 (1937): 3–144; also Bouras,

23 

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FIGURE 14.11 Athens, view of current excavation of Byzantine houses (author)

served as stables and storage, with the upper level usually a single room for all family activities. Because much of its architecture was rock cut, the region of Cappadocia preserves a variety of residential architecture, ranging from individual houses to entire villages.24 While the hovels of the poor are nondescript, several settlements preserve upscale residences that may reflect contemporaneous urban architectural forms. The characteristic housing types center on a courtyard carved into the cliff, with rooms organized around three sides, a portico along the main façade, and a chapel set to the side. Often a hall—the main formal room of the complex—is given special articulation, and a smaller, cruciform hall may also be included as well. The kitchen, with a conical vault and a chimney, is set to one side. Many include cisterns, storerooms, stables, and dovecotes. “Houses in Byzantium,” esp. 16–20; L. Sigalos, “Housing People in Medieval Greece,” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 7 (2003): 195–221. 24

Ousterhout, Visualizing Community, esp. 271–368.

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The courtyard complex known as Hallaç Manastırı, near Ortahisar, provides a good example of a large residence, with halls, portico, kitchen, storerooms, dovecotes, and a chapel (Figs. 14.12 and 14.13). Settlements with similar architectural complexes have been studied at Çanlı Kilise, Soğanlı Valley, Açıksaray, and Selime. In these, the building block for social and community organization was the oikos—that is, the elite household, which could form the centerpiece of a neighborhood, enveloped by subsidiary structures, smaller residences, agricultural facilities, and other dependencies, no doubt with land holdings at some distance as well. Although middle- and lower-class residences would have included little embellishment, those of the upper class could have been decorated with marble floors and revetments, as well as with mosaics or frescoes. Wealthy estates in the countryside may have been fortified, such as that described in the twelfth-century romance Digenes Akritas, which was surrounded by gardens and defended by walls and towers and also included a

FIGURE 14.12 Ortahisar (near), Hallaç Manastırı, plan (author)

FIGURE 14.13 Ortahisar (near), Hallaç Manastırı, view looking northeast (author)

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bathhouse and a church; the main building is said to have been decorated with biblical and classical figures.25 The salon of a provincial magistrate at Eski Gümüş in Cappadocia was decorated with paintings of Aesop’s fables.26 Carpets and wall hangings were not uncommon, and there was sometimes a taste for Islamic decorative features. The contents of the houses would have been relatively rudimentary, except for those of the upper classes.27 Simpler residences would have had rubble or wooden benches permanently fixed against the walls to provide for sitting, eating, and sleeping. Only the wealthy would have had moveable furniture, such as tables, chairs, or frame beds. Meals were eaten while seated, from common dishes, apparently with the hands—except for the upper classes, who had cutlery. Only at special ceremonial banquets did diners recline on couches in the antique manner. Bedding, particularly if it was silk, was often among the most valuable items in the home. Chests would have provided storage for household objects, and storerooms would have been equipped with pithoi and amphoras for the storage of foodstuffs and liquids. Legal documents also mention bathing equipment, kitchenware and serving dishes, garments, and icons among household possessions. Books were luxury items, available only to the well-to-do, but surprisingly, they are mentioned in wills more often than weapons, which are strikingly rare. Market buildings were common in Greek and Roman cities, many continuing to be used into Late Antiquity. Tabernae appeared along the Mese of Constantinople; new macella, or market buildings, appeared there as well.28 In many locations, these fell out of use: in Philippi, for example, the macellum had been demolished already in the sixth century and replaced by Basilica  B.  New shops also appear on the streets of Athens and Sardis in Late Antiquity, while older shops were repaired in Thessalonike, Thasos, and elsewhere. 25 E. Jeffreys, ed. and trans., Digenis Akritis: The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions (Cambridge, 1998), 209. 26

Ousterhout, Visualizing Community, 288–93.

N. Oikonomides, “The Contents of the Byzantine House from the Eleventh to the Fifteenth Centuries,” DOP 44 (1990): 205–14.

27

M.  M.  Mango, “The Commercial Map of Constantinople,” DOP 54 (2000): 189–207.

28

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For later centuries, the physical settings become more difficult to reconstruct. The commercial area continued to be called the agora and was often situated along the main thoroughfare. In Thessalonike, it lay near the Kassandreotike Gate; in Rhodes, it was near the intersection of the old cardo and decumanus. Archaeologists have identified shops at Corinth, Athens, Pergamon, and elsewhere, but none is well preserved. The best example may be at Preslav, where a commercial square and eighteen modular shops were excavated in the southwest part of the city.29 Temporary markets could have been organized in any open space, often outside the walls, as at Mystras or Rhodes. Trade fairs could be coordinated with the feast days of saints, as occurred with the panegyris of St. John at Ephesus, St. Eugenios at Trebizond, or St. Demetrius in Thessalonike.30 Constantinople. Throughout the period under discussion, the Byzantine capital remained unique in its urban character, appreciated by contemporaries for its wealth, its size, its paved streets, and the presence of the imperial court. By the sixth century, it was both rich and evocative, firmly grounded both as an imperial capital and as a sacred city, situated within the broader context of world history and Roman mythology.31 Then things began to change. Ravaged by the plague in the sixth century, the city witnessed a severe decline and transformation in the Dark Ages of the seventh and eighth centuries. In the early centuries, its inhabitants had relied upon imported food and water—that is, a trading network with ships, harbors, and warehouses, as well 29 For an overview, see L. Lavan, “From Polis to Emporion? Retail and Regulation in the Late Antique City,” in Trade and Markets in Byzantium, ed. C.  Morrisson (Washington, DC, 2012), 333–77; I. Jordanov, “Preslav,” in The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, ed. A.  Laiou (Washington, DC, 2002), 667–71, esp. 668 and fig. 2; also I.  Changova, “Tŭrgovskite pomesteniia krai iuznata krepostna stena na Preslav,” Izvestiia na arkheologicheskiia Institut 22 (1957): 233–90.

S.  Vryonis, “The Panegyris of the Byzantine Saint,” in The Byzantine Saint, ed. S. Hackel (London, 1981), 196–227; A. Laiou, “Händler und Kaufleute auf dem Jahrmarkt,” in Fest und Alltag in Byzanz, ed. G. Prinzing and D. Simon (Munich 1990), 53–70.

30

31 For what follows, see R. G. Ousterhout, “Constantinople and the Construction of a Medieval Urban Identity,” in The Byzantine World, ed. P. Stephenson (London, 2010), 334–51.

as aqueducts, fountains, and cisterns. The population declined dramatically after the seventh century, shrinking to a fraction of its former size. Prior to the Arab siege of 717–18, Anastasius II expelled all inhabitants who could not lay in a three-year supply of provisions.32 One result of the de-urbanization of the Dark Ages and one measure of the transformation is that the great public works characteristic of a Late Antique city either fell into ruin or were transformed in function. For example, the Forum of Constantine, which continued to be an important landmark, became the main emporium for the city, surrounded by the quarters of artisans. In the ninth century, Basil I built a church there, dedicated to the Virgin, having observed that the workers lacked both a place of spiritual refuge and somewhere to go to get out of the rain. This suggests not only that the church had replaced all other centers of social gathering, but also that its arcades and porticoes no longer existed or had been filled in. Elsewhere in the city, we are told, the Forum of Theodosius became the market for livestock, and further fora were similarly transformed. The rule of Constantine V (reg. 741–775) may mark the turning point in the city’s fortunes—the point at which Constantinople became a medieval city.33 Born during the Arab siege of 717–18, he was the son of Leo III, who had instituted the ban on images in 726. Constantine V was probably the most reviled of the Iconoclast emperors, but his interventions allowed Constantinople to continue. He rebuilt the Land Walls immediately following the devastating earthquake of 740, as the numerous inscriptions testify. He also rebuilt the aqueduct system, which had been out of service for more than a century. Completed in 766, the scope of the work suggests this was not simply the so-called Aqueduct of Valens inside the city, but also the long system of channels and bridges extending deep into Thrace.34 Constantine V also reorganized the urban core of the city, 32

Mango, Le développement.

P.  Magdalino, “Constantine V and the Middle Age of Constantinople,” in Studies on the History and Topography of Byzantine Constantinople (Aldershot, 2007), 1–24.

concentrating trade at the Harbor of Julian, and repopulated it following the plague outbreak of 746–47. Building activity in Constantinople continued under Constantine’s Iconoclast successors. Further repairs to the Land Walls were carried out under Leo IV and Constantine VI, Leo V, and Theophilos. The last is best known for the construction of palaces and additions to the Great Palace, but he also had the Sea Wall and Golden Horn Wall rebuilt, as the numerous surviving inscriptions testify (Fig. 14.14). The number of recorded inscriptions from the Golden Horn alone (sixteen in all) suggests the revival of commercial activity in that area. The claim of one inscription that Theophilos had “renewed the city” might not be far from the truth, but it is best seen as one stage in a century-long program of urban revival, beginning with Constantine V and extending into the reign of Basil I. By the twelfth century, the population of Constantinople had rebounded and may have been as high as four hundred thousand. Clearly, the city still impressed foreign visitors. Fulcher of Chartres wrote admiringly ca. 1100, O how great is that noble and beautiful city! How many monasteries, how many palaces there are, fashioned in a wonderful way! How many wonders there are to be seen in the squares and in the different parts of the city! I cannot bring myself to tell in detail what great masses there are of every commodity: of gold, for example, of silver . . . and relics of saints.35 Constantinople also retained many of the great monuments of the fourth through sixth centuries; its spacious main streets, its forums bedecked with triumphal monuments, and its basilicas and public buildings formed the backbone of the medieval city, and they continued to function throughout the Middle Byzantine period—if perhaps in a diminished capacity. Enough grandeur survived for emperors of the ninth and tenth centuries to stage imperial triumphs in the antique manner.

33

C. Mango and R. Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor (Oxford, 1997), 607–609.

34

J. P. A. van der Vin, Travellers to Greece and Constantinople: Ancient Monuments and Old Traditions in Medieval Travellers’ Tales, 2nd vol. (Leiden, 1980), 503–504.

35

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FIGURE 14.14 Constantinople, Sea Wall, with a marble inscription of Theophilos (author)

At the heart of the city, the Great Palace, the Hippodrome, and the church of Hagia Sophia were maintained, although by the twelfth century, the Blachernai Palace, located at the northern corner of the city, had become the primary imperial residence. The area nearest the walls remained largely uninhabited, with the densest area of settlement toward the end of the peninsula. Major harbors, emporia, and the foreign trading colonies lay along the Golden Horn. New construction of the Middle Byzantine period was privately financed and controlled, and what might be regarded as public buildings—baths, docks, warehouses, hospitals, and orphanages— were frequently controlled by the monasteries. Moreover, new buildings were often of wood rather than of stone. With the increase in prosperity in the period, private estates grew in size and prominence, and by the twelfth century, the great, privately endowed monasteries and the mansions of the wealthy—the oikoi (households)—had become the distinguishing landmarks of the city. Odo of Deuil, who visited and disliked 346

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Constantinople in 1147, described elegant palaces with lavish decoration, but noted, The city itself is squalid and fetid and in many places harmed by permanent darkness, for the wealthy overshadow the streets with buildings and leave these dirty, dark places to the poor and to travelers; there murders and robberies and other crimes which love darkness are committed.36 While his complaints sound like those of any small-town visitor to any large city, his description suggests that many urban amenities were not maintained. In Constantinople, at least, multistoried residences something like the Roman insulae still existed. In the twelfth century, the poet John Tzetzes describes living in a three-storied tenement, with a priest, his children, and pigs above him and hay stored by a farmer on the ground floor below 36

Van der Vin, Travellers to Greece and Constantinople, vol. 2, 518–21.

him. The great mansions became the urban foci of Constantinople, each housing an extended family and their retainers in a sprawling network of buildings and social connections—and they were also the centers of vast economic networks. The oikos became the dominant social organization of the city.37 By the eleventh century, the monumentality of early forms was commonly replaced by complexity. The mansion of the eleventh-century historian Michael Attaliates consisted of several buildings connected by a common courtyard; it had an upper floor that projected over the courtyard, a chapel, and a three-storied dwelling with a donkey-driven mill on ground floor. None of these oikoi, with their mansions, courtyards, chapels, and gardens, survives, but perhaps some measure of their appearance can be gained from a document detailing the 1203 concession to the Genoese of the Palace of Botaniates, a sprawling, walled complex that included gatehouses, two churches, courtyards, reception halls, dining halls, residential units, terraces, pavilions, stables, a granary, vaulted substructures, cisterns, a bath complex, and rental properties.38 Such mansions are often described as “a city within a city” or as “resembling cities in magnitude and not at all unlike imperial palaces in splendor.” Much of the above discussion relies by necessity on textual evidence, but the surviving monuments may also provide some sense of Constantinople as a city in transition—not static and fixed in time, but dramatic and changing. Although we have little evidence for either the maintenance or the elaboration of the urban matrix, the transformation of specific monuments may be seen as reflecting the changing nature of the city as a whole. In this respect, the close analysis of surviving buildings may be informative. For example, the Church of St. Euphemia at the Hippodrome has already been introduced (see Figs. 8.9 and 8.10). It began its life in the early fifth century as the ceremonial hall of the palace built of a high court 37 P.  Magdalino, “The Byzantine Aristocratic Oikos,” in The Byzantine Aristocracy IX–XIII Centuries, ed. M.  Angold (Oxford, 1984), 92–111, esp. 102–105. 38 M.  Angold, “The Inventory of the So-Called Palace of Botaniates,” in The Byzantine Aristocracy IX–XIII Centuries, ed. M. Angold (Oxford, 1984), 254–66.

official named Antiochus. The palace was confiscated around 436, and its hexagonal hall was eventually converted into a church, dedicated to a local saint, Euphemia, whose main shrine lay in Chalcedon.39 In the troubled seventh century, when the Asian shore was threatened by Persian attack, the relics of Euphemia were removed for safekeeping, either in 615 or 626. The conversion of the triclinium, however, may have been as late as the 796, when a restoration is recorded. Once Euphemia was established near the Hippodrome, tombs and mausolea were added around the building as her cult grew in importance. In the late thirteenth century following the Latin Occupation, the church was restored once again and redecorated with a cycle of paintings chronicling the life of Euphemia. Each step in the transformation of the site had important reflections in the transformation of the city around it. Antiochos’s palace lay in a position indicative of his political importance. The emphasis on ceremonial spaces reflects the ritualization of daily life among the aristocracy in Late Antiquity; Antiochos, as the charges against him suggest, was living like an emperor. The conversion of the palace into a place of Christian worship reflects the rising power of the church, which gradually took over many official duties of the state administration and assumed a role in civic governance. Similarly, the incorporation of the saint’s relics reflects both the reduction in scale of the city during the Dark Ages and its increasingly sacred character. While Euphemia’s original martyrium in Chalcedon seems to have fallen off the historical record, the relocation of her sanctuary at the very center of the city accords with the functional and ideological redefinition of the city in the early Middle Ages. A restoration at the end of the eighth century would fit with the urban revival under the efforts of Constantine V and his successors. The addition of burials around the church marks a fundamental transformation in the character of the city, as intramural burials became increasingly common, often set in relationship to sacred space or sacred objects. Finally, the redecoration of the church in the late thirteenth century represents the attempt to reassert the city’s sanctity in the wake of the Latin Occupation, when many of its 39

Naumann and Belting, Die Euphemia-Kirche.

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FIGURE 14.15 Kalenderhane Camii site plan, showing the development through the Byzantine period (after C. L. Striker and Y. D. Kuban, Kalenderhane, 1997)

holy shrines were plundered. As a defender of Orthodoxy whose shrine lay at the heart of the city, Euphemia would have gained new resonance against the backdrop of Late Byzantine attempts for a union with the Church of Rome (to be discussed further in Chap. 24). We can witness a similar history of transformation at the Kalenderhane Camii (Theotokos Kryiotissa), thanks to its careful excavation, which identified six major construction phases at the site following the construction of the Aqueduct of Valens, which forms its northern boundary (Fig. 14.15).40 The historical development represents responses to preexisting site conditions, as older components were incorporated into new structures. The site developed from a small bath erected ca. 400 into an increasingly complex agglomeration with two churches set side by side at different angles. It is unclear when the north church fell out of use; as it survives, the south church represents a major period of construction ca. 1195–1204. Rapidly built and expensively furnished, it incorporated a variety of older vaulted components. Thanks to its odd angle at the connection to the aqueduct, we can begin to get some sense of an urban grid and the relationship of building to it. The Myrelaion Palace underwent a similar transformation through its long history.41 Here we may see that accompanying the changes in Striker and Kuban, The Kalenderhane in Istanbul: The Buildings, 32–100.

40

41

Striker, Myrelaion, 13–16.

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patronage, there was often a change in scale (see Fig. 13.5). From the first phase of construction on the site, an enormous rotunda survives. This seems to have been the vestibule of a Late Antique urban palace. In the early tenth century, the walls of the rotunda were filled in with a colonnaded cistern to form a platform for the construction of the family palace of the emperor Romanos Lekapenos. The general plan of the palace may be reconstructed as a Π-shaped building with a central portico opening onto a courtyard. Except for the palace chapel, all components of Romanos’s palace were built on the area taken up solely by the entry vestibule of its predecessor. The chapel was built as a private family chapel; its design is elegant, and it was lavishly decorated, but the dome of the Myrelaion is barely 10 feet in diameter—a dramatic contrast to the 100-foot dome of Hagia Sophia. Shortly after it was constructed, the entire Myrelaion Palace was converted into a nunnery. This change corresponds to the rise of monasticism, which became an essential element in Byzantine society. In addition, the change tells us something about the organization of Byzantine monasticism, for no major remodeling was necessary. The structure within a monastic community, it seems, was similar to that of an aristocratic household, and the architectural setting could be similar as well. At the upper levels of society, both consisted of a closed social group, hierarchically organized, with servants, retainers, properties, and economic interests. The conversion of secular properties was a matter of concern in the Middle

FIGURE 14.16 Constantinople, Boukoleon Palace, reconstructed plan (author, after C. Mango, CahArch, 1997)

Byzantine period, resulting in an attempt to provide a legal definition of a monastery and to protect the small property owner from the threat of takeover. The Council of Constantinople of 861, for example, spoke against the founding of monasteries in private houses, although it may not have had much effect. The Myrelaion Chapel was intended from the beginning to be the burial place of Romanos and his family, and he had sarcophagi brought for that purpose. Whatever his motivation, by the early eleventh century it had become de rigueur for the emperor to found an urban monastery as a setting for burial. The rising importance of privileged burials within the city is seen in the Late Byzantine period as well, when the substructures of the Myrelaion Chapel were refurbished to house extensive aristocratic burials.42 The ad hoc nature of the burials, set within a preexisting architectural space, parallels the retrofitted burials 42

Striker, Myrelaion, 29–31.

in the narthexes of the Chora Monastery, where they began to appear within a few decades of the reconstruction by Theodore Metochites, ca. 1316–31 (discussed in Chap. 24). Also emphasizing the change in scale, the socalled Boukoleon Palace represents the reduced core of the Great Palace, as it was enclosed by a fortification wall by Nikephoros Phokas in the tenth century (Figs. 14.16–14.18).43 This area— distant from Hagia Sophia—comprised the ceremonial core of the palace during the medieval centuries and did not include the famed mosaic peristyle, the Chalke Gate, the Magnaura, or many other of the important ceremonial spaces of Late Antiquity. It enclosed the audience hall known as the Chrysotriklinos and the famed Pharos Church, as well as the Seljuk-style pavilion known as the Mouchroutas. Sometimes erroneously called the Müller-Wiener, Bildkexikon, 225–28; C. Mango, “The Palace of the Bukoleon,” CahArch 45 (1997): 41–50; J. Bardill, “The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors and the Walker Trust Excavations,” JRA 12 (1999): 216–30. 43

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FIGURE 14.17 Constantinople, Boukoleon Palace, sea façade, view of great hall (author)

FIGURE 14.18 Constantinople, Boukoleon Palace, sea façade reconstructed (Tayfun Öner)

“Palace of Justinian,” it may follow the model of a Late Antique seaside palace, but it was constructed entirely of spolia—and a very mixed batch at that. The line of the fortification wall may be traced in the foundations of various buildings in the neighborhood, including the remnants of a fortified gate, 350

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which faced eastward. The fortification transformed the Great Palace from a sprawling villa to a fortified enclosure. The next step in the medievalization of the imperial residence was to remove it from the center altogether at the end of the eleventh century, when it was replaced by the Blachernai Palace

in the northern corner of the Constantinople—a citadel within the city.

, What is evident from this brief survey is that life continued after Antiquity, on altered but nevertheless vibrant terms. To a large extent, the difficulty faced by the architectural historian addressing

post-Antique urbanism is the nature of the remains, which are neither substantial nor particularly attractive, and they often fall into the purview of the archaeologist, the social historian, or particularly the text-based historian. I have attempted here to incorporate the different types of data into a synthesis that foregrounds the physical remains—that is, while considering all the evidence, suggesting ways we might use it to form a more vivid image of cities and settlements and their component parts.

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

,

CONSTANTINOPLE AS AN ARCHITECTURAL CENTER

A

s Constantinople emerged from the Transitional Period, it continued to be a major center for architectural developments, although it stood as the capital of a changed empire. From a purely practical perspective, it was perhaps the only urban center with the scale, income, and patronage to maintain architectural workshops as a fixed part of the workforce—and one that required control by the state, as the tenth-century Book of the Eparch suggests.1 Architectural production had continued through the previous centuries, as documented for the repairs to the city walls, water system, and other infrastructure projects suggest (as discussed in Chap. 14). Moreover, Constantinople also benefitted from architectural developments in its hinterland, notably the monastic centers in Bithynia. As the major entrepôt of the era, Constantinople and its architecture must be understood from an international perspective of import and export, its workshops adopting, adapting, developing, and disseminating architectural forms from across the empire. The role of Constantinople as a center can be approached from a variety perspectives: (1) in 1 See the discussion in Ousterhout, Master Builders, 49–50; J. Koder, ed. and trans., To Eparchikon Biblion (Vienna, 1991).

terms of the standardization of design, construction, and decoration within the workshops of the capital; (2) in terms of the import of new architectural ideas from foreign sources and their adaptation to Constantinopolitan standards; and (3) in terms of the export of Constantinopolitan architectural forms, either by the direct input of traveling masons or more generally by “influence,” or what we might better call “prestige bias.” In the case of Constantinople, the prominence of the emperor and his court set standards for patronage and for the use of symbolic forms both within the capital and beyond, something perhaps most apparent in the growing significance of privileged burials (as will be discussed below). We should begin with a caveat: less than 5 percent of the churches recorded in texts survive, and of those that do, almost all were converted to mosques during the Ottoman period, and many fell into ruin or disappeared before they could be properly recorded. Many of those still standing have undergone radical restorations that have destroyed much of the original detail and decoration. Only a very few have been studied archaeologically. Thus, recovering the architectural “style” of Constantinople remains a challenge to scholars.

Constantinople, Theotokos Kyriotissa (Kalenderhane Camii), view from the northwest (author) 353

The workshops of Constantinople established a distinctive architectural vocabulary, which is evident in design, construction, and details.2 As the cross-in-square became the standard church type across the empire, for example, the masons of the capital developed their own specific version of it: Constantinopolitan churches almost invariably have a narthex preceding the naos and a tripartite sanctuary extending to the east of the nine-bayed naos. In the elevation, a pyramidal massing of forms culminates in a tall, centrally positioned dome, raised on a drum. Numerous flourishes appear in the plans, such curved recesses terminating the narthexes and triconch or tetraconch plans for the pastophoria. Two characteristics of the building type are distinctive to Constantinople and may be good indicators of the impact of the capital elsewhere: (1) structural clarity and (2) the use of natural illumination. As already discussed in relation to the Myrelaion Church, the exterior is articulated with supports that mark the structural divisions of the interior, with corresponding pilasters on the interior walls (see Figs. 13.2–13.5). Combined with the massing of volumes, they allow the viewer to “read” the building, with its spatial organization evident from the exterior. The lateral façades of the naos are detailed with the large central arch of the cross arm framed by the lower, smaller arches of the corner bays. Most other Middle Byzantine Constantinopolitan façades have pilasters rather than half-columns, but the system is similar; the building is strengthened where necessary, in a system that concentrates loads at critical points rather than on solid walls. Within this system, the vaults (except for the dome) are often groin vaults, the form of which similarly transfers the thrusts to the corners. Thus, the wall surface between the piers could be reduced in thickness or opened up to large areas of fenestration without compromising the structure. The lightness of the structural system and concomitant openness hark back to the radically innovative system seen at Justinian’s Hagia Sophia several centuries earlier. At the Myrelaion, the lunettes of the cross arms were originally filled by thermal windows, each subdivided by two mullions, For documentation and illustration, see Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon; T. F. Mathews, The Byzantine Churches of Istanbul; and most recently Marinis, Architecture and Ritual. 2

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with two zones of windows below, the lowest within tall arcades, with window openings above closure panels, set between tall mullions supporting stilted arches. Minor bays similarly had window openings above closure panels. The openness of the walls is complemented by the openness of the dome, raised on a tall drum, with a substantial window in each of its eight facets. Much of the original openness of the Myrelaion has been lost in subsequent restorations and rebuilding, as window openings were blocked or reduced in size. A similar system was found at the Theotokos Church at the Monastery tou Libos, similar in scale, plan, and date (Figs. 15.1–15.3; and see Fig. 13.22). At the Theotokos Church, the façade window system is two zoned, with the lunette window above an arcade with stilted arches. In all examples, the main apse is faceted, opened by a large tripartite window. Stilted arches appear elsewhere as well, on the exterior and in the interior, part of a desire for increased verticality. By the twelfth century, several variations of tripartite window forms have replaced the thermal window in the lunette: sometimes three parallel arches, the latter two slightly lower than the central one, or the central arch framed by quadrant arches. Similar details appear in churches ascribed to the eleventh century, as at the now destroyed church known as Șeyh Murat Mescidi or that known as the Vefa Kilise Camii (Figs.15.4–15.6; and see Fig. 13.10A).3 The former had two zones of fenestration in the cross arm, with a thermal window in the lunette. The latter has apsidal terminations in the narthex and triconch plans for the pastophoria. It similarly preserves the lunette windows in the cross arms, originally above stilted arcades, with a large tripartite window in the faceted apse. While the identity of the church is unknown, many of the same features appear in the Eski Imaret Camii, often identified as the Theotokos Pantepoptes, built by Anna Dalassena (mother of Alexios I Komnenos) before 1087, as the katholikon of a women’s monastery, to which she subsequently retired (Figs. 15.7 and 15.8).4 E. Ivison, “The Șeyh Murat Mescidi at Constantinople,” BSA 85 (1990): 79–87; V.  Sedov, Kilise Dzhami: stolichnaia arkhitektura Vizantii (Moscow, 2008).

3

4

Marinis, Architecture and Ritual.

FIGURE 15.1 Constantinople, Theotokos tou Libos, north church, seen from the southeast (author)

At both the Theotokos tou Libos and the Pantepoptes, unusual elements in the design may be related to its monastic function: at the former, the multiplication of chapels would have provided additional space for private devotions; at the latter, a gallery, or katechoumena, rises above the narthex. Similar forms appear in the tenth-century katholika

of Mt. Athos, where they seem to be reserved for the use of the founder or the hegoumenos of the monastery.5 The gallery at the Pantepoptes has a large tripartite window opening in its central bay overlooking the naos, as well as small, isolated 5

Stanković, “At the Threshold of the Heavens.”

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FIGURE 15.2 Constantinople, Theotokos tou Libos, (A) hypothetical north façade elevation; (B) reconstruction with five domes (V. Marinis, Architecture and Liturgy, 2014; and A. H. S. Megaw, DOP, 1964)

FIGURE 15.4 Constantinople, ruined church known as Șeyh Murat Mescidi, south façade (from A. G. Paspates, Byzantinai meletai, 1877)

FIGURE 15.3 Constantinople, Theotokos tou Libos, prothesis, view into the vault, showing the quatrefoil design emphasized by the cornices (V. Marinis, Architecture and Liturgy, 2014)

FIGURE 15.5 Constantinople, church known as Vefa Kilise Camii, east façade; the apse window originally had three lights, separated by mullions, now partially blocked (author)

chambers above the corner compartments of the naos, opening off the lateral bays, each with a small window into the naos. These were likely used as 356

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private devotional spaces by the founders. There is no internal access to the gallery, although the south window extends to the floor level and may have provided access from external stairs or an adjacent building. In both, the careful integration of subsidiary spaces into the overall design is characteristic of Constantinopolitan architecture. The elusive quincunx. The term quincunx has occasionally been applied to the cross-in-square church type.6 A quincunx is the five-spot pattern on a die, with one central dot and four on the diagonals (⚄). It may be more correctly associated with a Middle Byzantine five-domed church than with a simple cross-in-square. Much of the discussion centers on the lost Nea Ekklesia (New Church) at the 6 Introduced by K.  J.  Conant, A Brief Commentary on Early Medieval Church Architecture (Baltimore, 1942), 15.

Great Palace in Constantinople, built by Basil I dedicated to Christ, along with Gabriel, Elijah, the Theotokos, and St. Nicholas and exuberantly described in his Vita (Life), with much attention given to costly materials and decorative features. A single sentence is devoted to its architectural form, and this has generated much discussion: “Its roof, consisting of five domes, gleams with gold and is resplendent with beautiful images as with stars, while on the outside it is adorned with brass that resembles gold.”7 It has disappeared without a trace although an odd, multidomed structure in Onofrio Panvinio’s view of the city is often associated with it (see Fig. 2.4).8 How should it be reconstructed? The most common suggestion is as a cross-in-square, with domes above the corner compartments.9 In this configuration, it could have been the model for several provincial churches, such as the Palaia Episkopi at Tegea in the Peloponnese (Fig. 15.9A), which adds five domes above a conservative or “transitional” cross-in square plan, or the Cattolica at Stilo in Calabria (Fig. 15.9B), and the multidomed churches of Kievan Rus’, discussed in later chapters.10 It could also have been a cross-domed church with the domed naos framed by four domed chapels, as, for example, at the Panagia Kosmosoteira at Ferai or St. Panteleimon at Nerezi (Fig. 15.9C), both of which had close connections with the capital (discussed below). While in the sixth century the domed bay was used as a modular unit, more commonly in Middle Byzantine architecture a dome marked a separate functional space; the 7 Chronographiae quae Theophanis Continuati nomine fertur Liber quo Vita Basilii imperatoris amplectitur, ed. I.  Ševčenko (Berlin, 2011), 272–78; P. Magdalino, “Observations on the Nea Ekklesia of Basil I,” JÖB 37 (1987): 56–57; R.  G.  Ousterhout, “Reconstructing Ninth-Century Constantinople,” in Byzantium in the Ninth Century: Dead or Alive? ed. L. Brubaker (Aldershot, 1998), 115–30. 8

O. Panvinio, De Ludis Circensibus, libri II (Venice, 1600).

Mango, Byzantine Architecture, 108–109; and Krautheimer and Ćurčić, ECBA, 4th ed., 355–56. 9

10 For Tegea, see D. Athanasoulis, “Some Notes on the Impact of Constantinople on the Architecture of the Aegean and the Peloponnese,” in Proceedings of the Symposium on City Ports from the Aegean to the Black Sea: Medieval–Modern Networks, eds. F. Karagianni and U. Kocabaş (Istanbul, 2015), 163–76; and P. L. Vocotopoulos, “Church Architecture in Greece during the Middle Byzantine Period,” in Perception of Byzantium and Its Neighbors, 843–1261, ed. O. Z. Pevny (New York, 2000), 154–67; the other buildings will be discussed in subsequent chapters.

FIGURE 15.6 Constantinople, church known as Vefa Kilise Camii, east and south façades in the early nineteenth century, with the south aisle and chapel surviving (A. Lenoir, Architecture monastique, 1852)

addition of four subsidiary chapels would certainly account for the Nea’s fivefold dedication. From the brief description, however, it is clear that the domes were visually prominent on both the exterior and the interior—that is, like Justinian’s Holy Apostles, with five domes covering a five-bayed, cruciform naos, with undomed chapels set at the corners. A rare example of such a church in the orbit of the capital is  St. Andrew at Peristerai, built 870–71 and thus chronologically very close to the Nea (Fig. 15.9D).11 However we reconstruct the Nea, the broad diffusion of the five-domed church type suggests Constantinople as the ultimate model, despite the fact that no Middle Byzantine example is preserved in the city. Scholars have often looked to the Nea in relationship to the Theotokos tou Libos, for example, following the restoration proposed by A.  H.  S.  Megaw with its four gallerylevel chapels domed.12 A recent reassessment argues convincingly that there is no evidence for domes, however, and the chapels were more likely

11 H. Buchwald, “Sardis Church E—A Preliminary Report,” JÖB 26 (1977): 277–79; reprinted in Buchwald, Form, Style and Meaning.

Megaw, “The Original Form of Theotokos Church of Constantine Lips.”

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FIGURE 15.7 Constantinople, Church of Christ Pantepoptes (Eski Imaret Camii), view from the southwest (author)

covered by domical vaults.13 We may be left with an “influence” without a clear prototype (see Fig. 15.2). Questions of scale. While the cross-in-square church was common, there were any number of variations in the centralized domed church, both small and large. Cross-in-square churches of reduced scale could simplify the interior: at St. John in Troullo (tenth century?), the elevation is reduced, with both the cross vaults and the corner vaults springing from the capitals (Figs. 15.10A and 15.11).14 At the church known as the Sekbanbaşı Mescidi (now destroyed, but probably eleventh or twelfth century), the overall length is reduced, with the tripartite sanctuary merged with the naos (Figs. 15.10B).15 The church known as the Toklu Dede Mescidi (now destroyed, probably twelfth century) reduces the width to a single bay, with the span of the naos covered by a dome approximately 4 meters in diameter (Fig. 15.10C).16 Other plans were adopted Marinis, “The Original Form of the Theotokos tou Libos Reconsidered.” 13

FIGURE 15.8 Constantinople, Church of Christ Pantepoptes (Eski Imaret Camii), plan at the ground floor and gallery levels (V. Marinis, Architecture and Liturgy, 2014, with the author’s modifications)

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14

Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 158–61.

15

Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 177–78.

16

Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 202–203.

FIGURE 15.9 Plans of Middle Byzantine five-domed churches: (A) Tegea; (B) Stilo; (C) Nerezi; (D) Peristera (redrawn by the author)

for small churches. The Theotokos Panagiotissa (or Mouchliotissa), probably of the early eleventh century, was originally a domed tetraconch, measuring approximately 12 by 12 meters overall, but with its interior wall surfaces elaborated with niches and covered by a pumpkin dome (Fig. 15.12A). Similar plans were developed at the Theotokos Kamariotissa on nearby Chalke in the Prince’s Islands and find their way into Constantinopolitan-influenced churches, as, for example, the Theotokos Eleousa at Veljusa (Fig. 15.12B; and see Fig. 13.21). By the twelfth century, the desire for larger churches led to the revival of older plans. The katholikon of the Chora was rebuilt sometime in the first half of the century on an atrophied Greek-cross plan, with corner piers supporting a large dome approximately 7 meters in diameter (Fig. 15.13; and see Figs. 13.15A and 16.10). While known from earlier examples, such as the Koimesis at Nicaea, the plan had not been used in Constantinople for several centuries. Its revival at the Chora led to its use at a variety of nearby sites, as at St. Alberkios at Elegmi and Yuşa Tepesi on the Bosphorus (see Figs. 13.15B and 13.15D). The

much-altered church known as the Gül Camii (perhaps early twelfth century) has an atrophied Greek-cross naos at its core, which opened by triple arcades into the narthex and side aisles, with a gallery above (Figs. 15.14 and 15.15). With a dome close to 10 meters in internal diameter resting on massive piers, it is the largest surviving church of the period from the capital. It has subsequently collapsed, along with large areas of the main apse and lateral walls, making the reconstruction problematic.17 Similarly, the Theotokos Kyriotissa (Kalenderhane Camii), rebuilt at the end of the century, adopted a cross-domed plan with a dome of approximately 7.5 meters internal diameter, braced by corner compartments on two levels (Figs. 15.16 and 15.17).18 A church in nearby Thrace, now known as the Fatih Camii at Enez (Ainos), belongs to the same group, a domed basilica, with a dome approximately 7 meters in diameter and an extended 17

Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 153–58.

18

Marinis, Architectural and Ritual, 163–66.

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western arm flanked by side aisles (Figs. 15.18 and 15.19). It likely dates to the twelfth century, built by masons from the capital. Like those just discussed, the Fatih Camii has a cruciform plan, a wide bema, domes greater than 7 meters in diameter, piers rather than columns as support, and large lunette windows to the north and south. In all, the interiors are spacious and light filled. Construction and decoration. Moving beyond elements of design, certain details mark a building as Constantinopolitan. Construction may be of brick or of an opus mixtum, with alternating courses of brick and stone. After the late tenth century, the recessed brick technique enters the repertory of construction, with its distinctive striped appearance (see Chap.  16). If carefully constructed, the masonry of the façade may have been left exposed; however, rough construction was either plastered or covered with a thin layer of plaster, painted to imitate a more regular masonry. Façades are articulated with pilasters, often stepped pilasters, which correspond to the structure, but are otherwise plain; two-dimensional decoration is restrained, controlled by the architectonic framework. Usually relegated to lunettes and spandrels or the upper walls, a limited repertory of patterns is executed in brick: meanders, chevrons, decorative arches.19 The upper termination of walls was marked by dogtooth cornices as well, often arched to reflect the position of vaulting on the interior. In other areas of the Byzantine Empire, as in Greece, dogtooth courses may appear as decorative bands anywhere on the wall surface, but in Constantinople, dogtooth appears only at the top; thus, where later modifications have occurred, the presence of dogtooth marks the termination of Byzantine construction. Windows could take a variety of forms: in the tenth and eleventh centuries, thermal windows appear in the lunettes, separated into three lights by mullions. By the eleventh century we find tripartite windows, with stilted arches above mullions, the central arch round headed and framed by either quadrant arches or round-headed arches. Sometimes a second row of round-headed windows appears

FIGURE 15.10 Plans of three small Constantinopolitan churches: (A) St. John in Troullo; (B) Sekbanbaşı Mescidi (reconstructed); (C) Toklu Dede Mescidi (reconstructed) (after V. Marinis, Architecture and Liturgy, 2014)

FIGURE 15.11 Constantinople, St. John in Troullo, view from the northeast (author)

P.  L.  Vocotopoulos, “The Concealed Course Technique: Further Examples and a Few Remarks,” JÖB 28 (1979): 247–60; G.  Velenis, Ermeneia tou Exoterikou Diakosmou ste Byzantine Architektonike (Thessalonike, 1984).

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FIGURE 15.12 Plans of two centrally planned Constantinopolitan churches: (A) Theotokos Mouchliotissa; (B) Theotokos Kamariotissa on Chalke (Heybeliada) (V. Marinis, Architecture and Liturgy, 2014; author, redrawn after T. F. Mathews, DOP, 1973)

below them. With multiple rows of windows and arcades opening to the sides, it is sometimes suggested that porticoes of light construction flanked the church, as apparently occurred at the Kalenderhane.20 Older drawings show a portico along the south flank of the Vefa Kilise Camii as well, terminating in an apsed chapel (see Fig. 15.6). The apses and the drums of domes received more elaborate treatment. Apses are faceted: in the tenth and eleventh centuries, they tend to be three sided, although more complex forms were developed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Tripartite windows were common, the lights often separated by thin rectangular mullions supporting stilted arches, flanked by niches—often alternating rectangular and semicircular—to either side, with an additional row above or even below the window level (see Figs. 15.5 and 15.6). The upper level of niches usually rises above the springing of the apse conch and is topped by a horizontal cornice, composed of two courses of dogtooth bricks, with the upper two thirds of the apse curvature exposed. The dome drums may be octagonal, dodecagonal, or occasionally sixteen sided, with arched windows in each facet, framed by setbacks, with pilasters or half-columns at the corners. Dome cornices were commonly scalloped, formed by two courses of dogtooth, the arches concentric with the window arches, so that the curvature of the L.  Theis, Flankenräume in mittelbyzantinischen Kirchenbau (Wiesbaden, 2005).

20

dome is exposed above that level (see Fig. 15.7). Details such as these are evidence of standard practice in the workshops of the capital. Pilasters commonly articulate the interiors wall surfaces as well. Vaults were similarly elaborated: groin vaults were often employed when simpler barrel vaults could have been used. The intrados of domes and their drums was rarely left unelaborated: ribbed domes and pumpkin domes are more common. At the Pantokrator Monastery, for example, the naos dome is ribbed, the gallery dome is a pumpkin dome, and the funeral chapel has both types (see Figs. 15.30 and 15.32). We can only begin to imagine the implications for the articulated and ordered surfaces of walls and vaults for figural decoration, whether in mosaic or in wall painting, as almost all has disappeared, although later examples, such as the Chora or Pammakaristos, may give some idea (as will be discussed in Chap. 24). The interiors of Constantinopolitan churches are most often marked by the presence of marble. A cross-in-square church in the capital invariably had four columns in its naos, with bases and capitals, as well as marble window mullions and elaborate door frames. Columns were in high demand in the early Ottoman centuries, however, and were quite often removed for use elsewhere. Early travelers note columns of porphyry or Theban granite in the churches at the Pantokrator Monastery, for example, although these have long

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FIGURE 15.13 Constantinople, Church of Christ of the Chora (Kariye Camii), interior, looking west; note the sills of the lunette windows have been raised (author)

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FIGURE 15.14 Constantinople, Gül Camii, restored plan, partly hypothetical (after V. Marinis, Architecture and Liturgy, 2014)

FIGURE 15.15 Constantinople, Gül Camii, east façade; the central portion has been rebuilt, but the areas to either side with pink mortar are original (author)

since been replaced.21 Cornices or string courses mark the springing of vaulting and the transition to the dome (see, for example, Figs. 15.17 and 15.28). Rather than simply appearing at the springing, string courses continue at the same levels along the walls, dividing the interior into horizontal zones; combined with the pilasters, they create a grid that modulates interior surfaces. In the more extravagant interiors, marble revetments cover the lower wall surfaces, with mosaic appearing in the vaulting and wall surfaces above the string 21 Petrus Gillius, De Topographia Constantinopoleos, book 4 (Venice, 1561), 195–96; K.  M.  Byrd, trans., Pierre Gilles’ Constantinople: A Modern English Translation with Commentary (New York, 2008).

course. Marble paving was also common. Because most quarries—including the nearby Proconnesus quarries—ceased operation in the seventh century, the marbled interiors often represent the reuse or recarving of older components, spoliated from the abandoned monuments of the city.22 Import. The role of Constantinople as an entrepôt is particularly evident in its adoption and adaptation of exotic architectural forms from the East, developed from increased contacts with the Caucasus and the Arab world through military and political engagement. The recorded history of the 22

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 140–47, 234–54.

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FIGURE 15.16 Constantinople, Theotokos Kyriotissa (Kalenderhane Camii), view from the northwest (author)

FIGURE 15.17 Constantinople, Theotokos Kyriotissa (Kalenderhane Camii), interior, looking north (author)

FIGURE 15.18 Ainos (Enez), Fatih Camii, west façade (author)

Bryas Palace on the Asian shore is a case in point. It was built ca. 830 by Theophilos on the advice of the synkellos John (later patriarch), following the latter’s diplomatic mission to Baghdad. The palace was constructed following Arab models: “in no way  differing from the latter in either form or decoration”—with the exception of its churches, one  attached to the bedchamber and another in the  courtyard.23 While nothing survives of the palace, the texts give some sense of the fascination with the exotic culture of a political opponent— akin  to the Viennese Ottomania at the time of Mozart. The interest in Arab forms is more evident today in the visual arts, as, for example, in the popularity of Kufesque ornament, but it may account for  some of the architectural details of the period, such as the use of trumpet squinches rather than pendentives as the transition to dome, as, for exTheophanes Continuatus; for text, Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 160; Brubaker and Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, 421–22. The complex excavated at Küçükyalı, once identified as the Bryas Palace, is more likely a monastery, perhaps that of Satyros; see A. Ricci, “Reinterpretation of the ‘Palace of Bryas’: A Study in Byzantine Architecture, History, and Historiography,” PhD diss., Princeton University, 2008.

23

FIGURE 15.19 Ainos (Enez), Fatih Camii, plan (author)

ample, in the katholikon of Hosios Loukas Monastery, which scholars have long noted.24 A related aspect is the introduction of elements derived from the architecture of the Caucasus. The now lost Church of Christ Chalkites, which stood on the upper level of the Chalke Gate of the Great Palace, is known from descriptions and a nineteenth-century engraving. Built by John I Tsimiskes (969–76) in 972 as a monument to celebrate his Most recently, with bibliography, A.  Walker, “Pseudo-Arabic ‘Inscriptions’ and the Pilgrim’s Path at Hosios Loukas,” in Viewing Inscriptions in the Late Antique and Medieval World, ed. A. Eastmond (Cambridge, 2015), 99–123.

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FIGURE 15.20 Constantinople, Church of Christ at the Chalke Gate (engraving by G. Indjidjian, 1804, reproduced in S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

FIGURE 15.21 Chalke (Heybeliada), Theotokos Kamariotissa, view into the dome (Thomas F. Mathews, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees of Harvard University)

victory over the Rus’, its unusual plan seems to have been a tetraconch—significant here as John was of Armenian origin (Fig. 15.20).25 Could it have inspired the tetraconch at the Panagiotissa, which, like Armenian churches, originally lacked a narthex? Texts also relate the Armenian architect Trdat in the capital at the time of the earthquake of 989, and he was hired to intervene following the collapse of the western portion of the dome of Hagia Sophia.26 That an Armenian would be awarded this prestigious and difficult commission suggests the respect accorded Caucasian architecture at this time. Perhaps the best surviving indication of a relationship may be seen in the unusual design of the Panagia Kamariotissa Church on the island of Chalke,  which dates from the late eleventh century  and which seems to follow closely Armenian models—in plan it is a tetraconch with corner niches,  surmounted by a dome on squinches, C. Mango, The Brazen House: A Study of the Vestibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople (Copenhagen, 1959). 25

C.  Mango, Materials for the Study of the Mosaic of St. Sophia at Istanbul (Washington, DC, 1962); C.  Maranci, “The Architect Trdat: Building Practices and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Byzantium and Armenia,” JSAH 62, no. 3 (2003): 294–305.

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following the model seen at Aghtamar more than a century earlier (Fig. 15.21; and see Fig. 15.12B). It was  similarly constructed without a narthex. The Church of St. George of Mangana may have had a similar structural system, as the reentrant piers of the naos suggest (Figs. 15.22 and 15.23). Moreover, at the latter, the courtyard walls are articulated by  bundled shafts of rectangular and triangular responds and half-columns, as one finds across Armenia and Georgia.27 What is critical in both buildings is that while forms are imitated, the construction is purely local, with both churches built in the so-called recessed brick technique common to Constantinople, rather than the ashlar of the Caucasus. While the presence of Trdat suggests that the city attracted talent from near and far, these examples demonstrate how workshops incorporated forms and details of foreign origin into the Constantinopolitan vernacular. Export. Because of its political and religious prestige, the new architecture developed within the capital quickly found its way to new locations, a practice enhanced by masons from the capital being dispatched to distant locations, as, for example, to Kievan Rus’ or the Aegean islands. In short, and without denigrating the architectural achievements of the period elsewhere, Constantinople developed a distinctive architecture of its own during the Middle Byzantine period and also acted as a sort of clearinghouse of architectural ideas with a broad reach and broad implications. In some areas, such as Bulgaria or Mount Athos, it may be virtually impossible to distinguish Constantinopolitan from local production because of the great similarities, and this may be due to the presence of masons or workshops from the capital. The evidence from Kievan Rus’ offers a useful test case for the selective transmission of architectural ideas, which will be discussed further in Chapter 22. In the late tenth century, traveling Byzantine masons introduced an architecture in permanent materials into a region where wooden construction had been the norm. As with Constantinople, the architecture was based on brick and mortar, with brick production and construction techniques following the Constantinopolitan model and walls built in the recessed brick technique. What is noteworthy is the 27

Mango, Byzantine Architecture, 224–35.

FIGURE 15.22 Constantinople, plan of foundations in the Mangana region (after R. Demangel and E. Mamboury, Le quartier des Manganes, 1939)

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FIGURE 15.23 Constantinople, St. George of the Mangana, plan, partially hypothetical (redrawn after V. Marinis, 2012)

nature of the transmission with a limited selection of planning principles, construction and vaulting technology, and decorative details, which were repeated through many examples. Consistency may have been encouraged by the relative isolation of Rus’. Plans are invariably elaborations of the cross-in-square format, with cruciform piers rather than columns. Recessed brick construction dominated through the eleventh century and lingered through the twelfth, even with increased contact with northern Europe. Types of vaults were considerably more limited than they were in contemporary Constantinople. The interiors of domes are invariably unarticulated, set above pendentives; ribbed domes and pumpkin domes do not appear. Elsewhere on the interior, vaulting was limited to barrel vaulting; groin vaults only appear in Kiev in the twelfth century with the introduction of new technology. Even variants on the barrel vault are rare: for example, the staircase at St. Sophia in Kiev is covered by stepped barrel vaults used in series, while in Constantinople one would find a ramping barrel vault, following the angle of the stairs. Variety is nevertheless achieved, while working with a limited repertory of forms and techniques (see Figs. 22.13–22.18).28 The direct workshop connections of Kiev and other centers of early Rus’ stand in contrast to other areas, where the connection is more by imitation, 28

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 257–58.

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based on the replication of stylistic details. The church known as the Çanlı Kilise in Cappadocia of the early eleventh century (to be discussed in Chap. 18) bears a strong but only outward resemblance to the buildings of the capital. Perhaps most indicative is the use of brick in its construction. In a region where cut stone architecture is the rule and brick is rare, it was used to reflect the style of the capital (Fig. 15.24). Rather than continuous bands extending through the thickness of the wall, the brick courses are a superficial applique—they don’t appear on the interior or in the vaulting. Style is here used to symbolic ends, to provide a cosmopolitan aura in a provincial setting. Similarly, at the Church of the Holy Apostles at Metochi on Naxos, the church has details that do not belong to the local idiom of the Cyclades.29 The plan is a complex cross-in-square with a tripartite sanctuary. Subsidiary chapels appear flanking and surmounting the narthex, similar to those of the capital. The walls are articulated with stepped arcades with brick decoration consisting of crosses and ceramic rosettes. Unfortunately, the parts do not add up to a coherent whole: construction is awkward; the external pilasters do not correspond to structure and differ from interior to exterior (Fig. 15.25). All betray a lack of understanding of what was being imitated. Athanasoulis, “Impact of Constantinople”; K.  Aslanidis, “Constantinopolitan Features in the Middle Byzantine Architecture of Naxos,” in Architecture of Byzantium and Kievan Rus’ from the 9th to the 12th Centuries (St. Petersburg, 2010), 21–34. 29

FIGURE 15.24 Akhisar (near), Çanlı Kilise, east façade, showing a mortared rubble core where the facing masonry has fallen (author)

FIGURE 15.25 Metochi (Naxos), Holy Apostles, south façade: stepped arcades with ceramic rosettes and brick patterning in the spandrels (author)

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FIGURE 15.26 Constantinople, Monastery of Christ Pantokrator, view of the church complex from the east (author)

The Pantokrator Monastery. As the most important foundation of the Middle Byzantine years,  the Pantokrator deserves a more detailed treatment, as its final form presages what is to come  in later Byzantine architecture.30 Built for John II Komnenos (r. 1118–43) and his consort Eirene-Piroska (a Hungarian princess), the south church was the first of the complex to be constructed, the katholikon of the monastery, and was  dedicated to Christ (Figs. 15.26–15.32). The church is of the cross-in-square type, with a dome approximately 7.5 meters in diameter, rising approximately 24.5 meters off the floor, making it

A. H. S. Megaw, “Notes on the Recent Work of the Byzantine Institute in Istanbul,” DOP 17 (1963): 333–64. For the typikon, R. Jordan trans., “Pantokrator: Typikon of Emperor John II Komnenos for the Monastery of Christ Pantokrator in Constantinople,” in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, eds. J. Thomas and A. Hero, 1st vol. (Washington, DC, 2000), 725–81; R. G. Ousterhout, Z. Ahunbay, and M. Ahunbay, “Study and Restoration of the Zeyrek Camii in Istanbul: First Report, 1997–98,” DOP 54 (2000): 265–70; and R. G. Ousterhout, Z. Ahunbay, and M. Ahunbay, “Study and Restoration of the Zeyrek Camii in Istanbul: Second Report, 2001–2005,” DOP 63 (2010): 235– 56; S.  Kotzabassi, ed., The Pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople, Byzantinisches Archiv 27 (Berlin, 2013), esp. P.  Magdalino, “The Pantokrator Monastery in its Urban Setting,” 33–55; and a useful bibliography, 251–54.

30

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the  largest example of the standard Byzantine church type and the tallest of the later churches in the capital. In plan, this consisted of a monumental block, measuring 100 Byzantine feet on each side (slightly more than 31 meters)—the dimensions of the dome of Hagia Sophia—with the core of the building enveloped by a broad, twostoried  narthex to the west and lateral aisles, that is,  assuming there was originally a north aisle symmetrical to the surviving south aisle. Lavishly decorated, the walls were originally clad in marble, of which the sanctuary revetments and door frames survive. The marble cornices and capitals were painted or highlighted in gold leaf. The vaults were covered with mosaics and the floor  with opus sectile, and the apse windows were  filled with stained glass—the last reflecting the close artistic associations with Western Europe in the twelfth century. While the elements of the original decoration surviving in situ are limited, the  sense of its ostentation of the interior is suggested by the Pala d’Oro at San Marco in Venice, portions of which are alleged to have come from the Pantokrator’s templon. The north church, dedicated to the Theotokos Eleousa, was begun shortly after the completion of  the south church; it was also of the cross-insquare type but smaller, less lavishly detailed, and

FIGURE 15.27 Constantinople, Monastery of Christ Pantokrator, (A) restored plan of Phase I south church; (B) composite plan (author, after A. H. S. Megaw, DOP, 1963)

less carefully constructed, and it is also less well preserved. As begun, the two were meant to be distinct elements, both physically and visually, and  in fact, the north church is set at a slightly different angle than the south church. They were connected by a single door, where their narthexes joined. At the connection, both the north narthex and the gallery above it were equipped with an extra  bay, projecting southward to meet the narthex and gallery of the south church. The church opened to a public street through a portico along its  north wall, and this connected the monastery to  the urban matrix. Four doorways—one in the narthex and three in the naos—are now blocked, but the north façade preserves a series of marble brackets that once must have supported the portico. Unlike the south church, which was set aside for the exclusive use of the monks, the north church  was open to the outside community and officiated by a lay clergy. As construction on the north church progressed, it was decided to add a third component, a funeral chapel dedicated to St. Michael, whose funerary function will be discussed further CHAPTER FIFTEEN: CONSTANTINOPLE AS AN ARCHITECTURAL CENTER

FIGURE 15.28 Constantinople, Monastery of Christ Pantokrator, south church, interior, looking southeast (author)

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FIGURE 15.29 Constantinople, Monastery of Christ Pantokrator, south church, opus sectile floor (the Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. late 1920s–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees of Harvard University, Washington, DC)

below. The chapel was sandwiched between the two, and this necessitated the removal of the north aisle of the south church. Irregular in plan, the central chapel is covered by twin domes (Fig. 15.30). An outer narthex and courtyard were added to the south church in this final expansion. In short, as the complex grew, it was transformed from the mausoleum of the imperial couple to a family mausoleum and ultimately to a dynastic one. While it makes sense to discuss the Byzantine buildings as three related stages, careful analysis of the fabric indicates many subphases; the central chapel was undertaken shortly after the north church was begun, with the two finished simultaneously. The funeral chapel was designed to be single domed, with the east dome added only after the west dome was completed; the exonarthex was planned with a wooden roof but the design was changed and vaulting added. Subsequently, the gallery dome was inserted, and the floor beneath it was eliminated to create a lightwell to illuminate the inner narthex. While some of these alterations seem odd by themselves, they represent a step-by-step

FIGURE 15.30 Constantinople, Monastery of Christ Pantokrator, interior of the central chapel (heroon), looking west (Andrei Vinogradov)

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process of expansion and enhancement, of “buildings in the process of becoming”—a subject we shall return to in the next chapter. Moreover, technical details indicate the same workshop was responsible for all phases. In the course of eighteen years, the Pantokrator was transformed architecturally from a single monumental block to a sprawling irregular complex and from a monastic katholikon to a multifunctioning church cluster.31 Complexity rather than monumentality would have been the dominant visual impression, and this set a standard for subsequent architectural developments (Fig. 15.31). Funerary architecture. In the centuries under discussion here, with the increasing importance of the individual and the family, commemoration played a critical role, and this is often spelled out in the monastic foundation documents, known as typika (sing. typikon).32 Because of the common belief that the prayers of the living could benefit the souls of the departed, the significance of commemoration lay in the desire for continuing prayers, in perpetuum, for the salvation of the benefactors’ souls, as well as those of their relatives and their descendants.33 Thus, in his Typikon for the Kosmosoteira Monastery at Ferai of 1152, the Crown Prince Isaak Komnenos (to be discussed below) instructs, “Every evening, after the dismissal of vespers, I want the superior and the rest of the monks to enter [his tomb chamber], and in front of the holy icons standing there, to pronounce the Trisagion and a certain number of Kyrie eleisons for mercy upon my soul.”34 According to Byzantine custom, burials were not allowed in 31 Discussed further in R.  G.  Ousterhout, “Contextualizing the Later Churches of Constantinople: Suggested Methodologies and a Few Examples,” DOP 54 (2000): 241–50. 32

Thomas and Hero, Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents.

J.  P.  Thomas, “In Perpetuum,” 123–35. Note also P.  Horden, “Memoria, Salvation, and Other Motives of Byzantine Philanthropists,” in Stiftungen in Christentum, Judentum und Islam vor der Moderne. Auf der Suche nach ihren Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschieden in religiösen Grundlagen, praktischen Zwecken und historischen Transformationen, ed. M. Borgolte (Berlin, 2005), 137–46. 33

For the Kosmosoteira Typikon, see N.  P.  Ševčenko, trans., “Kosmosoteira: Typikon of the Sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos for the Monastery 782 of the Mother of God Kosmosoteira near Bera,” in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, eds. J.  P.  Thomas and A. Hero, 2nd vol. (Washington, DC, 2000), 782–858.

34

the naos, although it was desired to have the tombs as close as possible in order to gain spiritual benefit from the regular performance of the mass and the recital of special prayers.35 The most common setting for burials was the narthex or chapels annexed to it. At the earliest securely dated Middle Byzantine church to survive from Constantinople, the Theotokos tou Libos, dated 907, five marble sarcophagi were found beneath the narthex floor; others were discovered beneath the narthex floor of the Vefa Kilise Camii.36 At St. John of Troullo (tenth century) and Christ Pantokrator (1118), arcosolia were provided in the narthex. In several instances, the significance of privileged burials affected the building’s design. At the Zygos Monastery on Mount Athos, for example, the cross-in-square church is of Constantinopolitan design, perhaps executed by masons from the capital, and dates from the late tenth century (see Fig. 13.28). Over the subsequent decades, chapels were added to either side of the narthex, equipped with arcosolia for honored burials, and an exonarthex was added with the tomb of the founder beneath its floor.37 In other examples, the building was designed to incorporate funeral chapels from the inception. At St. Panteleimon at Nerezi, dated 1164, four tiny domed chapels appear at the corners of the naos, reflecting Constantinopolitan church design (see Fig. 15.9C). The eastern two served as the pastophoria, while the western two, which could only be entered from the narthex, may have been funerary in function. The north chapel included an arcosolium tomb, probably that of the founder, a Komnenian prince, Alexios Angelos-Komnenos.38 Several members of the Komnenian family had  special tombs constructed for themselves in 35 For much of what follows, see Ousterhout, Master Builders, 119–27.

Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 73–76; V. Marinis, “Tombs and Burials in the Monastery tou Libos in Constantinople,” DOP 63 (2009), 147–66.

36

37

Papangelos, “Holy Monastery of Zygos.”

See I. Sinkević, The Church of St. Panteleimon at Nerezi: Architecture, Programme, Patronage (Wiesbaden, 2000); and for what follows, see R. G. Ousterhout, “Byzantine Funerary Architecture of the Twelfth Century,” Drevnerusskoe iskustvo. Rusi i stranii byzantinskogo mira XII vek (St. Petersburg, 2002), 5–17.

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FIGURE 15.31 Constantinople, Monastery of Christ Pantokrator, hypothetical reconstructions of the church complex (Tayfun Öner)

Constantinople. Most famous is the expansion of the Church of Christ at the Pantokrator monastery, already introduced, where a unique twindomed funeral chapel was added, replacing the initial burials in the narthex (Fig. 15.32). In the Typikon, the chapel is called the heroon, or 374

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heroes’ shrine, a term used to compare it to the imperial mausolea at the nearby Church of the Holy Apostles. The eastern dome is called “the dome of the incorporeal,” beneath which lay the bema of  the chapel, equipped for the liturgy, which was  celebrated there three days each week. The

FIGURE 15.32 Constantinople, Pantokrator, central chapel, plan showing the extension of the opus sectile floor from the naos and the hypothetical positions of the imperial tombs (author)

western part of the chapel, where the tombs were located, is called “the heroon of the outside,” indicating its separation from the liturgical space.39 The chapel, then, offers a significant improvement in the setting for burial from the initial situation at the church, when the tombs were isolated in the narthex. The design of the chapel brings the imperial tombs into direct relationship with the liturgical focus. In addition to the liturgies, the Typikon specifies the daily lighting of lamps and commemorative prayers at the tombs of the founders, as well as special commemorations on Saturdays and on the anniversaries of their deaths. The heroon was technically a chapel and not the  katholikon, and there was thus some freedom in  its design, but the desire for proximity to the liturgical finds other manifestations. John’s brother Isaak had a tomb prepared for himself about the same  time at the Chora Monastery; although the 39

Jordan, “Pantokrator,” 756–57.

setting of Isaak’s tomb at the Chora is not known, it was likely in the narthex, as the tombs had initially been at the Pantokrator. Following his banishment from the capital, Isaak requested various fittings from his tomb transferred to his new foundation at the Kosmosoteira.40 The church is  well preserved, a spacious construction with Constantinopolitan details: recessed brick construction, pumpkin domes, faceted apses, and large windows (Figs. 15.33 and 15.34). Its large dome is framed by two smaller domes above the pastophoria and two additional domes above the western corner compartments of the naos. Isaak’s contributions are detailed in the Typikon of 1152, in which he specifies that he is to be interred in the katholikon of the monastery “on the left side of the narthex, there where I made an S.  Sinos, Die Klosterkirche der Kosmosoteira in Bera (Vira) (Munich, 1985); R. Ousterhout and Ch. Bakirtzis, The Byzantine Monuments of the Evros/Meriç River Valley (Thessaloniki, 2007), 48–85. 40

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FIGURE 15.33 Ferai, Theotokos Kosmosoteira, view from the southeast (author)

extension to the building on account of the tomb,” and that he wished “the tomb to be divided from the narthex by the bronze railing,” brought from the Chora.41 How all this fits within the surviving building is not immediately apparent. The term narthex might indicate the now-destroyed vestibule to the west of the church, and the term extension also sounds like it should be outside as well. However, Isaak also mentions an exonarthex, where his secretary and servant were to be buried. The lost western vestibule was more likely the exonarthex, and Isaak’s narthex must be the elongated western part of the church—that is, the extension is the northwest corner compartment, opened up to the naos, but separated from it by the bronze railing. Isaak specifies that no other burials were to be “inside the church and its narthex,” and the major icon of the church was to be at his tomb and not in the naos proper. The dome above this bay contains an image of the Theotokos, whom Isaak implores fervently for the salvation of his soul, and the arch contains a scene of the Holy Women at the Tomb, a common funerary theme. 41

Ševčenko, “Kosmosoteira.”

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Cuttings in the columns indicate the space could have been closed off by a railing, and investigations revealed a blocked door in the western wall. Thus, the monks could have passed through the railing to recite the Trisagion and Kyrie Eleison at the tomb, as specified in the typikon, before leaving through the door. More importantly, the corner bay was both part of the naos and separate from it. With his tomb set within visual and audial range, Isaak’s soul could benefit from the prayers and liturgies performed at the sacred center of the katholikon, without violating the prohibition of burial in the naos. Another solution is found at the katholikon of the Theotokos Pammakaristos in Constantinople, built sometime in the twelfth century by a certain John Komnenos, a minor member of the imperial family.42 In this church, the central dome space was enveloped by a U-shaped ambulatory, which contained the tombs of the founder and members of his family (Fig. 15.35). The ambulatory plan C. Mango, “The Monument and Its History,” in The Mosaics and Frescoes of St. Mary Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii) at Istanbul, eds. H. Belting, C. Mango, and D. Mouriki (Washington, DC, 1978), esp. 5–10.

42

first seen here proved popular and was repeated in several later buildings specifically designed for burials, notably at the late thirteenth-century St. John’s at the Monastery tou Libos, an imperial foundation (discussed in Chap.  24). While Ottoman remodelings have obscured many of the details of both churches, it is clear that the central space was understood as the naos, while the ambulatory effectively replaced the narthex: indeed, the narthex at the Pammakarsitos was likely a later addition, as the cistern that forms the vaulted substructure for the church extends under the ambulatory but not under the narthex. With the aisles separated by columnar screens from the central domed bay, the ambulatory plan effectively merged burial space and liturgical space in a compact building of new design. A final example of funerary concerns affecting building design takes us far from the capital but may nevertheless be under its influence. At the Church of the Virgin at Studenica Monastery in Serbia, constructed after 1183 by Stefan Nemanja, the naos adopts the atrophied Greek-cross plan, developed at the Chora (see Figs. 22.30 and 22.31), but with one critical change: an extra bay is inserted between the naos and the narthex. It was there that the royal founder chose to be

FIGURE 15.34 Ferai, Theotokos Kosmosoteira, plan showing the hypothetical location of the founder’s tomb (author, redrawn after S. Sinos, Klosterkirche, 1985)

FIGURE 15.35 Constantinople, Theotokos Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii), hypothetical plan and elevation of the twelfth-century church and its cistern (shown in gray on the plan) (author, after C. Mango, in Belting, Mango, and Mouriki, Mosaics and Frescoes, 1978; and H. Hallensleben, IstMitt, 1963–64)

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buried.43 Like the Kosmosoteira, the church at Studenica was given “an extension . . . on account of the tomb,” bringing it into close visual and audial range of the liturgical center. And as with the new design of the Pammakaristos, the new design of Studenica proved popular, with similar plans developed at other sites in medieval Serbia for founders’ tombs. What is significant in the examples just discussed is that new architectural forms were created in order to satisfy the special requirements of burial S. Ćurčić, “Medieval Royal Tombs in the Balkans: An Aspect of the ‘East or West’ Question,” GOTR 29 (1984): 175–94.

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and that, once introduced, the new forms gained acceptance and were repeated. While none of the examples represents a radical departure from established architectural forms, they nevertheless demonstrate how architecture could respond to social concerns. And while the last example, the Church of the Virgin at Studenica, is not in Constantinople, it returns us to themes with which we began— most notably the prestige of the capital. Is the extended plan of Nemanja’s church an example of prestige bias? One wonders if the funerary chapel at the Pantokrator might have set the example for the merging liturgical and burial areas within a royal monastic foundation.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

,

MASTER BUILDERS AND THEIR CRAFT

T

he architectural profession and architectural practices changed dramatically during the Transitional Period. As discussed in Chapter  5, before that time, architecture was often theory driven, following the Roman model elaborated by Vitruvius in the first century bce. By the Middle Byzantine period, however, architecture effectively had become an illiterate profession, conservatively guided by established workshop practices: one learned architecture hands-on, through apprenticeship in the context of a workshop (ergasterion), not by going to school. As a consequence, when innovation appears, it is usually small in scale, affecting the details but not the overall design. While many design and construction practices continued from earlier times, there are some significant changes—in addition to the basic change in the nature of the architectural profession.1 By the Middle Byzantine period, oikodomos (builder) was the most common term for master mason and skilled worker. The term mechanikos disappears, and architekton appears only in archaizing contexts. Occasionally the terms maistor or protomaistor are used for the master mason. A skilled worker or artisan is called a technites, while an unskilled worker is called an ergates (Fig. 16.1). Occasionally one finds terms for specialized workers, such as lithoxoos for a stoneworker or 1

For much of what follows, see Ousterhout, Master Builders.

tekton or leptourgos for a carpenter, but the textual evidence of specialized skills is considerably less after the Transitional Period than before, suggesting a lack of specialization within the labor force. The tenth-century Book of the Eparch gives some evidence of a guild system, although this seems to be for control of profession by the civil authorities rather than for its protection.2 For example, under normal circumstances, builders could not travel but were restricted to practicing within a fixed area. Moreover, a workshop was required to complete one job before taking on another, and it was held responsible for its works up to ten years after completion. It is unclear how widespread or long-lasting was its legislation. There is no mention of the size or makeup of a workshop, although other evidence normally suggests a small team—in distinct contrast to the ten thousand workers at Justinian’s Hagia Sophia, as alleged by the semilegendary tenth-century Diegesis. Design methodology. Design methodology had changed in a fundamental way, based on practice rather than on theory. With the standardization of building types, innovation was often limited to the coordination or manipulation of details, without affecting the basic components of the building type. Thus, design and 2

Koder, To Eparchikon Biblion.

Phokis, Hosios Loukas Monastery, Church of the Panagia, south façade with cloisonné masonry and pseudoKufic patterns (author) 381

FIGURE 16. 1 Mosaic illustrating the construction of the Tower of Babel. San Marco, Venice (AKG Images)

construction could happen simultaneously. In fact, no mention is made of architectural drawings; planning seems to have been done on the site, 382

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“in accord with God’s plan” (kata gnomen Theou). Like land surveys and military camps, buildings could be laid out with rope measurements, as is

FIGURE 16. 2 Drawings based on details from treatises on siege engines showing the Ram of Hegetor: (A) Vatican Library MS gr. 1605; (B) Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris MS suppl. gr. 607; (C) drawing based on a detail from a treatise on siege engines showing a lookout tower, upright (i.e., the elevation) and flattened (i.e., the plan), Vatican Library, Rome, MS. Gr. 1605 (after C. Wescher, Poliorcétique, 1867)

described in the vita of St. Nikon of Sparta: “He began the building having earlier delineated it with a rope.”3 For most projects, it seems that drawings were not used. For example, in the eleventh-century vita of the eccentric stylite, Lazarus Galesiotes, the saint directed the construction of a new refectory: “When the builders were about to raise our refectory, our father, standing on top of his column, indicating with the fingers of his right hand, delineated the length and breadth for the builders.”4 One of the brothers complained that the “form of the work”—schematismos tou ergou, occasionally translated as “blueprint”—was absurdly large for their small community. Only with the plan delineated on the ground could such an observation on scale be made. One gets the sense that Lazarus is pointing out the coordinates from on high, and the brethren are scurrying around to mark them on the site. Taken out of context, the phrase schematismos tou ergou might sound as if it were referring to a working drawing, but in context, it does not. The Poliorcetica, a tenth-century treatise on siege engines attributed to Heron of Byzantium,

provides similar information.5 Heron makes it clear that the source of his information was an ancient treatise by Apollodorus, which he claims to be following exactly, except for two aspects: he simplified and updated terminology that might be unintelligible to his reader; and he changed the illustrations for the same reasons. What is called a schema in the original has become a schematismos. Comparing the illustrations of the surviving text with those of another manuscript closer to the original, we can see that Heron has transformed conceptual diagrams or technical drawings of a two-dimensional character into three-dimensional narrative illustrations, including little figures to show how they work (Figs. 16.2A and 16.2B). The point is that Heron’s audience understood illustrations as representational, but they did not understand the diagrammatic nature of an architectural drawing. Indeed, Heron himself might have had some difficulty understanding the architectural drawings. One machine described in the treatise, a sort of extension ladder, was not illustrated, for which Heron had to create the drawing; the text calls for a plan and an elevation (to keimenon kai to orthomenon), which Heron interpreted as the

3 D.  Sullivan, The Life of Saint Nikon: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Brookline, 1987), 118–19. 4 The Life of St. Lazaros of Mt. Galesion: An Eleventh-Century Pillar Saint, ed. and trans. R. P. H. Greenfield (Washington, DC, 2000), 201–202.

5 D. Sullivan, Siegecraft: Two Tenth-Century Instructional Manuals by “Heron of Byzantium” (Washington, DC, 2000), 26–29; C. Wescher, Poliorcétique des grecs (Paris, 1867).

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FIGURE 16. 3 (A) Sardis, Church E, plan, showing possible use of quadrature and (B) the grid system of the foundations (after H. Buchwald, JÖB, 1977)

flat and upright views—that is, folded and fully raised (Fig. 16.2C). Instead of drawings, builders could have relied on the accumulated experience of a master mason augmented by simple geometry and standard measurements. This can explain why Byzantine churches tend to be conservative in overall form but individualized with small-scale innovations and manipulation of the details. For example, the cross-in-square church type had a structural system that a builder would have known thoroughly from experience, but also one that could be altered to the special necessities of the foundation in response to the structural requirements, liturgical practices, type of decoration, or the availability of materials. With a Byzantine foot measuring approximately 0.327 meters, many churches have a module of 10, 12, or 15 feet that can be calculated 384

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as the diameter of the dome measured from the midpoint of its supports. Measurements and geometry seem to have been employed in a practical manner, as part of the process of laying out the building. The dome module could form the basis for the entire plan and for the elevation, either through the application of simple geometric relationships or with a grid system, as is evident at the Myrelaion in Constantinople or at Sardis Church E. At the latter, foundations were laid in a grid, although the excavator suggests the plan may have been developed with a simple form of quadrature (Fig. 16.3).6 The masons could have laid out the plan on the site using very simple tools, and the same may have been applied to the elevation as well. Design and construction were interconnected parts of the same working process, rather than separate activities, as they are today. In all periods, there is evidence for working out the details on site, as, for example, the compassinscribed curved lines noted at the Church of the Holy Cross at Resafa (sixth century); the same have been observed at the Çanlı Kilise (early eleventh century) and at Studenica (late twelfth century). At the Çanlı Kilise, the incisions appear on the wall of the narthex and correspond with the arch of the entry portal. At Studenica, they appear on the south wall of the naos and match the details of the lateral portals (Fig. 16.4). In both examples, it appears that details of the elevation were being worked out as the building was being constructed.7 The use of architectural drawings thus might not have been regular practice within Byzantium. In regions where the standard construction was of brick or mortared rubble, irregularities abound, but they could be corrected by copious quantities of mortar or masked by an external plaster covering. Nevertheless, drawings may have been used for the transfer of plans when some exactness of measurement and detail was desired. At Mount 6 Buchwald, “Sardis Church E,” 265–99; H.  Buchwald, “The Geometry of Middle Byzantine Churches and Some Possible Implications,” JÖB 42 (1992): 293–321. 7 Ousterhout, Master Builders, 64; M.  Čanak-Medić and D. Bošković, L’architecture de l’époque de Nemanja, I. Monuments de l’architecture médiévale serbe, Corpus des édifices sacraux (Belgrade, 1986), 98–99 and fig. 12.

FIGURE 16.4 Studenica, Church of the Virgin, detail of the south façade showing incisions (author)

Athos, for example, the katholika of the Vatopedi and Iviron monasteries are remarkably similar in plan and measurements, suggesting that they were produced from the same drawings.8 There is some evidence of the use of drawing in the medieval Caucasus—indeed, drawings may have been more common in areas where ashlar construction was the norm and a greater degree of preplanning was necessary. Trdat, the Armenian who rebuilt the dome of Constantinople’s Hagia Sophia in the tenth century, knew drawings and models; he is said to have presented a plan and prepared a model for the rebuilding of the dome.9 It is noteworthy that Trdat produced an exact scale copy of the seventh-century aisled tetraconch church at Zvart’nots’, the church of Gagkašen (1001–1005) in Ani, suggesting the use of drawings (compare Fig. 12.19 and Fig. 19.11A). A drawing (rather than a model) appears in the dedication image of the Georgian church at K’orogo

(Fig. 16.5).10 More preplanning would have been necessary for architecture in finely cut stone and with intricate geometry. A thirteenth-century architectural drawing was found, thinly etched on the exterior wall at Astvansankal (Armenia), that seems to have been a scaled preparatory drawing for the construction of the muqarnas vault in the gavit (forehall)—indicating that details of the elevation were determined during the construction process (Figs. 16.6 and 16.7).11 Buildings becoming. As Vasileios Marinis astutely remarks, both buildings and the rituals they house are “continually in the process of becoming.”12 Those sites that have been examined archaeologically reveal a constant process of transformation, as discussed in the previous chapters: the Chora (Kariye Camii) and the Kyriotissa (Kalenderhane N.  Thierry, “Illustration de la construction d’une église. Les sculptures de Korogo (Georgie),” in Atistes, Artisans, et Production Artistique au Moyen Age, ed. X. Barral I Altet (Rennes, 1983), 1136–39.

10

A. Ghazarian (Kazaryan) and R. G. Ousterhout, “A Muqarnas Drawing from Thirteenth-Century Armenia and the Use of Architectural Drawings during the Middle Ages,” Muqarnas 18 (2000): 141–54. 11

8 Mamaloukos, “Zetemata architektonike,” 119–28. 9

schediasmou

Maranci, “The Architect Trdat.”

ste

byzantine

12

Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 118.

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FIGURE 16.5 K’orogo, Church of the Virgin, sculpted capital depicting the donors with the plan of the church (D. Khoshtaria)

FIGURE 16.6 Astvansankal, detail of the south wall of the gavit, showing incisions (highlighted) (author)

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FIGURE 16. 7 Astvansankal, drawing showing the full pattern of the incisions, with a reconstruction of the pattern, compared to the plan and elevation of the gavit (A. Kazaryan and R. Ousterhout, Muqarnas, 2000; and Mnatsakanian, Arhitektura, 1952)

Camii) are noteworthy in this respect. The Byzantine buildings of Constantinople were constantly renewed, refurbished, and expanded. Basil I (r. 867–86) may have set the tone for later developments with his program of renewal: Between his warlike endeavors . . . the Christloving emperor Basil, by means of continuous care and the abundant supply of all necessary things, raised from ruin many holy churches

that had been rent asunder by prior earthquakes or had entirely fallen down or were threatening immediate collapse on account of the fractures [they had sustained], and to solidity he added [a new] beauty.13 The citations that follow are all too brief to determine if major changes in design were effected. In 13

Vita Basilii, see Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 192–99.

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one example, however, we read that he “repaired and beautified” the Church of the Resurrection and of the martyr Anastasia at the Portico of Domninus by substituting a stone roof for a wooden one—clearly a change in design. Several eleventh-century churches, described by the historian Michael Psellos in his Chronographia, are also instructive in this respect. Romanos III (r. 1028–34), for example, is said to have exhausted the treasury on the Church of the Theotokos Peribleptos: “One on top of another new parts were added, and at the same time another part would be pulled down. Often, too, the work would cease and then suddenly rise up afresh, slightly bigger or with some more elaborate variety.”14 While reflecting the indecisiveness and megalomania of the patron, the description suggests that the design of the building was altered several times during the process of construction, that the plan was not fixed from the beginning, and that the masons were willing to reformulate the basic design as they built. A similar situation is described with Michael IV (r. 1034–41) and the Monastery of the Kosmidion, built in an eastern suburb of Constantinople, where the emperor’s patronage arose from his hopes that the doctor-saints would heal his afflictions. Here the description indicates the renovation of an older structure: “Actually, not all of the foundations were laid by Michael, but he threw them over a wider area. There had been a sacred building on the spot before, although it was not noted for any magnificence, nor was it remarkable for its architectural style.” It is an interesting example of something new created in the framework of something old. Psellos reserves his greatest praise and his greatest condemnation for the church of St. George of Mangana, built by the emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (r. 1042–55); the text is worth quoting in full: In this catalogue of the emperor’s foolish excesses, I now come to the worst example of all—the building of the Church of St. George the Martyr. Constantine pulled down and completely destroyed the original church; the present one was erected on the site of its ruins. For texts, see E. R. A. Sewter, trans., Fourteen Byzantine Rulers: The Chronographia of Michael Psellus (Harmondsworth, 1953), 72, 105–106, 250–53. 14

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The first architect did not plan very well, and there is no need for me to write of the old building here, but it appears that it would have been of no great dimensions, if the preliminary plans had been carried out, for the foundations were moderate in extent and the rest of the building proportionate, while the height was by no means outstanding. However, as time went by, Constantine was fired by an ambition to rival all the other buildings that had ever been erected, and to surpass them altogether. So the area of the church and its precincts was greatly enlarged. The old foundations were raised and strengthened, or else sunk deeper. On these latter bigger and more ornate pillars were set up. Everything was done on a more artistic scale. with gold-leaf on the roof and precious green stones let into the floor or encrusted in the walls. And these stones, set one above another, in patterns of the same hue or in designs of alternate colours, looked like flowers. And as for the gold, it flowed from the public treasury like a stream bubbling up from inexhaustible springs. The church was not yet finished, however, and once again the whole plan was altered and new ideas incorporated in its construction. The symmetrical arrangement of the stones was broken up, the walls pulled down, and everything levelled with the ground. And the reason for it? Constantine’s efforts to rival other churches had not met with the complete success he hoped for: one church, above all, remained unsurpassed. So the foundations of another wall were laid and an exact circle described with the third church in its centre (I must admit that it certainly was more artistic). The whole conception was on a magnificent and lofty scale. The edifice itself was decorated with golden stars throughout, like the vault of heaven, but whereas the real heaven is adorned with its golden stars only at intervals, the surface of this one was entirely covered with gold, issuing forth from its centre as if in a never-ending stream. On all sides there were buildings, some completely, others half-surrounded by cloisters. The ground everywhere was levelled, like a race-course, stretching further than the eye could see, its bounds out of sight. Then came a second circle of buildings bigger than the

first, and lawns full of flowers, some on the circumference, others down the centre. There were fountains which filled basins of water; gardens, some hanging, others sloping down to the level ground; a bath that was beautiful beyond description. To criticize the enormous size of the church was impossible, so dazzling was its loveliness. Beauty pervaded every part of the vast creation, so that one could only wish it were even greater and its gracefulness spread over an area still wider. And as for the lawns that were bounded by the outer wall, they were so numerous that it was difficult to see them in one sweeping glance: even the mind could scarcely grasp their extent. What little remains of the lavish complex is inconveniently buried today beneath a military installation to the east of Hagia Sophia (see Fig. 15.22). Excavated twice in this century, the complex is better known from Psellos’s description. Two themes constantly recur in the Vita Basilii and in the Chronographia: first, an older building is renewed, and in the process, it is transformed. Second, the design of a building is altered during the process of construction to enhance its impression. I suspect that these themes were not merely rhetorical devices because it is possible to observe the same processes in the architecture of the Middle and Late Byzantine periods. Several examples may be cited that parallel the renovations described in the Vita Basilii. At Kydna in Lycia and at Amorion in Phrygia, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of the transformation of an Early Christian basilica into cross-domed church, with the supports strengthened and vaulting introduced, both probably during the tenth century (Fig. 16.8; and see Figs. 18.1 and 18.2).15 Examples such as these raise the question of what role renovations may have played in the development of new architectural ideas or new building types.16 A look at surviving

J.-P. Adam, “La basilique byzantine de Kydna de Phrygie,” Revue archéologique 1 (1977): 53–78.

15

See Ousterhout, Master Builders, 86–127, for a more detailed discussion; see also H.  Buchwald, “Retrofit—A Hallmark of Byzantine Architecture?” in Form, Style and Meaning in Byzantine Church Architecture (Farnham, 1999), 1–22.

16

FIGURE 16.8 Kydna, Basilica, showing its transformation into a crossdomed church (author, after J.-P. Adam, Revue archéologique, 1977)

Middle Byzantine buildings provides several parallels for the churches mentioned by Psellos. In some examples, the transformation is relatively close chronologically to the initial construction and in others it seems to have been undertaken during the construction process. That is to say, archaeological evidence indicates that design decisions continued to be made long after construction had begun. While Psellos gave his descriptions a negative spin, in fact, they describe actual building practices—indeed, the construction history of the Pantokrator church complex, described in the preceding chapter, makes very good sense against the backdrop of the Chronographia (Figs. 15.26 and 15.27). The archaeological evidence from the katholikon of the Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii)

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FIGURE 16.9 Constantinople, Church of Christ in the Chora Monastery, (A) archaeological plan: Phase 1: sixth century; Phase 2: ninth century; Phase 3: eleventh century; Phase 4: twelfth century; Phase 5: early fourteenth century; Phase 6: later Byzantine additions ; (B) reconstructed plans of the eleventh- and twelfth-century phases (P. A. Underwood, Kariye Djami, 1966; and author)

in Constantinople presents a useful example of change in response to site requirements (Fig. 16.9; and see Fig. 15.13).17 Excavations of the 1950s indicated not one but two phases of construction in the Middle Byzantine period, virtually identical in the details of their construction, both utilizing the recessed brick technique. Based on documentary evidence, the earlier phase was attributed to Maria Doukaina, ca. 1077–81. Only the lower portions of the naos walls and the foundations of the tripartite apse could be identified, but in scale, details, and proportions, they suggest a cross-in-square church very similar in size and appearance to the contemporaneous Church of Christ Pantepoptes. The church was apparently rebuilt very shortly after this, by Maria’s grandson, Isaak Komnenos, who had been identified as the new ktetor, rendering a date sometime either ca. 1120 or possibly in the 1140s. The four columns were replaced by four stout corner piers that, in turn, supported a 17

Ousterhout, The Architecture of the Kariye.

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larger dome. The transformation created a more unified and monumentalized interior. The excavators blamed the site for this drastic transformation, so soon after Maria Doukaina construction. The Chora was built on a slope: the terrain continues to shift downhill, and this has caused severe cracking in the surviving building. We can speculate that a large portion of the church collapsed, perhaps as a result of an earthquake, exacerbating the problems of the site. When rebuilt, a more stable structural system was introduced, utilizing piers rather than columns. The introduction of a new plan at the Chora in the twelfth century came as a direct response to the practical necessities of the site. The resultant atrophied Greek-cross plan was not new to Byzantine architecture, but it had not appeared in mainstream architecture for at least three centuries. Significantly, this church type became popular in Constantinople and in areas under its influence. The katholikon of the Nea Mone on Chios is attributed to the patronage of Constantine IX

Monomachos in the 1040s (see Figs. 13.12 and 13.13). The innovative vaulting of the naos superimposes an octaconch transition above a square lower level.18 Splendidly decorated, the conches are filled with mosaic, below the tall dome. In spite of the innovative form, numerous inconsistencies are evident in the design. The tower-like naos is completely out of scale with the low narthex and sanctuary; the low conch zone blocks the view of the main apse mosaic of the Virgin, to whom the church was dedicated; and the marble revetments are often awkwardly adjusted to the architectural forms. The lower levels of the building, including the sanctuary and narthex, are identical in detailing to a cross-in-square church, and archaeological examination indicates a change of design in the upper walls of the naos. We may speculate that with the generous donations of Constantine, a new design was introduced to create a special setting for mosaic decoration. At Nea Mone, the mosaic zone begins less than 6 meters above the floor, in the curved surfaces of the conches. This may be contrasted with the slightly earlier katholikon of Hosios Loukas, in which the mosaic zone begins about 10 meters above floor level, and the mosaics are consequently rather difficult to see. The proposed change in the design at Nea Mone and its bold new formulation are best understood as a direct response to aesthetic concerns, to the important mosaic program with its imperial overtones. Like the Chora, Nea Mone stands at the forefront of a new building type, the so-called island octagon church, which one finds represented elsewhere on Chios—as at Panagia Krina, as well as on Crete, on Cyprus, and on the mainland. In the preceding examples, standard features remain: the longitudinal axis from narthex to sanctuary, the centralized space of the naos below a dome. Change occurs in the details and in response to the specific requirements of the building: function, location, or decoration. The process of adaptation continues into the Late Byzantine period, for which there is better evidence, as

Ousterhout, “Originality in Byzantine Architecture”; S. Voyadjis, “The Katholikon of Nea Moni on Chios Unveiled,” JÖB 59 (2009): 229–42. 18

patrons were encouraged to renovate older complexes rather than found new ones (see Chap. 24). Building materials and construction techniques. The preparation and transportation of building materials was also a matter of great concern. A dedicatory inscription, partially preserved, from the large tenth-century Georgian church at Oshki gives some indication of the complexity of the process (Fig. 16.10).19 Written in vermillion in the tympanum of the south cross arm, it provides the names of the donors (Bagrat, Duke of Dukes, and David Kouropalates) and of the building supervisor (Grigol), the itemized yearly expenses of the monastery for masons, laborers, and oxen (20,000 drama), and payments in kind (5,000 phisos of wine, 250 grivi of grain); although the units of measurement are unclear, the numbers are impressive. The text also itemizes the materials employed in the construction (sand, sandstone, porous stone, plus 50 liters of iron); the number of masons, laborers, and blacksmiths (seventy); the total numbers of men engaged in building the church (eighty), oxen used in transport (thirty); and mules and pack animals gathering porous stone (thirty). The unusual quantity of iron may have been used for the fabrication of tools rather than in the building proper. Intriguingly, the text is presented in the voice of the building supervisor. A visual analog is presented on the lintel of the church at K’orogo, which shows various aspects of preparation, from quarrying, transporting, and finishing of the stone to the workers taking refreshment (Fig. 16.11).20 Building materials depended to a large extent on local or regional availability. Wall construction of alternating layers of brick and stone remains the standard construction technique in Constantinople throughout its history. A typical example, the early fourteenth-century Chora, has four courses of stone, measuring 64–68 centimeters, alternating with four courses of brick, 42–46 centimeters high (see Fig. 24.11). The bricks measure 4–5 centimeters thick and are laid close together, whereas the mortar joints measure 5–7 centimeters thick. In many areas of the Byzantine Empire, the mixture W. Z. Djobadze, Early Medieval Georgian Monasteries in Historic Tao, Klarjet‘i, and Šavšet‘i (Stuttgart, 1992), 132–34.

19

20

Thierry, “Illustration de la construction.”

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FIGURE 16.10 Oški, Church of John the Baptist, detail of the south portal showing the dedicatory inscription in the lunette (author)

FIGURE 16.11 K’orogo, Church of the Virgin, drawing of the lintel showing the stages in quarrying and construction: (1) a worker removes a stone from the quarry, carving a channel around the block with a pick; (2) workers with oxen transport a large stone on a sledge; one leads the oxen while the other uses a lever to position the stone block; (3) two workers prepare mortar in a trough; (4) workers transport mortar and water; (5) two workers transport a small stone on a sled; (6) a woman brings food and drink to the workers; (7) two workers shape a large block of stone; (8) three workers carry blocks of stone; (9) the church is dedicated; (10) the church is presented to the Virgin (after N. Thierry, “Illustration,” 1983)

of brick and stone facing is less regular, without leveling courses. Variations abound: the alternating courses on brick and stone can vary in number; mortar beds can vary in thickness, and decorative patterns may be introduced into the wall construction. In Greece, for example, we find cloisonné masonry, with individual stones framed with brick, 392

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as well as pseudo-Kufic ornament, with bricks cut to resemble Arabic script, and other carved brick elements (Fig. 16.12). In Syria, the Caucasus, and parts of Anatolia, ashlar construction predominates, often with elaborately carved architectural sculpture, and as a facing on a core of mortared rubble. The churches and fortifications of Armenia

FIGURE 16. 12 Phokis, Hosios Loukas Monastery, Church of the Panagia, south façade with cloisonné masonry and pseudo-Kufic patterns (author)

FIGURE

16.13

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FIGURE 16.14 Constantinople, excavated wall near Terbıyık Sokağı, detail of recessedbrick masonry (author)

are distinctive in this respect; frequently the ashlar has sheared away to expose the rubble core (Fig. 16.13). In Constantinople and areas under its influence, a construction system known as the recessed brick technique appears sometime in the second half of the tenth century, with hidden courses of brick set within wide mortar beds. In standard practice, the technique is characterized by the recessing of alternate courses of brick from the wall surface.21 These are consequently concealed within the mortar bed, and the joints appear to be considerably wider than the brick (Figs. 16.14 and 16.15). Normally, recessed brick will be used in walls in conjunction with stone courses, alternating a single stone course with broad bands of recessed brick. The reason for the development of the construction technique may have been aesthetic, structural, practical, or a combination of all three. The characteristic striped effect, created by thin bricks and wide mortar beds, seems to have been appreciated, and the technique was often continued into the arches. As surfaces became articu21

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 174–80.

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lated with arcading, stepped pilasters, and niches, it would have been increasingly difficult to coordinate bricks of regular measure with walls of varying thickness. In other examples, the technique is used for structural reasons. In many examples, the technique appears where the brick is used only as a facing on a rubble core, and the alternating positions of the bricks would have created a roughened inner surface that would have allowed the facing to bond more easily with the core. The logic of this method would compare with ancient Roman wall construction, where triangular bricks were frequently employed as facing, and the inward points similarly created a roughened surface to bond with the concrete core. Similarly, the technique could take advantage of reused or broken bricks by concealing them behind the mortar finish. Most likely there is not one single explanation for the appearance and popularity of the technique. Structural, aesthetic, or practical reasons may be more correct in different circumstances. But in Byzantine architecture, structure and decoration were closely related. External arcading, for example, could both strengthen the building

FIGURE 16.15 Diagram of the recessed-brick technique, wall section and façade (author)

at critical points and articulate the façade. Similarly, recessed brick may have been employed out of both structural and aesthetic considerations simultaneously. The technique is also significant to our discussion of workshops and workshop practices. The standard technique, with broad mortar joints, appears primarily from the late tenth through the twelfth century in Constantinople, but also in areas associated with the capital, either through the presence of traveling masons or by masons trained in Constantinople. Combined with other technical details, the presence of recessed brick has helped to identify masons from Constantinople at work in Kiev, Chernigov, Jerusalem, and elsewhere. Brick production relied on both good sources of clay and kilns, for which better evidence survives from the later centuries.22 Texts mention both ostrakarioi (clay workers) or keramopoioi (brickmakers): according to Theophanes, the reconstruction of the aqueduct system of Constantinople in 766–67 required five hundred ostrakarioi and two hundred keramopoioi.23 At the Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos and other cited examples, the ergasteria for brick production were located by the seashore, presumably for ease of transport. Excavated kilns from Greece and Kievan Rus’ have oval or rectangular plans and a two-level interior, with the fire below and the bricks stacked above. Based on two twelfthcentury examples from Smolensk, it is estimated that a single kiln could produce up to fifty thousand bricks per season, allowing four thousand to five thousand bricks per firing, and the process of loading, firing, cooling, and unloading could take

two to three weeks.24 As with earlier production, there is considerable variation in the size of Byzantine bricks, which usually measure 32–36 centimeters square and 3.5–5 centimeters thick. As with other building materials, there is continued reuse of brick throughout the Byzantine period. At the Pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople, for example, much (if not all) of the brick is reused from the fifth and sixth centuries. Stone was also common in construction, and quarries were often located close to the building site.25 At Constantinople, quarries have been identified outside the walls, in the area of Bakırköy (Hebdomon). At the Çanlı Kilise in Cappadocia, the quarry was less than a kilometer from the church. The lintel from the Georgian church at K’orogo illustrates the construction process with the quarrying of stone and the transport of it on sledges to the building site (see Fig. 16.11). However, most of the marble quarries that had supplied luxury stones used as columns, capitals, and cladding had ceased activity during the Transitional Period. Quarries at Proconnesus Thasos, Dokimion, and elsewhere no longer supplied new marbles, but these could be replaced by the standing ruins of ancient monuments, which were pillaged for building materials. Columns were regularly recycled, and they could be sliced lengthwise to provide revetments. Reuse of building materials was common throughout the period. Unlike the early centuries when spoliation often had symbolic overtones, in later centuries, reuse was more a matter of practicality. With the decline of cities, trade, and large-scale construction, most quarries for

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 128–32; K.  Theocharidou, “Symbole ste melete.”

P.  A.  Rappoport, Building the Churches of Kievan Russia (Aldershot, 1995), 5–53.

22

23

Theophanes, Chronographia; trans. Mango and Scott, 607–609.

24

25

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 136–47.

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FIGURE

16.16

Burgazada, Monastery of the Transfiguration, column shaft partially recarved to be used as a door frame (author)

marble and other luxury stones ceased operation in the seventh century, and thus when revetments, cornices, closure panels, and other decorative elements of marble appear in later buildings, they represent reuse, either in their original form or often recarved. Often, the unexposed rear surfaces of Middle and Late Byzantine architectural sculpture preserve traces of earlier decoration. Columns were also commonly reused, either as supporting elements—after all, the standard Byzantine four-column church required four columns—or sliced lengthwise to create revetment panels and in some rare examples recut as door frames (Fig. 16.16). With the depopulation of cities, the grand marble piles of Antiquity became the quarries for later construction. Constructed of either brick or stone, Byzantine foundation systems were dug to bedrock if possible and occasionally cut from the bedrock, often stepped in profile to create a solid base for the walls above them (see Fig. 18.4). In vaulted buildings, it became common to lay a grid of foundations that reflected the bay system of the building, with the intervening spaces packed with rubble, as 396

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is evident from the excavation of Church E at Sardis (see Fig. 16.3). As with the walls above, the foundations were reinforced with a system of wooden beams, as have been found at Sardis and in several sites in Bulgaria and Kievan Rus’.26 Because of the irregularity of the terrain, the foundations for the churches of Constantinople required extensive vaulted substructures to create a level platform for the superstructure. Sometimes these served utilitarian purposes; occasionally they were used for burials. Because of the lack of a good natural supply of water within the city, the substructures almost invariably included cisterns, as they had in earlier centuries. Almost all of the Middle and Late Byzantine churches of Constantinople were built above cisterns, as in the twelfth-century Pammakaristos (see Fig. 15.35). In some of the better-preserved examples, such as the cisterns below the fourteenth-century funeral chapel at the Chora Monastery, conduits led from the roof to collect rainwater (Fig. 16.17).

26

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 157–69.

Lime mortar, with quicklime as an active agent, continues to be used, but varied in quality.27 Mortar was prepared on site, mixed in a pit, as is often represented in scenes of construction (see Fig. 16.1). In some volcanic areas like Cappadocia, the use of volcanic sand in the mortar inadvertently resulted in an exceptionally hard mortar, similar to Roman concrete. The quality of the mortar deteriorated in some later constructions; in a few of the Late Byzantine churches of Thessalonike, for example, it is little better than mud, although finished on the external surfaces with a higher-quality mortar. At the late thirteenth-century Church of St. Panteleimon, for example, the mud mortar simply crumbled in the earthquake of 1978, creating a preservation nightmare: the building was propped up by extensive scaffoldings as the mortar beds were cleaned and the mortar was replaced—an arduous process that took several decades.28 Wooden reinforcement continued to be used in Byzantine construction.29 Wooden beams were set within the thickness of the wall, joined to the tie beams that spanned arches and vaults. At the Panagia Krina on Chios, of the late twelfth century, wooden beams have been detected at seven levels within the building, usually with two parallel beams at each level, joined to crossbeams that may have extended as putlogs for the external scaffolding (Fig. 16.18).30 The system continued into the dome, and beams are visible at the springing of the window arches. Churches also commonly had tie beams extending across the interior, at the springing of the major vaults and critical points in the structural system, and these would have been connected to the beams within the walls. In many 27

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 133–36.

28

Anastylose ton byzantinon kai metabyzantinon mnemeion ste Thessalonike (Thessalonike, 1985).

29

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 184–94.

A.  Koumantos, “Wooden Reinforcement in Byzantine Masonry: A Rough Guide to Their Position and Arrangement,” in Against Gravity: Building Practices in the Pre-Industrial World, eds. R.  G.  Ousterhout, L.  Haselberger, R.  Holod, and P.  Webster (Philadelphia, 2016), 1–32. Online publication of papers from the 2015 Penn Center for Ancient Studies Conference: http://www. s a s .u p en n .e d u / a n c i en t / m a s o n s / a b s t r a c t s / A g u d o / Athanasios%20Koumantos%20-%20Against%20Gravity%20 paper.pdf; A.  Koumantos, “Xulines Domikes Enischuseis ste Vyzantine Architektonike,” PhD diss., University of Patras, 2018.

30

FIGURE 16.17 Constantinople, Chora Monastery, (top) view into a cistern beneath the parekklesion; (bottom) view into the shaft showing ceramic conduits to drain rainwater from the roof (the Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. late 1920s–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees of Harvard University, Washington, DC)

churches, they were considered permanent elements, and they would have been painted and decorated where exposed. In a cross-in-square church, tie beams commonly appear immediately above the capitals—as at the eleventh-century Panagia Chalkeon in Thessalonike—effectively stabilizing the columns, connecting them to each other and anchoring them to the outer walls of the naos (Fig. 16.19). As buildings were extended in height, additional tie beams could be introduced at the springing of the high vaults, as they appear at the early fourteenth-century Holy Apostles in Thessalonike (see Fig. 25.11).

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FIGURE 16.18 Chios, Panagia Krina, plan and longitudinal section, showing the positions of wooden reinforcements (Athanasios Koumantos, “Wooden Reinforcement,” 2016)

One curious development from the ubiquity of the wooden tie beam is the introduction of marble beams in the small Middle Byzantine churches of the Mani region of the southern Peloponnese (Fig. 16.20).31 In an isolated area where marble continued to be quarried, many of the tiny cross-insquare churches have intricately carved marble tie beams, some bearing inscriptions. While their 31

N. Drandakes, Vyzantina glytpa tes Manes (Athens, 2002).

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appearance here seems to indicate they were a ubiquitous feature of contemporary church architecture, their structural role (and potential structural behavior) is misunderstood. In standard usage, and in the examples noted above, wooden tie beams allowed give and take as the building settled and with minor earth movements (as discussed in Chap.  4), and they would have been connected to the building’s internal skeleton of wooden reinforcement. Marble, by contrast, is

FIGURE 16.19 Thessalonike, Panagia ton Chalkeon, interior, looking east, with restored beams (author)

FIGURE 16.20 Vamvaka (Mani), Sts. Theodores, interior looking east, showing marble tie beams (author)

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FIGURE 16.21 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, tenth-century graffiti in a dome window reveal; most are formulaic: “Lord help your servant [name]” (author)

rigid and does not work well in tension; the marble beams only appear in the central domed bay, without connecting to other reinforcement. Any serious movement of the building would either cause the marble beams to break or damage the masonry where it was anchored—and there is evidence of both in the Mani churches. During the construction process, a variety of scaffoldings were used to support the builders on high (see Figs. 16.1 and 5.7). Although none survives, several different systems may be hypothesized based on texts, illustrations (usually the construction of the Tower of Babel, in painting or manuscripts with scenes from the Old Testament), and evidence within the surviving buildings. Working on scaffolding could be dangerous, and construction accidents are a topos in hagiographical literature. Accidents are recorded due to the collapse of scaffolding (usually called klimax, or ladder). This may have motivated the masons working on the tenth-century rebuilding of the dome of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople to incise graffiti prayers in the damp mortar of the window reveals (Fig. 16.21). The vita of St. Photeine records an incident at her church in Constantinople, where the painters 400

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were embellishing the ceiling with their art when the plank of wood on which the weight of the entire ladder (klimax) was supported broke—and this ladder was skillfully made of many pieces of wood—and suddenly collapsed, bringing the artisans down with it. And surely they would have been stabbed by these [pieces of wood] and crushed to death had not the helping [Photeine] . . . caught everything on a tiny nail, and checked the collapse, and saved the men.32 Here the scaffolding was attached to the structure of the building rather than supported from below. In many examples, in fact, the supports were built into the walls, leaving a telltale pattern of putlog holes on the façades. In the scene of the construction of the Tower of Babel from San Marco in Venice, workers ascend ladders to platforms resting on putlogs, rather than supported from the ground. As the wall construction rose, new rows of putlogs were added. In a remarkable reversal of the topos, St. Athanasios of Athos fell to his death when the “carpenter’s 32 A.-M. Talbot, “The Posthumous Miracles of St. Photeine,” AB 112 (1994): 85–104.

ladder” (he technike klimax) on which he was standing collapsed under the weight of him and six other monks. His biographer blames the collapse neither on the inexperience of the workmen nor on the freshness of the mortar, suggesting that the scaffolding was resting on beams in putlog holes and the weight of the workers caused the wall to break apart.33 Erecting columns could also be problematic. In an incident related in the vita of Photeine, the stonemason Katakalos learned the hard way: Once when he was setting up columns on the upper floor of a nearby building, and was pouring lead into a wet hole, the lead was suddenly splashed backwards by the presence of moisture, and he suffered terrible damage to his eyes and was blinded.34 Photeine cures him, but the incident requires some explanation. The lead was presumably to anchor a pin to connect the column to its base, as had been done since ancient times (see Fig. 5.15). But when poured by Katakalos, it splashed as it came into contact with moisture: the water vaporized instantly, and the sudden explosion of steam propelled the lead upward. For the large scale of early buildings, structure was a primary concern, but for the smaller scale of the later vaults the emphasis shifts to construction. As vaulted buildings became the norm after the sixth century, arches and vaults were usually of brick and normally had wooden tie beams at their springing, as noted above. At the tenthcentury church of the Theotokos tou Libos in Constantinople, an iron collar was provided around the tall apse, buried in the masonry just behind the cornice (Fig. 16.22). Marble cornice blocks also could be connected with metal pins or secured with a system of wooden beams immediately behind them, so that they could act as structural stabilizers, as was done at Justinian’s Hagia Sophia and in many later examples—metal pins may be detected at the Chora dome cornice, as well as in the Fatih Camii at Enez (Fig. 16.23). In addition, Ousterhout, Master Builders, 186; J. Noret, ed., Vita duae antiquae Sancti Athanasii Athonitae (Turnhout, 1982), Vita A, chap.  234; Vita B, chap 66.

FIGURE 16.22 Constantinople, Theotokos tou Libos, detail of the east façade during restoration, showing the iron collar beneath the cornice (the Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. late 1920s–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees of Harvard University, Washington, DC)

33

34

Talbot, “Posthumous Miracles.”

FIGURE 16.23 Enez (Ainos), Fatih Camii, detail of the dome cornice, showing reused marbles joined by metal cramps (author)

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FIGURE 16.24 Constantinople, St. George of Mangana, (left) cross-section of the substructure, showing the construction of arches and vault (R. Demangel and E. Mamboury, Quartier des Manganes, 1939); (right) view into the substructures showing the springing of an arch (author)

16.25 Kurşunlu (Elegmi), St. Albercius, view into the apse, showing conch construction without formwork (the Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. late 1920s–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees of Harvard University, Washington, DC) FIGURE

wooden chains that formed tension rings were built into virtually every Byzantine dome, often still evident in the dome windows. Byzantine vaults could have been constructed with or without formwork, depending on their 402

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scale.35 A large barrel vault, for example, would have required substantial formwork. Byzantine masons preferred smaller vaults that could be constructed of pitched and corbelled bricks without formwork. In the substructures of the Myrelaion Church, the impression of the wooden formwork has been left in the mortared surface of the vaults. The same appears in the eleventhcentury substructures at the Mangana in Constantinople (Fig. 16.24). There the brick voussoirs at the haunches of the arches were corbelled outward, and formwork was only introduced when it became necessary: at that point in the construction a tie beam was inserted (not at the springing) to support the formwork for the crown of the arch. The change is clearly evident, as the mortared intrados preserves the imprint of the wooden formwork. In fact, most vaults in secondary spaces were clearly laid without formwork, with the vaults subdivided into smaller, interlocking segments. Similar patterns often appear in conches and halfdomes, which were subdivided into triangular sections (Fig. 16.25). These are sometimes (incorrectly) called “decorative brickwork,” but there is a clear constructional logic to them. Because the scale of most Byzantine churches was small, the vaults would have required little or no formwork. Often this was limited to the arches that divided the space into smaller bays, where the bricks were 35

Ousterhout, Master Builders, 216–33.

FIGURE 16.26 Constantinople, Chora Monastery, a ribbed dome and a pumpkin dome, covering the pastophoria (the Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. late 1920s–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees of Harvard University, Washington, DC)

laid in as radiating voussoirs, whereas in the groin or domical vaults, the courses of brick were laid close to horizontally—in effect, they were corbelled. In the substructures at the Mangana, both the radiating arches and the corbelled vaults are evident, and the rough mortar impression on the arch intrados shows exactly where the formwork appeared, supported above the tie beam (see Fig. 16.24). The packing of the dead space behind the vaults with amphorae was also common. Many of the domes were laid without formwork or with minimal formwork (Fig. 16.26). A ribbed dome could have been laid with formwork only for the ribs. Normally they are quite precise in their construction, whereas the webs between them are not. A pumpkin dome—formed by a series of interlocking curved surfaces—could have been built without any formwork. Actually, the geometry of a pumpkin dome would have created a uniquely rigid form, and this would

have added the necessary stability for unsupported construction.

, With rare exception, Byzantine church architecture did not enjoy the same prestige as mosaic or painting. And, with rare exception, Byzantine masons remain anonymous and professionally illiterate. While the Iconoclast debates produced a significant body of literature that informs our interpretation of religious art, we have nothing similar for Byzantine religious architecture. There is no text that addresses architectural practices directly. Nevertheless, the scattered references that appear in saints’ vitae, ekphraseis, and other works of Byzantine literature can be augmented by the careful examination of standing remains to provide a glimpse into the lives of Byzantine builders, their craft, and their materials.

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,

DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL STYLES I Middle Byzantine Greece and Macedonia

C

ertain features in Middle Byzantine church design are almost universal, such as the centralized, domed plan and the three-part sanctuary. While some plans may have been imported from major centers, construction tended to be local: although we might occasionally find masons from the capital working on special projects in the provinces, under normal circumstances in this period, they did not travel. Thus, regional workshops developed distinctive techniques and styles. The architecture of the so-called Helladic School of Athens, Attica, and the Peloponnese, for example, contrasts with northern developments around Thessalonike and into Macedonia, areas often strongly associated with Constantinople. These developments occur side by side with less sophisticated constructions, seemingly without influence from the major centers.

, Northern Greece and Macedonia. One of our earliest examples remains one of the most problematic. The Church of St. Andrew at Peristera, in the hills outside Thessalonike, was erected by St. Euthymios the Younger, ca. 870–71 (Figs. 17.1 and 17.2; and see Fig. 15.9D).1 According to his N. K. Moutsopoulos, Peristera, ho oreinos oikismos tou Chortiatē kai ho Naos tou Hagiou Andrea (Thessalonike, 1986); A. Alexakis, ed. and 1

vita, the ascetic saint built the church himself with the assistance of a few followers on a site plagued by demons. Both the presence of demons and the do-it-yourself nature of the enterprise may explain the crudeness of the construction, which is heavy, rubbly, and without ornament, but its sophisticated plan comes as something of a surprise. A five-domed church with the domes arranged on a Greek-cross plan, it thus replicated the basic configuration of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, albeit on a considerably smaller scale—indeed, the entire building would have fit under the main dome of the Holy Apostles. More significant is the elaboration of the five bays: the crossing is a cross-in-square unit with tiny corner compartments, while the arms of the cross are trefoil. The western bay may have functioned as the narthex—the building originally lacked one— while the eastern triconch is framed by pastophoria, forming a standard Middle Byzantine tripartite sanctuary. The dedication to St. Andrew (who was buried at the Holy Apostles) suggests that the design may have come from Constantinople. But if so, what was the prototype? If it followed the Justinianic model, the five-domed design was A.-M. Talbot, trans., “Life of Euthymios the Younger,” in Holy Men of Mount Athos, eds. R. P. H. Greenfield and A.-M. Talbot (Cambridge, MA, 2016), 84–97; Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 339–40.

Stiris, Hosios Loukas Monastery, katholikon, interior, looking into vaulting (author) 405

FIGURE 17.1 Peristerai, Church of St. Andrew, view from the north (author)

17.2 Peristerai, Church of St. Andrew, interior, looking south (author) FIGURE

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FIGURE 17.3 Thessalonike, Church of Panagia ton Chalkeon, view from the south (author)

dramatically updated with a standard Middle Byzantine cross-in-square unit at its core, framed by elaborate cross arms. Almost contemporaneous with St. Andrew was the Nea Ekklesia, discussed in Chapter 15, which Basil I built inside the Great Palace in Constantinople. Now lost, the Nea is described as five domed. Although its plan remains uncertain, the idea of a five-domed church was clearly in the air at this time and perhaps indicative of prestige. As Thessalonike emerged as the second city of the Byzantine Empire, we find good evidence of its cultural associations with Constantinople, while at the same time it became an architectural center in its own right—the regional impact of Hagia Sophia has already been noted. The only surviving Middle Byzantine church in the city is a private foundation, built by a certain Christophoros, holding the title of protospatharios, katepan of Longoubardia. The church known as the Panagia ton Chalkeon is dated to 1028 by an inscription that fails to give its dedication (Figs. 17.3 and 17.4).2 Christophoros’s arcosolium tomb breaks through the wall on the Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 371–73; M. Paissidou, “Panagia ton Chalkeon,” in Impressions: Byzantine Thessalonike through the

2

FIGURE 17.4 Thessalonike, Church of Panagia ton Chalkeon, plans at the ground floor and gallery levels (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

Photographs and Drawings of the British School at Athens (1888–1910), ed. A. Mentzos (Thessalonike, 2012), 126–35.

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FIGURE 17.5 Kastoria, Church of St. Stephen, view from the southeast (author)

north side of the naos. The church shares many features with its Constantinopolitan counterparts: a cross-in-square plan of moderate size (11.5 by 19 meters overall), with the dome rising above columns, domed subsidiary spaces on the gallery level, and façades articulated by stepped pilasters that correspond to the internal divisions, brick construction—including recessed brick on the east façade. At the same time, forms are heavier, windows are smaller, and there are details unfamiliar from the capital: gables atop the cross arms projecting above the roof, two levels of windows in the naos dome, windows alternating with niches in the minor domes, and minor apses semicircular on the exterior. Painted decoration of the interior follows the Middle Byzantine program, in a style similar to that at Hosios Loukas. At the opposite extreme, there are a variety of churches in the region that evince no associations with the major currents of the period. Kastoria, picturesquely set on a lake in the north of Greece, is a case in point.3 While relatively affluent, its architec-

ture seems to develop in isolation, with small, heavy, vaulted basilicas. At St. Stephen, probably of the tenth century, the nave is covered by a tall barrel vault with small clerestory windows (Fig. 17.5). The low side aisles join the nave through simple arcades resting on piers. The narthex includes a gallery, covered by a quadrant vault, with windows overlooking the nave. Construction is of a rough cloisonné of brick and stone. The Church of the Anagyroi, probably of the middle of the eleventh century, is similar in plan, scale, and construction, although without the narthex gallery (Fig. 17.6). While part of the territory the Byzantine army reconquered from the Bulgarians in 1018, political events seem to have had no effect on the architectural developments. Similarly, basilicas continued to be constructed long after they had gone out of fashion. At Servia and Verroia, for example, they functioned as cathedrals—apparently in the absence of Early Christian basilicas to serve in that capacity. Servia, now in ruins, was a simple, three-aisled affair, with

A. K. Orlandos, “Ta vyzantina mnemeia tes Kastorias,” ArchBME 4 (1938): 3ff; A. Wharton Epstein, “Middle Byzantine Churches of

Kastoria: Dates and Implications,” ArtB 62 (1980): 190–207; Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 313–15.

3

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FIGURE 17.6 Kastoria, Church of the Anagyroi, view from the southeast (author)

piers rather than columns as the major supports.4 Verroia was more complicated in its design and is now much altered, although it can be reconstructed as three aisled, with alternating supports and a transept—features that recommend St. Demetrius in Thessalonike as its model (Fig. 17.7).5 More indicative of the expanded Byzantine presence is the Church of the Eleousa at Veljusa, in North Macedonia, constructed in 1080 by Manuel, Bishop of Strumica, who had been sent from Constantinople (Fig. 17.8; and see Fig. 13.21).6 Intended to be his burial chapel, his tomb was set into an arcosolium in the narthex. In contrast to its small size—13 meters in overall length—it is remarkably complex and sophisticated in its design. The naos is a domed tetraconch, its eastern arm forming the bema, with tiny niches replacing the pastophoria. The nar4

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 308–11.

5

Th. Papazotos, E Veroia kai oi Naoi tes (Athens, 1994), 164–69.

6 P. Miljković-Pepek, Veljusa. Manastir Sv. Bogorodica Milostiva vo Seloto Beljusa krai Strumica (Skopje, 1981); Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 406–407.

FIGURE 17.7 Verroia, Old Metropolis, reconstructed plan (redrawn after A. Papazotos, Veroia, 1994)

thex is square, expanded by arcosolia to the sides, and is also domed. A tiny subsidiary chapel joins to the south side, part of the original construction, a reduced version of the already small naos, similarly topped by a dome. Turning to the exterior, the undulating façades are detailed with stepped pilasters framing doorways, windows, and blind arcades, with both rectangular and semicircular recesses. The domes are uniformly tall, raised on attenuated drums, with colonnettes

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17.8 Veljusa, Church of the Virgin Eleousa, view from the southeast (author) FIGURE

at the corners, multiple setbacks, and tall, thin windows. The interior is decorated with elegant frescoes and an opus sectile floor. Construction is primarily of brick, laid in the recessed brick technique characteristic of Constantinople, its exterior surface regularized with a layer of plaster painted to replicate the masonry details. Where decorative brick patterning occurs, on the lateral walls of the narthex, these, too, are regularized in the painted plaster. What was the motivation for such an expensive project? Perhaps the personal expression of its patron, marking his Constantinopolitan identity in architectural form, as did his near contemporary, Theophylact of Ohrid, in his written letters. It may also be in part an assertion of the Byzantine presence in the region. An expression of a Constantinopolitan identity may be the best explanation for two provincial churches whose patrons not only came from the capital but also were members of the imperial family. At Nerezi, near Skopje (North Macedonia), the Church of St. Panteleimon was built in 1164 by a certain Alexios Angelos Komnenos, a minor member of the reigning imperial family, about whom little is known (Figs. 17.9 and 17.10; 410

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and see Fig. 15.9C).7 While laid out on a slightly trapezoidal plan, the tiny building has a fivedomed plan, with the cruciform naos framed by domed corner compartments. Because of the small scale, the drums of the corner domes are square. The eastern domed compartments open into the bema and are pastophoria, while the western corner compartments open only from the narthex and seem to have been funerary in function—that to the north for the tomb of the founder. The construction is a rough mixture of brick and stone—presumably by local masons, although this may have been originally plastered on the exterior; windows and arches are framed with setbacks. The wall paintings are of exceptional sophistication and must be the work of an imported artist, clearly indicative of Alexios’s cultural connections. The incorporation of subsidiary chapels and the five-domed plan recall the architecture of the capital, as does the concern for privileged burial.

I. Sinkević, “Alexios Angelos Komnenos: A Patron without History?” Gesta 35 (1996): 34–42; I. Sinkević, Church of St. Panteleimon at Nerezi.

7

FIGURE 17.9 Nerezi, Church of St. Panteleimon, view from the south (author)

FIGURE 17.10 Nerezi, Church of St. Panteleimon, interior, looking southeast (author)

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The monastic Church of the Panagia Kosmosoteira at Ferai (in Greek Thrace), dated by its typikon to 1152, exhibits many of the same concerns (see Figs. 15.33 and 15.34).8 Although earlier than Nerezi, it is also more closely connected to Constantinople, its design more sophisticated. The monastery was founded by the Sebastokrator (Crown Prince) Isaak Komnenos, brother of John II, following his final exile from the capital, to be the setting of both his retirement and his tomb. A variation of the five-domed, cross-in-square type, its plan measures approximately 15 by 20 meters, although the building seems originally to have had an ambulatory that no longer survives. The spacious interior has a tripartite sanctuary to the east, with the bema separated from the domed pastophoria by thick walls pierced by arched openings. On the west side, the domed corner bays are separated from the attenuated western cross arm by thin coupled columns. Construction is in the recessed brick technique, reinforced with internal wooden chains. The apses are faceted, detailed with niches and brick decoration. Windows are large, with threelight windows in the cross arms and mullioned windows in the apses. The domes are all pumpkin domes, with scalloped interiors. Almost all details in design and construction find good parallels in Constantinople. The only exception may be the curious coupled columns in the nave, but the shafts are spolia, too small for the capitals, probably doubled to compensate for their size. To increase their stability, iron tie rods extend from above the column capitals to the outer walls. The use of metal in a structural capacity is unusual in Byzantine architecture; elsewhere in the church, wooden bracing was used. The monastic communities of Mount Athos have already been introduced. Although located close to Thessalonike, the monasteries on the Holy Mountain received significant patronage from the capital, and in many ways the architecture reflects that connection. The “Athonite type” church, with lateral apses or “choirs”—whether a local creation or an import—found great popularity on the Holy Mountain, already evident at Great Lavra, Iviron, and Vatopedi by the eleventh 8

Ousterhout and Bakirtzis, Byzantine Monuments, 48–85.

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century, spreading subsequently to northern Greece and the Balkans (see Figs. 13.17–13.19).9 There were also a number of cross-in-square churches constructed on Mount Athos. Most import of these was the katholikon of the Zygos Monastery, built ca. 1000 and measuring approximately 11 by 19 meters. Although in ruins, the church bears all the hallmarks of Constantinople, including the elongated plan, with the tripartite sanctuary extended from the cross-in-square unit, pilasters with setbacks articulating the facades, faceted apses, construction in the recessed brick technique, and an inlaid marble floor (see Fig. 13.28). As at Lavra, a chapel connected to the narthex may have contained the tomb of the founder. There are several other cross-in-square churches at Mount Athos as well, although smaller in scale, but quite similar in detail. As with the Athonite triconch, the Holy Mountain may have played a role in the dissemination of the building type. The Helladic School. Further south in Greece, an architectural resurgence corresponds to the period of prosperity following the Byzantine reconquest of Crete from the Arabs in 961, closely followed by the military interventions in the Balkans by Basil II, who celebrated a triumph in Athens in 1018. Hundreds of churches survive across Attica and the Peloponnese—more than two dozen in Athens alone—many of them small and domed and distinctive in their architectural style. In 1916, the French scholar Gabriel Millet published his dissertation, entitled L’école grecque dans l’architecture byzantine.10 In it, he offered an assessment of the construction techniques and stylistic features of the architecture of much of mainland Greece, today often called the Helladic School, which he set in contrast to those of Constantinople. By “school,” he meant something like a school of fish—which cluster together because of their similarities—rather than an educational institution: architectural training came through participation in a workshop and not in a proper school. More recently it has been termed

Mylonas, “Le plan initial”; updated by Mamaloukos, To Katholiko; Mamaloukos, “A Contribution.” 9

10

G. Millet, L’école grecque dans l’architecture byzantine (Paris, 1916).

the “Helladic Paradigm.”11 Whatever we call it, there is a remarkable consistency to the architecture. Major planning types, such as the cross-insquare type and the domed octagon type, probably originated in Constantinople but were introduced into Greece in the tenth and eleventh centuries, with what may be the earliest examples of both types found at Hosios Loukas Monastery: the Panagia Church of the mid-tenth century and the katholikon of the early eleventh (see Figs. 13.8 and 13.23). Both types appeared shortly thereafter in Athens: the cross-in-square in the late tenth century at Mone Petrake, for example, which has a number of distinctively Constantinopolitan features, and the domed octagon in the early to mideleventh century, at Soteira Lykodemou.12 There are many varieties of both types in the Peloponnese, as, for example, domed octagons at Christianoupolis and Monemvasia or the many small cross-in-square churches of the Mani. The crossin-square took on a variety of forms, often challenging the typological distinctions between crossin-square and cross-domed, and workshops must have been able to build following (and adapting) a variety of different planning schemes.13 More than the typology, however, the Helladic churches are distinguished by their external features, which include cloisonné masonry in the wall construction, with each squared block of sandstone outlined in brick, often combined with dogtooth friezes—that is, with bricks set at 45degree angles, both as horizontal bands and as window frames.14 Pseudo-Kufic masonry, discussed below, seems to have been introduced at the Panagia Church at Hosios Loukas, and it appears commonly thereafter (see Fig. 16.13). Other forms of carved brick decoration are also employed. By the early eleventh century, glazed ceramic bowls appear as decorative insets in the apse surfaces, dome drums, and gables.15 While sometimes the bowls are of local production, 11

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 413.

12

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 337–38.

13

M. Kappas, “Eparmoge.”

more often they are imports from exotic locales, notably Fatimid Egypt. Carved marble detailing and the use of spolia are also common. Walls appear as flat, decorated surfaces, with little articulation; windows tend to be small. Within the Helladic paradigm, however, we find little influence beyond the region, suggesting that unlike the masons of Constantinople, the Helladic workshops did not travel widely. All the same, they remained open to new features and planning types introduced from the outside— they appropriated and assimilated from near and far, but they did not have a significant impact beyond mainland Greece. That said, the continuity of the distinctive Helladic features into the thirteenth century (when the region was taken over by “Franks” from Western Europe) and beyond indicates the strength of the regional identity represented by these architectural forms (about which, see Chap. 23).16 Within this group of monuments, there are few securely dated examples. Almost all of those just mentioned are insecurely dated, with their chronology determined by a combination of stylistic features and historical circumstances, insofar as they can be reconstructed.17 Millet’s analysis of the architecture emphasized its taxonomy, and this approach has dominated the scholarship— and perhaps rightly so, for without better evidence for context or chronology we have little else to go on. All the same, the inventiveness of these churches is best expressed in the accumulation of decorative details, rather than in larger issues of design. The plans and typologies of the Hosios Loukas churches have been already introduced, but the exceptional construction and masonry decoration of the Panagia merit a detailed examination (see Figs. 16.13 and 13.23). With the exception of a tall arch marking the cross arm on the south façade, the façades are essentially flat, enlivened with a variety of decorative patterns in masonry. Some large, reused stones appear at the base of the walls, but much of the wall construction is of

14

For construction techniques, see G. Velenis, Ermeneia tou exoterikou diakosmou.

16

A. H. S. Megaw, “Glazed Bowls in Byzantine Churches,” DChAE 4 (1964): 145–62.

17 A. H. S. Megaw, “The Chronology of Some Middle Byzantine Churches,” BSA 32 (1931–32): 90–130.

15

G. Page, Being Byzantine: Greek Identity before the Ottomans (Cambridge, 2008).

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brick and stone laid in the cloisonné technique. In the upper walls, individual courses alternate with dogtooth friezes, which also extend to frame the windows. On the upper east walls are bands of pseudo-Kufic inscription in brick, imitating a stylized Arabic script, and individual letters appear framed in the cloisonné courses. Marble decoration appears throughout the building: the interior has capitals with stylized leaves, a templon with carved decoration, although—oddly— no cornices; external decoration included inlaid marble panels and colonnettes on the dome drum, as well as cornices carved with pseudoKufic patterns, imitating a stylized Islamic script. Pseudo-Kufic decoration appears for the first time in an architectural context at Hosios Loukas, used in the brick courses as decorative emblems and friezes, as well as patterning on the cornices.18 Sometimes single words such as “Allah” may be discerned, but more often than not, it is no more than pseudo-writing, and its appearance may be at first puzzling. Several reasons for its introduction have been put forward: it might represent a triumphal appropriation of Islamic forms related to the Blessed Luke predicting the Byzantine reconquest of Crete; it might also be viewed as sacred writing, either confusing Arabic with Hebrew, or perhaps associated with the language of the Church of the East; it might also be understood as magical writing—indecipherable charakteres with apotropaic power. Any or all of these might be applicable to its appearance at Hosios Loukas; in any case, pseudo-Kufic appears commonly in Helladic architecture of the Middle Byzantine period after this time, perhaps as nothing more potent than ornament. The Church of the Holy Apostles, built in the Athenian Agora ca. 1000, picks up on many of the features first introduced at the Panagia at Hosios Loukas and is an early representative of the architectural revival in Athens (Figs. 17.11–17.13).19 Although its central dome is supported above four freestanding columns, it is set within a circle rather than a square, measuring approximately G. C. Miles, “Byzantium and the Arabs: Relations in Crete and the Aegean Area,” DOP 18 (1964): 20–32; Walker, “PseudoArabic ‘Inscriptions.’”

13 meters across, with apses on the main axis and niches filling out the corners—those to the east functioning as pastophoria, behind the templon. A narthex joins to the west side. The unique plan presents something of a puzzle. Perhaps it was originally designed as an octagon domed church and subsequently modified with a smaller dome. In this respect, comparison with Armenian monuments, such as Vagarashapat or Aght‘amar, is useful. Indeed, without the columns, the interior of Holy Apostles compares favorably with Vagarshapat and its date corresponds to the revival of architecture in the Caucasus (see Figs. 12.19, 12.20, 19.2, and 19.3). The Kamariotissa on Chalke (outside Constantinople) indicates the adoption of Armenian building types in the capital in this period as well (see Figs.15.12B and 15.21). Perhaps it is best to see the Holy Apostles as an example of the Helladic builders’ abilities to assimilate and combine architectural elements from a variety of disparate sources. Like the Kamariotissa, the construction is purely regional, with cloisonné masonry, dogtooth bands, pseudo-Kufic decoration, carved marbles, and reused blocks in the lower levels—details all comparable to the Panagia at Hosios Loukas. The two-columned cross-in-square church of Iosonos and Sosipatros on the island of Kerkyra shares these construction features as well. It may be the product of Attic masons, indicative of the strength of the regional workshops by ca. 1000.20 The uniqueness and sophistication of the katholikon of Hosios Loukas present one of the great mysteries of Byzantine Greece. There is no indication of hesitancy or experimentation in either its design or its execution—all details are carefully coordinated (Figs. 17.14 and 17.15; and see Figs. 13.8 and 13.23). And yet there is nothing even vaguely comparable in the earlier architecture in Greece.21 Measuring 16 by 28 meters overall, with a dome 8.5 meters in internal diameter, the katholikon is also out of scale with local production. Who were its patrons? Where did its design come from? Its builders? Its mosaicists and painters? Its materials? Even its foundation date

18

A. Frantz, The Church of the Holy Apostles, The Athenian Agora 20 (Princeton, 1971); Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 375.

19

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20

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 429–30.

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 386; but see Chatzidakis, “A propos”; Oikonomides, “The First Century.” 21

FIGURE 17.11 Athens, Church of the Holy Apostles, view from the south (author)

FIGURE 17.13 Athens, Church of the Holy Apostles, interior, looking east (author)

FIGURE 17.12 Athens, Church of the Holy Apostles, plan (after A. Frantz, Church of the Holy Apostles, 1971)

goes unrecorded. While hotly debated, it seems most likely that the design and artisans came from Constantinople—possibly patronage as well. The best guess on the date is either 1011 or 1022, and perhaps the imperial presence of Basil II in 1018 could have had something to do with it—indeed, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL STYLES I

415

FIGURE 17.14 Stiris, Hosios Loukas Monastery, katholikon, south façade (author)

this is the time when connections with the imperial capital were the closest. The popularity of the tomb of the Blessed Luke as a pilgrimage destination could also have encouraged wide-ranging financial support for the project, both regional and imperial—curiously undocumented for an undertaking of this magnitude. 416

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The project was likely overseen by a Constantinopolitan master, although the construction, of large stone blocks mixed with brick, finds no comparison in the capital and may be the work of local masons. Even for local construction the use of materials is unusual, but the preponderance of large stone may be attributed to structural considerations, for

FIGURE

17.15

Stiris, Hosios Loukas Monastery, katholikon, interior, looking into vaulting (author)

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FIGURE 17.16 Athens, Panagia Lykodemou, view from the southwest (author)

the skeletal nature of its structural system is critical to the design of the building. With the exception of the dome, raised above squinches, the structural system employs groin vaults, rather than the more common barrel vaults. Structurally, a groin vault adjusts the weight and thrust of the vault to the four corners, eliminating the necessity for bearing walls. By shifting to a system of point support—much as the architects of Hagia Sophia had done—wall thicknesses could be reduced or even eliminated: the open nature of the south façade is particularly revealing in this respect. Natural lighting dramatically enhances the impression of the interior, as it shimmers across surfaces of mosaic and marble. That openness and structural daring stand very much in contrast to the other Helladic churches of similar design. The Soteira Lykodemou in Athens, for example, is a smaller-scale (perhaps threequarter scale) version of the Hosios Loukas katholikon, measuring approximately 13.5 by 19.3 meters overall (Figs. 17.16 and 17.17).22 Similarly, it combined a domed-octagon core with transept wings and subsidiary spaces on two levels. While Ch. Bouras, “The Soteira Lykodemou at Athens. Architecture,” DChAE 25 (2004): 11–24.

22

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FIGURE 17.17 Athens, Panagia Lykodemou, plan (after Ch. Bouras, DChAE, 2004)

FIGURE 17.18 Daphne Monastery, katholikon, view from the northeast (author)

built shortly after the katholikon, it is missing both the structural sophistication and the degree of openness. Its construction details seem to follow those of the Panagia instead, with an emphasis on the decorated mural surface. The katholikon of Daphne Monastery, on the outskirts of Athens, built ca. 1080, follows a similar plan, and although it is similar in scale to Hosios Loukas (approximately 14 by 27.5 meters, with a dome 7.5 meters in diameter), it simplifies the interior to a single level.23 While the lavish decoration of marbles and mosaics has garnered deserved attention, Daphne similarly lacks the openness of the Hosios Loukas katholikon (Figs. 17.18 and 17.19). Its construction technique is noteworthy, however, for it systematized and regularized elements seen in the earlier Helladic churches. Large stone construction forms a dado zone on the lower walls, with stones occasionally set to form crosses.

Above this, a marble string course and a band of dogtooth mark the transition to regular cloisonné masonry. The windows, with double or triple openings, rise above the dado as well, set within arches framed by dogtooth. Decoration is restrained, limited to a meander pattern on the upper main apse. Like Hosios Loukas, the transept wings are outlined by tall, projecting arches. Small domed churches continued to be built in Athens through the tenth and eleventh centuries in a similar style. At the Kapnikarea, of the third quarter of the eleventh century, for example, the cloisonné masonry is more regularized, and the dogtooth is more limited in use, defining a dado, below which are large reused blocks organized to form crosses. Pseudo-Kufic is limited to the apse and southern cross arm, while the dome—like that at the nearby Holy Apostles— follows a standard “Athenian” type.24 Unusual

G. Millet, Daphni (Paris, 1899); Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 388–90.

24 N. Gkioles, “The Church of the Kapnikarea in Athens: Remarks on Its History, Typology and Form,” Zograf 31 (2006–07): 15–27.

23

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17.19 Daphne Monastery, katholikon, view into the vaulting (author) FIGURE

here is the addition of a porticoed outer narthex, probably from the early twelfth century (Fig. 17.20). While following the church’s construction details and even including a few pseudo-Kufic elements, the curious gabled roofline and projecting porch seem curiously Caucasian—comparable to the tenth-century portico and porch at Oshki in the Tao-Klarjeti (see Fig. 19.21).25 The so-called Little Metropolis in Athens, probably dedicated to the Theotokos Gorgoepikoos (Mother of God Quick-to-Hear) and probably to be dated in the twelfth century, stands as an anomaly in this development (Fig. 17.21).26 While adhering to the cross-in-square format (the four columns now replaced by piers), the exterior is entirely clad in marble. Much of it is of antique origin, with plain blocks below and decorated panels on the upper walls. Some are figural and pagan, and a few are oddly Christianized with crosses framing the figures and their genitals mutilated. The cladding

also included new or recently carved panels. It is unclear how we should interpret this curious building: does it represent the revival of interest in the classical past in twelfth-century Athens—comparable, for example, to the sermons Michael Choniates delivered in the Parthenon—or something else entirely? One recent interpretation dates the building considerably later, suggesting that it reflects Renaissance rather than Byzantine architectural aesthetics.27 The increasing sophistication evident in the construction at Daphne continued into the twelfth century. Perhaps best representing this is the Hagia Mone at Areia outside Nauplion, founded by the Bishop Leo of Argos and dated by inscription to 1149 (Figs. 17.22–17.24).28 While elongated in plan—measuring 18.1 by 8.35 meters externally, including the exonarthex—the church has a cross-in-square design, with a dome (3.43 meters B. Kiilerich, “Making Sense of Spolia in the Little Metropolis in Athens,” Arte medievale 4 (2005); 95–114.

27 25

Millet, École grecque, 152–53.

26 Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 377–78; Ch. Bouras and L. Boura, He hellenike naodomia kata ton 12o aiona (Athens, 2002).

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28 Bouras and Boura, Hellenike naodomia, 81–85; A. Struck, “Vier byzantinischen Kirchen der Argolis,” AM 34 (1909): 189–236.

FIGURE 17.20 Athens, Church of the Kapnikarea, view from the west (author)

FIGURE 17.21 Athens, Little Metropolis (Theotokos Gorgoepikoos), south façade (author)

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17.22 Areia, Hagia Mone, katholikon, north façade (author)

FIGURE

17.23 Areia, Hagia Mone, katholikon, plan and longitudinal section (after A. Struck, AM, 1909)

FIGURE

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FIGURE 17.24 Areia, Hagia Mone, katholikon, east façade (author)

in internal diameter) raised above columns; it is exceptionally regular, emphasized by both the flatness of the wall surfaces and the even height of the roof on the central axis, without setbacks where the naos vaults merge with those of the bema and narthex. A tiny porch, like that of the Kapnikaria, covers the south entrance to the narthex. The wall construction is impressive: above the foundation it is almost entirely uninterrupted courses of cloisonné. Large reused blocks form crosses that mark the width of the cross arms and correspond to pilasters on the interior. Isolated bands of dogtooth appear on the upper walls, at the levels of the window sills, the upper band coupled with a meander frieze. Most of the windows, with double and triple openings, are framed in brick and outlined with dogtooth, with areas of brick patterning and glazed ceramic bowls as insets—the latter probably late eleventh-century Fatimid production. The dome is of stone, with colonnettes at the corners, the drum topped by a brick meander frieze. Here and on the apse, the windows have a chamfered setback cut in stone. While the dome appears relatively sober, much of the decoration is concentrated on the apses. The

windows open above a marble string course that extends across the east façade. Below this, two lines of dogtooth frame a band of Kufesque ornament. Above the string course, another band of dogtooth wraps around the window frames. The upper surfaces have more dogtooth, meander friezes, Kufesque friezes, and individual patterns, all carefully executed. The nearby Church of the Dormition at Chonika has many of the same features, although raised on a stepped base and with more flourish to the pseudo-Kufic ornament.29 The late twelfth-century Church of the Zoodochos Pege (Virgin as Life-giving Spring) at Samarina in Messenia is similarly sophisticated (Figs. 17.25–17.27).30 Once the centerpiece of a small monastery, it was built with a two-column cross-in-square plan, expanded by a narthex, western portico, and columnar porches to the north and south. While the southern porch has disappeared, the northern porch joins to a lateral chamber that functioned as an ossuary. Carefully 29

Bouras and Boura, Hellenike naodomia, 325–27.

30

Bouras and Boura, Hellenike naodomia, 291–96;

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FIGURE 17.25 Samarina, Church of the Zoodochos Pege, view from the southwest (author)

constructed, the building rests on a dado of large, spoliated ancient blocks. The upper eastern façade is of neat cloisonné, although less regular on the other façades, with decoration concentrated around the windows, framed in dogtooth. An axial belfry was later added to the western portico. Deeper into the Peloponnese, a remarkable cluster of churches survives in the Mani peninsula, primarily of the Middle Byzantine period but continuing into the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, for the most part independent of developments elsewhere.31 Continuity and survival here may be the product of relative isolation and the fierce independence for which the inhabitants of the peninsula were known historically. Most are small, presumably independent or village foundations, their exteriors enlivened by features characteristic of Helladic architecture. Plans may

17.26 Samarina, Church of the Zoodochos Pege, plan and longitudinal section (after Ch. Bouras and L. Boura, Hellenike naodomia, 2002) FIGURE

A. H. S. Megaw, “Byzantine Architecture in Mani,” BSA 33 (1932– 33): 137–62; N. Drandakes, Mane kai Lakonia, ed. Ch. Konstantinide, 5 vols. (Athens, 2009); A. Mexia, “Byzantine naodomia sten Peloponneso, He periptose ton mesovyzantinon naon tes Mesa Manes,” PhD diss., University of Athens, 2011.

31

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FIGURE 17.27 Samarina, Church of the Zoodochos Pege, interior, looking east (author)

vary: two columns, four columns, single aisled, free cross, with or without a narthex. Brick and marble appear as decorative elements; vaults are simple, usually barrel vaults of rubble construction. In many instances the original roof may have been of stone slates, but in most examples, they have been replaced with modern ceramic tiles. The Church of Sts. Theodores at Vamvaka is a typical example, although unusual because of an inscription on a marble tie beam dated 1075 and mentioning a marble carver (marmaras) named Niketas, as well as a donor named Leo and his wife and children (Figs. 17.28C, 17.29, and 17.30; and see Fig. 16.20).32 It is a simple twocolumn church with a narthex; the bema occupies the eastern cross arm with pastophoria in the eastern corner compartments. Construction is of a regular cloisonné above a rough rubble dado, and brick decoration is limited to the dome drum and window frames, although without N. Drandakes, “Niketas Marmaras (1075),” in Mane kai Lakonia, 1st vol., 49–72. 32

dogtooth. Window arches are framed in brick; that on the north cross arm is elaborated with quadrant arches framing inset ceramic bowls. In the octagonal drum, inset bowls alternate with windows. More distinctive are the marble elements, which appear in abundance, as marble continued to be quarried in the Mani. The templon, door frame, window closure panels, and even tie beams are carved of marble, with much decoration. The column shafts are purpose cut, as there were not antiquities to spoliate; although, oddly, the capitals are unadorned. The illogic of marble tie beams has been noted, despite their common appearance throughout the region. Another regional feature is the relative darkness of the interior: the window openings were filled with carved marble panels, each containing a single small oculus. While the cross-insquare church type seems to have been designed with natural daylight in mind, it is not a concern here—we are reminded that most of the worship services would take place when it was dark outside and that the lighting of lamps and candles

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FIGURE 17.28 Plans of three churches from the Mani: (A) Keria, St. John; (B) Kitta, Sts. Sergius and Bacchus; (C) Vamvaka, Sts. Theodores (after A. H. S. Megaw, BSA, 1932–33)

was an act of devotion. Elsewhere in the Mani, we find false windows—permanently closed indentations, articulated as windows, some replete with mullions. The Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus (or St. George) at Kitta, perhaps from the first quarter of 426

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the twelfth century, shares many of these features (Figs. 17.28B and 17.31; and see Fig. 0.3).33 A simple four-column church without a narthex, there is more brick decoration on the exterior, including reticulate revetments, and dogtooth friezes, a step-pattern frieze, and ceramic bowls. Much of the wall construction is of large blocks of stone, mixed with brick and set upright and horizontal, forming rough crosses on the lateral façades. Windows are single light, although they have lost their closure panels; those in the cross arms are framed in brick, with quadrant arches enclosing ceramic vessels; in the octagonal drum of the dome, windows alternate with window-like indentations with a ceramic bowl imbedded in the arch. The doorway has a carved and inscribed marble lintel, commemorating the founder, a certain George Marasiates, for his devotion and labor. There is also more marble decoration on the interior, including cornices, octagonal column shafts, and capitals, as well as the ubiquitous tie beams, although they are broken. The Church of St. Barbara at Eremos, probably from the third quarter of the twelfth century, is one of the most carefully constructed and shares many decorative details with Kitta, although the plan differs (Fig. 17.32). The two-column naos is joined to the narthex, without an intervening wall, with the western barrel vault continuing without a break, while archways open between the corner bays of the naos and the lateral bays of the narthex. Construction is similar to Koita but more regular, although the decoration is somewhat more elaborate, with a meander frieze on the main apse and many of the windows bifores. All are closed by marble panels with a single small oculus. The south window is framed by quadrant arches and embedded bowls, with a door below framed by an elegant chamfered horseshoe arch, carved in stone. Here and at Kitta, many of the decorative features compare to those in the northwest Peloponnese, as at Areia. The glazed bowls here are not local production, perhaps from Corinth or Athens—but suggest connections outside the region. Parallel to the construction of domed churches are the remarkable, understudied “megalithic”

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 426–27; Bouras and Boura, Hellenike naodomia, 187–90.

33

FIGURE 17.29 Vamvaka, Church of St. Theodore, view from the northeast (author)

FIGURE 17.30 Vamvaka, Church of St. Theodore, detail of apse window (author)

churches of the peninsula. Low, single aisled, and barrel vaulted, these churches easily might be mistaken for Mycenaean—particularly if the mortar has fallen away. They seem to appear throughout the Middle Byzantine period and even later. Sometimes they were reinforced with ashlar arches or provided with a more elegant entry, as at the Church of Sts. Theodores at Kafiona, perhaps from ca. 1144–45 (Fig. 17.33). It was provided with an elegant portal, similar to that at Eremos, as well as a marble templon and the finest thirteenth-century painting to survive in the Mani.34 Despite their crude appearance, megalithic churches seem to have remained a viable alternative to their domed contemporaries.

, The Middle Byzantine monuments of mainland Greece and Macedonia represent the differing approaches possible at this time. At one extreme, we find the careful adherence to Constantinopolitan practices, but this occurs side by side with 34

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17.31 Kitta, Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, interior view, looking east (author) FIGURE

FIGURE 17.32 Eremos, Church of St. Barbara, view from the southwest (author)

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FIGURE 17.33 Kafiona, Church of Sts. Theodores, plan and longitudinal section (after Ch. Bouras and L. Boura, Hellenike naodomia, 2002)

“provincial” constructions, often well built, but independent of the major developments elsewhere. By contrast, the Helladic developments in Attica, Athens, and the Peloponnese represent strong local traditions that developed with an awareness and acceptance of architectural plans and details from a variety of locations. Although not without its progeny, the katholikon of Hosios Loukas remains

unique within Helladic production in its openness and structural daring. Nevertheless, both the acceptance and the rejection of its distinctive features indicate the strength of the regional architectural tradition. Moreover, continuity of the Helladic style into the thirteenth century, during the Frankish period, demonstrates how firmly it had become associated with a regional identity.

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

,

DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL STYLES II Middle Byzantine Anatolia

D

espite its central position in the Byzantine Empire, Anatolia preserves fewer architectural remains, and they have been less studied than their counterparts in Greece. Intrepid adventurerscholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries found great fascination in the archaeological remains of the region, and their discoveries seemed to hold great promise—so much so that in 1903 Josef Strzygowski proclaimed Anatolia ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte—“a new land of art history.”1 Unfortunately, the period of intensive exploration came to an end with the turmoil of the early twentieth century—the Balkan Wars, World War I, the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, and the Turkish War of Independence— and many of the monuments documented by Strzygowski’s students and others, notably Hans

Among the early scholar-adventurers, the most important are Strzygowski, Kleinasien, heavily dependent on his students’ fieldwork; H. Rott, Kleinasiatische Denkmäler aus Pisidien, Kappadokien, und Lykien (Leipzig, 1908); and Ramsay and Bell, The Thousand and One Churches; Bell’s photographic documentation from her solo travels is particularly useful; for this, see “Gertrude Bell Archive,” Newcastle University Library, 2014, http://www. gerty.ncl.ac.uk. See also R. G. Ousterhout, John Henry Haynes: A Photographer and Archaeologist in the Ottoman Empire, 1881–1900 (Istanbul, 2011). 1

Rott and Gertrude Bell, have vanished without a trace. For those that survive, textual sources are almost completely absent, and their histories must be reconstructed from the archaeological evidence and historical context. Many are today isolated ruins, with no trace of settlement nearby and nothing to indicate why they were built; others have been converted into mosques. Nevertheless, an analysis of the surviving buildings indicates an interaction between Constantinople and the local centers, evident in the plans, construction techniques, and decorative details. In central and eastern Anatolia, contact with the Caucasus is apparent as well. The dearth of surviving built structures in Anatolia is amply compensated by the wealth of rock-cut architecture, notably in the volcanic highlands of Cappadocia and neighboring regions.2 Hundreds of rock-carved churches and chapels are preserved, most dating from the tenth and eleventh centuries—as well as monasteries, houses, agricultural installations, and occasionally complete villages. Although the finest of these appear to replicate masonry forms, the inventiveness of the Cappadocian artisan is often 2

Ousterhout, Visualizing Community.

Hallaç Manastırı, interior of the church, looking northwest (author) 431

evident in the willful deviations from a masonry prototypes. Because these spaces were carved out of the living rock rather than built of brick and stone, they could take virtually any form: columns, pilasters, arches, barrel vaults, and domes were structurally unnecessary, if however symbolically appropriate. In short, within the rock-carved environment of Cappadocia, we move into the realm of symbolic architecture. Much of Asia Minor had been destabilized by the Arab incursions, beginning in the midseventh century and continuing into the tenth century, when Byzantine control was gradually restored. There is very little evidence for cultural investment in the region during that period. This marks the end of the so-called Beyşehir Occupation Phase, a centuries-long period of intensive agricultural activity in Antiquity observed across Anatolia. Pollen and carbon analyses indicate that the economies of borderland areas like Cappadocia and the southeast Central Plateau collapsed and did not recover, while endangered areas like the Marmara and Mediterranean coast turned to herding and cereal production. Only relatively safe areas like northern Bithynia, Paphlagonia, or the southwest maintained extensive cultivation.3 In sum, the socioeconomic homogeneity of Late Antiquity was replaced by the diversity of the Middle Ages, as remarkably different patterns of settlement, cultivation, and economy emerge across Asia Minor. Change is primarily the result of human impact on the environment, rather than climate change, and corresponds to the destabilization of the region. Central Anatolia was gradually retaken from the Arabs, culminating in the recapture of Melitene (Malatya) in 934. Byzantine fortunes were on the rise, and the period that followed was a prosperous one, with strong connections with the Byzantine capital, as well as with cultures further 3 For the pollen evidence and its relationship to the Arab incursions, see J. Haldon, “‘Cappadocia Will Be Given over to Ruin and Become a Desert’: Environmental Evidence for Historically-Attested Events in the 7th–10th Centuries,” in Byzantina Mediterranea: Festschrift für Johannes Koder zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. K. Belke, E. Kislinger, A. Külzer, and M. Stassinopoulou (Vienna, 2007), 215–30; also A. Izdebski, A Rural Economy in Transition: Asia Minor from Late Antiquity into the Early Middle Ages (Warsaw, 2013).

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to the east. Military campaigns must have brought metropolitan visitors to central Anatolia, and the administrative bureaucracy maintained close connections with the Byzantine capital. We thus find a mixture of regional and Constantinopolitan elements in the surviving buildings. In the eleventh century a new power, the Seljuk Turks, emerged onto the scene, making inroads into the region. In 1071 the Seljuk Turkish forces of Alp Arslan annihilated the Byzantine army in the disastrous Battle of Manzikert in eastern Turkey, and this allowed for the rapid conquest.4 By the end of the century, the Turks, who were Muslim, were in control of most of Asia Minor, with their capital established at Ikonion (Konya). For much of Asia Minor, this marked the end of Byzantine cultural investment. In the following century, the Byzantines gradually regained control of large areas of Western Asia Minor, but their advances ended when the Seljuks defeated the Byzantine army in the Battle of Myriokephalon (a mountain pass in Phrygia) in 1176. Western Asia Minor remained under Byzantine control through the thirteenth century, as the Byzantine court in exile established itself in Nicaea following the Latin Conquest of 1204, as will be discussed in Chapter 23. Evidence of architectural investment is clear by the tenth century, both with the rebuilding of older churches and with the construction of new ones.5 At Amorion in Phrygia, for example, a stately three-aisled basilica, probably the cathedral, was transformed from a wooden-roofed basilica into a vaulted, cross-domed church with corner compartments (Figs. 18.1 and 18.2). Heavy piers were added to support the vaulting, as well as pilasters to brace the lateral walls. The eastern compartments opened directly into the bema and may have functioned as pastophoria. Smaller basilicas at Selçikler in Phrygia and at Kydna in Lycia underwent similar transformations from basilicas to vaulted, cross-domed churches at about the same time (see Fig. 16.8). At Myra on the south coast, the pilgrimage Church of 4 See inter alia S. Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Centuries (Los Angeles, 1971). 5 For the rebuilding of older churches, see Ousterhout, Master Builders.

FIGURE 18.1 Amorion, basilica, view looking south, showing the footings for the templon and altar and the preserved synthronon, as well as the large piers added in the tenth century (Amorium Excavation Project)

FIGURE 18.2 Amorium Basilica, plan showing the two major phases of construction (redrawn from B. Arubas, Amorium Excavation Project)

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St. Nicholas had been rebuilt in the eighth century but saw later campaigns of expansion in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, continuing after the relics of the saint had been removed to Bari in 1087 (see Figs. 11.2 and 11.3). The reinvestment in older buildings accords the renovation program of Constantinople, reported in the biography of Basil I. Similar modifications seem to have been effected at several of the churches at Binbirkilise in Lycaonia and elsewhere. New construction appears across the region as well. The cross-in-square church type appears in Asia Minor sometime in the early tenth century or perhaps slightly earlier. An import from the area around Constantinople, it seems to have originated by the end of the eighth century, probably within the monastic communities of Bithynia (see Chap. 11).6 Its presence may be an indicator of increased contact with the Byzantine capital. While popular, the cross-in-square did not replace other church types: for example, the domed cruciform church had appeared as early as the sixth century, and the plan continued to be used. More important than the design of the church, however, are its general characteristics: small, centralized, and domed. These are features we find in a variety of church types throughout the period, which conform to the devotional requirements of small congregations, private devotion, and commemoration. Large congregational churches are rare. Bithynia in northwest Anatolia maintained close relations with the Byzantine capital. During the Arab incursions of the seventh and eight centuries, Nicaea (İznik) served as a base of defense, controlling the approach to Constantinople from the East. The impressive walls of the city were rebuilt and strengthened on several occasions; its major churches, the Koimesis and the Hagia Sophia, were both rebuilt following the earthquake of 1065.7 There were also new constructions: an unidentified church (“Church A”), known only from its excavated foundations near the Istanbul Gate, displays all the features of the fully developed, 6

Mango and Ševčenko, “Some Churches and Monasteries.”

U. Peschlow, “The Churches of Nicaea-İznik,” in İznik throughout History, eds. A. Akbaygil, H. İnalcık, and O. Aslanalpa (Istanbul, 2003), 201–18; note also C. Foss, “The Walls of İznik 260–1330,” in the same volume, 249–62. 7

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FIGURE 18.3 (A) Nicaea (İznik), Church A, near the İstanbul Gate, plan; (B) Seben, Byzantine church, reconstructed plan (author)

Middle Byzantine cross-in-square church, with narthex and a tripartite sanctuary and pilasters to mark the spatial divisions (Fig. 18.3A). In 1081, the city fell briefly into the hands of the Seljuk Turks, many of whom had served as mercenaries in the Byzantine army, but it was recaptured fifteen years later with the assistance of the Crusaders. The Church of St. Abercius at Elegmi (Kurşunlu), originally a monastic church dedicated to the Theotokos, gives some sense of the continued investment in the region during the following century (see Figs. 13.15B and 16.25).8 Built in 1162 on the shore of the Sea of Marmara, utilizing the recessed brick technique, the atrophied Greek-cross naos was originally covered by a dome on pendentives, 5 meters in diameter, now fallen. The broad bema has pastophoria that project beyond the width of the naos, both covered by blind pumpkin domes. In both its design and its construction technique, the church follows closely 8 C. Mango, “The Monastery of St. Abercius at Kurşunlu (Elegmi) in Bithynia,” DOP (1968): 169–76.

18.4 Seben, Byzantine church, east façade (author)

FIGURE

the Constantinopolitan model of the Chora, as rebuilt two decades earlier. The Monastery of Elegmi had close connections with the capital, where it maintained a metochion (dependency). Similar churches are found at Antigone (Burgaz) in the Prince’s Islands and at Yuşa Tepsi on the Bosphoros.9 Further inland, the ruined church at Çeltikdere (near Seben-Bolu) in Phrygia is better preserved than Church A, but similarly anonymous (Figs. 18.3B and 18.4).10 Constructed of alternating bands of brick and stone, stepped pilasters on the lateral façades mark the internal spatial divisions. However, as is common in Asia Minor, the abbreviated plan lacks clearly defined pastophoria, and the tripartite sanctuary must have extended across the eastern bays. The lateral apses are semicircular on the exterior, rather than faceted, and the tall, thin widows are framed by 9 E. Akyürek and R. G. Ousterhout, “The Church of the Transfiguration on Burgazada,” CahArch 49 (2002): 5–14.

setbacks—details that fit better stylistically with buildings further inland, as at the Çanlı Kilise in Western Cappadocia, discussed below. Similarly, brick is limited almost exclusively to the exterior and was not used in the vaulting. The coastal regions of the Aegean and Mediterranean also maintained connections with Constantinople. Indicative of the close relations is great domed basilica at Dereağzı, another anonymous building located in an inland valley near Myra (Figs. 18.5 and 18.6).11 Probably constructed sometime in the late ninth or early tenth century, the church repeats the spatial configuration of the remodeled Hagia Eirene (after 740): a domed basilica, with the central dome braced in a crossdomed scheme and barrel vaults extending above the galleries. But many of the details are similar to the North Church of the Monastery tou Libos (ca. 907) and suggest a later date: projecting porches, stair towers, lobed pastophoria, faceted apses, pilasters that correspond to the structural divisions

Y. Ötüken and R. G. Ousterhout, “The Byzantine Church at Çeltikdere (Seben-Bolu),” in Studien zur byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte. Festschrift für H. Hallensleben, eds. B Borkopp, B. Schellewald, and L. Theis (Amsterdam, 1995), 85–92.

11 J. Morganstern, The Byzantine Church at Dereağzı and Its Decoration, Istanbuler Mitteilungen Beiheft 29 (Tübingen, 1983), suggests a slightly earlier date based on the building typology.

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FIGURE 18.5 Dereağzı, Byzantine church, view from the south, with an octagonal annex in the foreground (Jordan Pickett)

18.6 Dereağzı, Byzantine church, plan (author, redrawn after J. Morganstern, Byzantine Church, 1983)

FIGURE

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FIGURE 18.7 Side, Byzantine church, south façade (author)

of the interior, groin vaults and a pumpkin dome, and construction of alternating bands of brick and stone. The main dome originally had a scalloped inner surface, and traces of mosaic decoration are preserved as well. In fact, with the exception of the rough local stone, the church would not have been out of place in the Byzantine capital. Flanking the church are two octagonal chapels, perhaps for burials. New construction appears elsewhere along the south coast. At Side, two cross-in-square churches were built into older structures, probably early in the period (see Fig. 11.18A and 11.18B). Another ruined cross-in-square church, also built of spolia, was set on the site of a destroyed Early Christian basilica. It has pilasters and arcades on its preserved façade, with setback brick arches and a band of brick with a dogtooth course at midlevel (Fig. 18.7).12 This may represent a twelfth-century reinvestment in the coastal area as it was retaken from the Seljuks. At Alanya, the small triconch church in the castle preserves its elegant dome, with a drum that alternates windows and niches 12

Mansel, Die Ruinen von Side.

framed by setbacks (Fig. 18.8).13 On the interior, the arches supporting the dome are slightly pointed. Several churches survive on the island of Rhodes, near the south coast of Anatolia. The cross-insquare Church of St. John on the acropolis of Lindos may also date from the twelfth century. The major seaport on the Black Sea coast was Trebizond (Trabzon), which, like Nicaea, played a prominent role after the Latin Conquest of Constantinople in 1204.14 Connected to the overland routes into the Caucasus, Trebizond presents a somewhat different architectural profile, with ashlar construction and a preference for banded barrel vaults, possibly following Caucasian models. The earliest securely dated church is dedicated to St. Anne, with an inscription to 884/5; three aisled, 13 V. M. Tekinalp, “Palace Churches of the Anatolian Seljuks: Tolerance or Necessity?” BMGS 33 (2009): 148–67; S. Lloyd and D. Storm Rice, Alanya (London, 1958). 14 For Trebizond in general, see A. Bryer and D. Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments and Topography of the Pontos, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 20 (Washington, DC, 1985); for the churches, see S. Ballance, “The Byzantine Churches of Trebizond,” AnatSt 10 (1960): 141–75.

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FIGURE 18.8 Alanya, Citadel Church, seen from the northeast (author)

with a tripartite sanctuary, it lacks a narthex (Figs. 18.9 and 18.10). The nave is separated from the aisle by arcades, each raised above a single spoliated column; the nave rises to include a clerestory—the unique example in the city. The church now known as the Nakip Camii may be somewhat later but is similar: three aisled, covered by banded barrel vaults, but without a clerestory. Larger churches, those of St. Eugenios (Yeni Cuma Camii), patron of the city, and the Chrysokephalos (Fatih Camii), the cathedral, seem to have been rebuilt in the thirteenth century following this model, as barrel-vaulted basilicas lacking clerestories; both were later transformed with the insertion of domes and their midsections substantially rebuilt (see Chap. 23). Turning to central Anatolia, Cappadocia and Lycaonia preserve numerous remains from the prosperous tenth and eleventh centuries, although none may be dated with precision.15 For the masonry buildings, the standard wall and vault conFor the masonry architecture, see Restle, Studien zur frühbyzantinischen Architektur Kappadokiens; and Ousterhout, Visualizing Community.

15

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struction is of the local tuff, finely cut into ashlar, used as facing on a core of mortared rubble; mortars utilizing local volcanic sand are particularly sturdy. Brick appears rarely and marble almost never. Plans and scales vary considerably. The cross-in-square church type appears in masonry sometime in the late tenth century, although earlier surviving examples appear in rock-cut form. Cruciform churches, rare in Constantinople before the twelfth century, are common to Cappadocia. Two appear high on the slope of Hasan Dağı (Mt. Argaios). The Yağdebaş Kilisesi (apparently a toponym), now in ruins, may be reconstructed with an atrophied Greek-cross plan measuring 7.5 meters across internally, with a broad apse that was polygonal on the exterior (Fig. 18.11A). Rather than pastophoria, niches were set into the cross arms. The exterior was detailed with blind setback arches, with some elegant architectural sculpture and fragments of an illegible inscription in the arcade of the north wall. The nearby Süt Kilisesi (“Milk Church”) was similar, although it is part of a complex, not all constructed at the same time. For both, a date in the tenth century seems likely.

FIGURE 18.9 Trebizond (Trabzon), Church of St. Anne, seen from the south, ca. 1893 (Collection chrétienne et byzantine, Photothèque Gabriel Millet, EPHE)

FIGURE 18.10 Trebizond, Church of St. Anne, plan and transverse section (author, redrawn after S. Balance, AnatSt, 1960)

Three large masonry churches built on crossin-square plans date from the late tenth or early eleventh century. The Karagedik Kilisesi (“Church of the Dark Pass”), isolated in the Belisırma (Peristrema) Valley, had a dome approximately 6 meters in diameter, raised on piers above a naos,

measuring approximately 10.6 meters across. It may be dated to the end of the tenth century on the basis of its painting (Figs. 18.11C and 18.12). The plan follows closely the Constantinopolitan model, with an extended tripartite sanctuary, and the arcading of the façade reflects the disposition

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18.11 Plans of Cappadocian masonry churches: (A) Hasan Dağı, Yağdebaş Kilisesi; (B) Kırşehir (near), Üçayak; (C) Belisırma, Karagedik Kilisesi (author) FIGURE

18.12 Belisırma (Peristrema), Karagedik Kilisesi, view from the north (author) FIGURE

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FIGURE 18.13 Akhisar (near), Çanlı Kilise, seen from the northeast in 1907 (Gertrude Bell Photographic Archive, University of Newcastle)

of the interior spaces. Rockfall has destroyed much of the western and northern parts of the church. Barrel vaults covered the minor bays and cross arms. The apse is slightly horseshoe shaped, with a polygonal exterior. Some of the façade details are brick, with banded voussoirs in the arches. In addition, the mortar joints have been impressed with cords, a technical detail also common in the architecture of Constantinople. Nevertheless, the Karagedik Kilisesi is not without local features, including some carved stone decoration on the exterior, comparable to that at Yağdebaş Kilisesi. The masonry is similarly stone facing on a rubble core; the vaults are entirely of stone, and brick appears only as a surface decoration. There is some rock cutting around the church—mostly for burials— but no evidence of a settlement anywhere nearby. The Church of St. Gregory at Güzelyurt (Karbala, Gelveri) is similar in plan and construction to the Karagedik Kilisesi, with the extra sanctuary bay and arcaded façades that reflect the interior spatial disposition. It is also very close in scale, with a capacious interior. Although often dismissed as a

rebuilding of the nineteenth century—the narthex and north annex must date from that time—the naos itself preserves substantial portions of a Middle Byzantine church—perhaps even the dome. Similar to its function in the nineteenth century, in the Byzantine period the church must have served as a parochial church for the community of Gelveri. Based on the comparison with the Karagedik Kilisesi, a date in the late tenth century seems likely. The Çanlı Kilise (“Bell Church”) near Akhisar shares many of the same features but was constructed on a more compact plan and subsequently expanded (Figs. 18.13–18.15).16 Slightly smaller, the dome measured 4.65 meters in diameter, with the naos 9.2 meters square. Its first phase consisted just of the naos proper, probably dating to the early eleventh century. When Gertrude Bell visited the church in 1907, the dome was still standing above only two piers. Instead of the extra pastophoria bays at the east, however, the 16 R. G. Ousterhout, A Byzantine Settlement in Cappadocia, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 42 (Washington, DC, 2005; 2nd ed., 2011).

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FIGURE 18.14 Akhisar (near), Çanlı Kilise, south façade (author)

FIGURE 18.15 Akhisar (near), Çanlı Kilise, plan and longitudinal section, both partially restored (author)

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lateral east bays terminate in apses, as occurred at Seben. Elegantly constructed, the façades are of alternating bands of brick and stone detailed with stepped pilasters and half-columns, recalling the contemporaneous buildings of the capital, as do the faceted apses, brick decoration in the spandrels, and thick mortar beds in the brick courses. Despite outward similarities with Constantinopolitan architecture, a closer view emphasizes the differences: the brick courses are simply facing on a rubble core, rather than continuous construction (see Fig. 15.24). Brick was used only on the outer, more visible surfaces of the building and is absent in the upper levels. The vaulting was constructed of stone rather than of brick. None of the distinctive Constantinopolitan features of the naos appear in the later additions; the narthex and north chapel are entirely of stone and are detailed in the local style. The Çanlı Kilise may have been meant to call to mind the architecture of Constantinople, adding an element of prestige to the settlement, but it was constructed by local masons. The dome of the Çanlı Kilise is also noteworthy, documented in the photographs of Bell and Rott, from which we may estimate that it rose almost 16 meters above the floor level. Smooth on the interior, the tall drum was faceted, with slit windows in alternating segments and a conical cap. Similarly, the apse is elaborately detailed with setback niches and colonnettes. The façade arcading of the Çanlı Kilise also distinguishes it from the other cross-in-square churches of the region: rather than emphasize the spatial disposition of the interior, it appears as a decorative applique on two levels, the lower level not aligned with the upper. These features, plus the stepped platform of the naos, recall the architecture of the Caucasus—a point to which we shall return in the next chapter. Similar façade arcading appears on the churches of Lycaonia. The cross-in-square church at Fisandon, for example, has blind arcading above a high dado, within setbacks and half-columns, not aligned with the upper arcade (Fig. 18.16). Although the external arcading appears purely decorative, on the interior, pilasters correspond with the dome piers. Lateral apses are not expressed on the exterior but are niches set into the east wall. The Ala Kilise on Ali Hasan Dağı is similar in many details (Fig. 18.17).

FIGURE 18.16 Fisandon, Byzantine church, view from the southeast (author)

FIGURE 18.17 Ali Hasan Dağı, Ala Kilise, south façade in 1907 (Gertrude Bell Photographic Archive, University of Newcastle)

An anomaly for the region is the double church known as Üçayak (“Three Feet”), near Kırşehir, on the border between Cappadocia and Galatia (Figs. 18.11B and 18.18).17 Except for courses of stone in the foundation walls, the church is constructed entirely of brick facing on a rubble core. The plan has two adjoining atrophied-cross naoi, both measuring approximately 5.25 meters across, with extended sanctuaries but no pastophoria. The construction is particularly careful, with the brick courses broadly spaced and wide mortar beds of an exceptionally hard mortar. Niches with multiple setbacks enliven the wall surfaces and apses. In terms of the use of brick, Üçayak may offer the best technical comparison to the Çanlı Kilise. The reason for its double plan and isolated location remains unclear: a dual dedication, perhaps. One suggestion is that it 17 S. Eyice, “La ruine byzantine dite ‘Üçayak’ près de Kırşehir,” CahArch 18 (1968): 137–55; M. Mihaljević, “Üçayak: A Forgotten Byzantine Church,” BZ 107 (2014): 725–54.

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18.18 Kırşehir (near), Üçayak Church, view from the south (author) FIGURE

commemorated the victory of Basil II over Bardas Phokas in 989.

, The distinctive rock-cut churches and chapels of Cappadocia expand the range and repertory of architectural forms considerably, appearing in far greater numbers than masonry construction.18 Indeed, the rock-cut environment preserves a variety of building types that do not survive elsewhere— houses, villages, monasteries, industrial and agricultural installations—making Cappadocia an underutilized resource for understanding life and death in Byzantium. In previous chapters, we examined a monastery (Geyikli Kilise in Soğanlı) and a rock-carved elite residence (the so-called Hallaç Manastırı) (see Figs.13.33–13.35, 14.12, and 14.13). For the rock-cut architecture, see N. Thierry, La Cappadoce de l’Antiquité au Moyen Age (Turnhout, 2002); and Ousterhout, Visualizing Community, with older bibliography; much still depends on the fundamental study by G. de Jerphanion, Une Nouvelle province de l’art byzantin les églises rupestres de Cappadoce, 2 vols. with plates (Paris, 1925–1942). L. Giovannini, ed., Arts of Cappadocia (London, 1971).

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Carved architecture begins to reappear by the end of the ninth century, although it may rarely be dated with precision. The earliest examples are barrel vaulted, similar to the churches at Trebizond, with one, two, or three aisles, sometimes banded, sometimes plain. The cross-in-square church type appears in rock-cut form sometime by the early tenth century, evidence of increased contact with the Byzantine capital. Unique to the rock-cut architecture of the region are the carved liturgical furnishings, most notably the templons or sanctuary barriers, which can take many forms. The Geyikli Kilise at the monastery already noted in the Soğanlı Valley must date from the late tenth or early eleventh century. A banded barrel vault covers the naos, with a carved templon isolating the bema (Fig. 18.19). The tenthcentury Saklı Kilise (“Hidden Church”), also at Soğanlı, offers a good comparison for the Trebizond churches, with three parallel vaults, but carved on a considerably smaller scale. Occasionally the barrel vault is set transversally, as occurs in the new Tokalı Kilise (“Buckle Church”) at Göreme, which includes a separate aisle for the

FIGURE 18.19 Soğanlı Valley, Geyikli Kilise, interior looking east (author)

bema and side chapels (Figs. 18.20 and 18.21).19 Small, cruciform chapels are also popular. One of the earliest examples of the cross-insquare chapel, the Kılıçlar Kilise (“Swords Church”) at Göreme may be dated to the early tenth century on the basis of its painting (Fig. 18.22). While relatively small, its plan conforms in most details to contemporaneous masonry churches, such as the Myrelaion in Constantinople, dated to 920. The dome rises above columnar supports; pilasters on the walls emphasize the spatial divisions of the interior; pendentives, cornices, capitals, and bases are carefully carved. Rather than a tripartite sanctuary, however, Kılıçlar has three nonconnecting bemas, each equipped with an altar. Liturgically, it must have functioned differently from the Myrelaion.

A. Wharton Epstein, Tokalı Kilise: Tenth-Century Metropolitan Art in Byzantine Cappadocia (Washington, DC, 1986); and now Ousterhout, Visualizing Community; Ousterhout, “Sightlines, Hagioscopes, and Church Planning in Byzantine Cappadocia,” AH 39, no. 5 (2016): 848–67.

19

Distinctions become more apparent in the elevation. In the eastern corner bays, small domes rise from flat ceilings, and in the western corner bays, the ceilings are left flat. The main dome springs directly from the cornice, without a drum. If we compare the sections of the two buildings, the difference is dramatic. The Myrelaion has three distinct levels of vaulting, reflected in the three lines of cornices in the interior. Kılıçlar reduces this to two levels, with the cross arms and corner vaults at almost the same height and the dome rising only slightly above that level. These deviations from the masonry prototype create a sort of shorthand version of the cross-in-square church. While lacking the architectural drama of its masonry prototype, the rock-cut chapel is actually better suited to the environment. Part of the drama of the masonry church comes from the multiple light sources at different levels, with the windowed drum of the central dome spotlighting the main performance space beneath it. Lighting in a cave chapel is extremely limited, usually entering laterally through a single door. By reducing the height of the dome and equalizing the vault heights, the painted surfaces of the interior become more legible in the strafing natural light or limited artificial light. A final element to consider is scale. The Myrelaion is small by masonry standards, its naos slightly greater than 8 meters square. Kılıçlar is less than 5 meters square, resulting in an interior floor space about one third that of the Myrelaion. When we consider the reduction and simplification of the elevation, the volume of interior space may be perhaps one tenth that of the Myrelaion. In short, a process of miniaturization has occurred, with standard forms and furnishings replicated to signify sacred space. In contrast, the eleventh-century Sarıca Kilise (“Yellow Church”) near Ürgüp represents one of the most exacting rock-cut examples (Figs. 18.23 and 18.24), a cross-in-square chapel expanded by lateral apses.20 Details and proportions follow closely a masonry prototype, executed on a small scale, measuring approximately 4.7 meters square. The tall pumpkin dome rose approximately 7.75 meters above four columns, with pendentives, high barrel vaults, cornices, and lower groin vaults over the corner J. Lafontaine, “Sarıca Kilise en Cappadoce,” CahArch 12 (1962): 263–84; Ousterhout, Visualizing Community.

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18.20 Göreme, Tokalı Kilise, interior looking northeast (author) figure

figure 18.21  Göreme, Tokalı Kilise, plan of the complex. Carved in several phases, the older part to the west includes an irregular barrel-vaulted chapel of the early tenth century with a three-aisled funeral chapel beneath it. Expanded a few decades later, the transverse naos destroyed the apse of the older chapel, creating a T-shaped plan. A separate aisle connects to the three bemas, and a parekklesion was carved to the north. An additional chamber near the entrance may have been a monk’s cell (author, redrawn after A. Wharton, Tokalı Kilise, 1986)

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FIGURE 18.22 Göreme, Kılıçlar Kilisesi, section and plan side by side with those of the Myrelaion, drawn to the same scale (author, redrawn after G. de Jerphanion, Nouvelle province, 1925; and C. L. Striker, Myrelaion, 1981)

bays, replicating the insistently three-dimensional character of the fully developed cross-in-square interior. But the Sarıca Kilise is exceptional; most carved interiors simplify and flatten the elevation. In fact, the process of carving led to numerous deviations from the masonry model: for example, domes may be cylindrical rather than hemispherical, flattened at the crown, or reduced to simple saucers without a drum. They also may be incongruously multiplied, often springing from a flat ceiling, without a clearly defined transition, as at the Elmalı Kilise (“Apple Church”) in Göreme (Fig. 18.25). Similarly, pendentives are regularly transformed from structural transitions into decorative flourishes (Figs. 18.26A–D). Sometimes they are omitted altogether.

Even when coherence or structural logic is missing, however, the accumulation of architectonic detail—arcades, pilasters, ribbed vaults, domes—emphasizes that these spaces are architecture. At Hallaç Manastırı, for example, the chapel is large—approximately 7 meters square, but the details don’t quite add up to coherent structure (Fig. 18.27). No properly trained Byzantine mason would ever construct anything like this; nevertheless, we read it as architecture. Similarly, the liturgical furnishings, carved from the living rock, may have been more symbolic than functional. Throughout the rock-cut environment, signification is more important than replication. The symbolic (as opposed to practical) nature of architectural detail is emphasized in the formal

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FIGURE 18.23 Ürgüp (near), Sarıca Kilise, looking east (author)

FIGURE 18.24 Ürgüp (near), Sarıca Kilise, plan and longitudinal section (author)

residential spaces as well. At Hallaç, Açıksaray, and elsewhere, the formal spaces of elite residences were carved behind elegant façades, all presumably imitating masonry forms that no longer survive.21 Most T. F. Mathews and A.-C. Daskalakis-Mathews, “Islamic-Style Mansions in Byzantine Cappadocia and the Development of the 21

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are organized around a courtyard and feature a prominent arcaded façade with a ceremonial hall as the main axial room. Chapels are rarely situated in Inverted T-Plan,” JSAH 56 (1997): 294–315; F.G. Öztürk, “Açıksaray ‘Open Palace’: A Byzantine Rock-Cut Settlement in Cappadocia,” BZ 107 (2014): 785–810.

FIGURE 18.25 Göreme, Elmalı Kilise, interior looking northeast (author)

FIGURE 18.26 Four examples of dome transitions in cruciform churches: (A) Ortahisar, Balkan Dere, St. Basil (tenth century) has no transition but with the dome springing directly from the ceiling; (B). Belisırma, Ala Kilise (eleventh century) has raised triangular shields rather than proper pendentives; (C) Çat Valley, chapel (tenth century?) has something like bucrania; D. Soğanlı Valley, chapel (tenth century?) has shapes like pinched pincushions. None attempts to replicate masonry forms (author)

18.27 Hallaç Manastırı, interior of the church, looking northwest (author)

FIGURE

the main cluster, and some complexes include large stables. Probably the most obvious examples of symbolic architecture, the carved façades advertise, in billboard-like fashion, the presence and significance of the spaces behind them through an assemblage of architectonic detail. Rarely does the organization of external forms bear any relationship to the interior spaces. Nevertheless, they stand as visible markers of human presence in the landscape. Monasticism seems to be a prominent feature of the Middle Byzantine period.22 Its appearance in Cappadocia corresponds to the development of monasticism elsewhere in the Byzantine Empire. With the rise of powerful individuals and landowning families, the role of monks and monasteries played a role in the commemoration of the dead. Many of the monastic enclaves formed in the tenth and eleventh centuries around cemeteries that date back to the fourth century ce and earlier. Most monasteries are irregular in their organization, at the mercy of the topography, and seem L. Rodley, Cave Monasteries of Byzantine Cappadocia (Cambridge, 1985), does not distinguish between monasteries and secular residences but presents a good analysis of architectural complexes.

to reflect a long period of development. This is clearly the case at the Archangelos Monastery near Cemil, with Byzantine elements that may be dated as early as the late ninth century and as late as the thirteenth, added on the site of an older Roman cemetery and complicated by interventions of the nineteenth century.23 In contrast, the monastery around the Geyikli Kilise in the Soğanlı Valley may represent less than a century of development (tenth to eleventh centuries) but is also sprawling. At its core is the church, preceded by a small courtyard, flanked by several utilitarian rooms, perhaps including a kitchen, and an elegant refectory or trapeza. The latter is carved in great detail and includes a table and benches set along one wall, with an elaborate throne for the abbot at the head of the table (see Figs. 13.33–13.35). Cells for the monks seem to have been scattered among the adjacent rock cones. A tomb at the entrance to the church provides the name of John Skepides, who held the titles of protospatharios of the Chrysotriklinion,

22

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23

Ousterhout, Visualizing Community, 390–95.

FIGURE 18.28 Göreme, Karanlık Kilise Monastery, view looking south toward the fallen portico. Traces of the original arcaded façade are visible in the upper right corner (author)

FIGURE 18.29 Göreme, Karanlık Kilise Monastery, plan (author, redrawn after Lyn Rodley, Cave Monasteries, 1985)

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FIGURE 18.30 Göreme, Karanlık Kilise Monastery, interior of the church, looking south. The Archangel Michael stands protectively above two small donors, who hold candles (author)

Hypatos, and Strategos, presumably the founder of the monastery and local land baron. The monasteries of the Göreme Valley are better organized, probably carved within a short period of time during the eleventh century. The Monastery of the Karanlık Kilise (“Dark Church”) had an elaborately carved façade facing a raised courtyard that overlooked the valley (Figs. 18.28– 18.30). Behind the façade are rooms on two levels, including a large refectory below, from which stairs led to an upper level, which may have provided quarters for the monks. The chapel is also on an upper level but is isolated from these spaces, entered separately by a narrow, winding staircase. The narthex includes a tomb chamber opposite the entrance. The chapel has a cross-insquare design and was carefully carved and painted, with eight donors represented: Nikephoros the priest and Basianos in the apse, John Entalmatikos (perhaps a court title?) and Genethlios

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FIGURE 18.31 Göreme, Çarıklı Kilise Monastery, axonometric cutaway showing the relationship of the refectory on the lower level and the chapel, directly above it, now accessible by an iron staircase (after L. Giovannini, Arts of Cappadocia, 1971)

in the narthex, as well as two unnamed pairs of donors with archangels on the lateral walls of the naos. Beyond the names provided, we have no idea who they are or which of them was actually buried inside the chapel. The isolated situation of the chapel suggests that it may not have been the regular setting of monastic liturgies. However, the refectory is large and much more accessible and may have been used for commemorative meals. The nearby complex at the Çarıklı Kilise (“Sandal Church”) is smaller but similarly organized on two levels, with the chapel upstairs and the refectory below (Fig. 18.31). We might envision the complexes at

FIGURE 18.32 Soğanlı Valley, Kubbeli Kiliseler, looking west. The so-called domed churches have their domes carved and painted on the exteriors as well as on the interiors (author)

Göreme as housing small monastic communities assigned to tend the graves of the local elite.24 Rock-cut architecture was not limited to interiors—several of the churches in the Soğanlı Valley were set into cones with the domes carved on the exterior (Fig. 18.32). Nor was rock-cut architecture limited to Cappadocia. Similar settlements have been found in Lycaonia, Phrygia, and the Pontos. At Ayazin, north of Afyon in Phrygia, for example, one of the chapels appears half in, half out of the rock, with the east façade and half the dome carved

24

Ousterhout, Visualizing Community.

in detail, even including the roof tiles.25 A chapel at Kilistra, near Konya, was similarly excavated from the rock. As with the Cappadocian monuments, the carved forms at Ayazin and Kilistra indicate the growing symbolic importance of established architectural forms. Taking into consideration the rock-cut evidence—the target of much recent investigation—Anatolia might still be “ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte.” 25 C. H. E. Haspels, The Highlands of Phrygia, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1971), esp. 1: 203–54; 2: pls. 425–69; 577–95; F. G. Öztürk, “RockCut Architecture,” in The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia: From the End of Late Antiquity until the Coming of the Turks, ed. P. Niewöhner (New York, 2017), 148–159.

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DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL STYLES III The Caucasus: Armenia and Georgia

A

fter a period of minimal architectural activity, both Armenia and Georgia experienced a flourishing of construction in the tenth and eleventh centuries, notably churches with finely carved ashlar construction and sculptural ornamentation, distinct from their contemporary Byzantine counterparts. Indeed, much seems to follow directly upon the regional construction techniques and building types established in the seventh century, almost as if the intervening three centuries did not exist (see Chap. 12). The elegance of the architecture of the tenth and eleventh centuries reveals little of the complex political situation in the Caucasus, which can only be sketched here in broad strokes. The entire area was under Arab domination during much of the Transitional Period, but by the ninth century, both Armenia and Georgia had become increasingly independent.1 Both were ruled as Arab protectorates by 1 N. Garsoïan, “History of Armenia,” in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. J.  Strayer, 1st vol. (New York, 1982), 474–88; R.  Suny, “Georgia: Political History,” in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. J.  Strayer, 1st vol. (New York, 1982), 404–407, with additional bibliography; also I. Foletti and E Thunø, eds., The Medieval South Caucasus: Artistic Cultures of Albania, Armenia, and Georgia (Brno, 2016).

members of the Armenian Bagratid family— initially as princes, but by the 880s, as kings. The elevation in their titles corresponds with the weakening of Arab control in the region, which allowed both Georgia and Armenia to become relatively powerful and prosperous states in the tenth century. But the region remained a series of small, semi-independent, and often feuding Christian polities, set between the expanding power of Byzantium to the west and the emerging threat of the Seljuks to the east, with borders and political alliances remaining fluid. In 961, the Armenians established a new capital at Ani, marking the beginning of a period of rich cultural development, with the following century witnessing a building boom. In 1022, however, facing increasing political difficulties, Yovhannes-Smbat Bagratuni willed his kingdom to the Byzantine emperor, whose claim of sovereignty at the king’s death in 1041 was much contested. Ani subsequently fell to the Seljuks in 1064. Georgian territories were also ransacked by the Seljuk army of Alp Arslan—who had defeated the Byzantine army in the Battle of Manzikert (to the west of Lake Van) in 1071. Within the Georgian territory, the western principalities flourished under David III of Tao (“the Great”; r. 966–1000),

Ani, cathedral, interior, looking southwest (author) 455

who for his assistance to the Byzantine army of Basil II was awarded the court title of kouropalates. The tenth-century architecture of the western regions of Tao-Klarjeti set the standard for later developments. Georgia underwent a revival under David II (“the Builder”; r. 1089–1125), who expanded his domain, incorporating both Georgian and formerly Armenian territories, including Ani, and created a more centralized rule. He fought successfully against the Seljuks, while maintaining peaceful relations with the Byzantines, creating a kingdom that endured under his successors until the arrival of the Mongols in 1220. Much of the architectural activity in both regions follows prototypes established in the sixth to seventh centuries, although forms are often more linear in their detailing, with greater vertical attenuation. With rare exception, buildings are domed, although the Armenians show a preference for centralized design, while the Georgians prefer domed basilicas. In both regions, the standard construction continues as carefully cut ashlar on a concrete-rubble core, with rich external detailing, both architectonic and with figural sculpture. Armenia. An impressive early example of the architectural revival in the Caucasus is the Church of the Holy Cross at Aght’amar, built 915–21 (Figs.19.1–19.3).2 Its founder, Gagik Artsruni, was a breakaway prince who had himself crowned king of Vaspurakan by the Sajid emir Yusuf of Azerbaijan, who was then at war with Armenia. Gagik established his capital on an island in Lake Van, with the Church of the Holy Cross as his palace chapel. Although the palace no longer survives, the church remains impressive despite twentieth-century vandalism and a heavy-handed, twenty-first-century restoration. Its design follows long-established models, with an interior spatial disposition quite similar to that of St. Hṙip’simē at Vagarshapat: a domed tetraconch with corner niches, creating an octagonal support system for the dome. The east and west conches are extended by extra bays, while the sanctuary is flanked by narrow chapels. Unlike St. Hṙip’simē, which had corner compartments bringing the plan out to J.-M.  Thierry and P.  Donabédian, Armenian Art (New York, 1987), 475–77; L. Jones, Between Islam and Byzantium: Aght‘amar and the Visual Construction of Medieval Armenian Rulership (Aldershot, 2007). 2

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square, the spatial volumes of Aght’amar are expressed on the exterior, with niches and conches given faceted surfaces. To the east and west, indentations frame the apses in otherwise flat façades. All surfaces are encrusted with an unprecedented array of sculptures, mostly of twodimensional character: cornices with running animals; decorative bands with inhabited vine scrolls; hood moldings with fruit and vegetal patterns, panels with khachkars (crosses), as well as human and animal protomes; full-length prophets, apostles, and angels; and scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Flanking the window on the west façade, a tall Gagik presents a model of his church to a slightly shorter Christ, while angels hold a roundel bearing an image of the Cross. Odd asymmetries and poor connections suggest the sculpted blocks were carved before being mounted on the exterior. Wall paintings once covered the interior surfaces but are poorly preserved. The ruins of Ani, now at the end of the road in Turkey at its closed border with the Republic of Armenia, offer a melancholy spectacle of isolated monuments amid rolling pastureland (Figs. 19.4 and 19.5). 3 The triangular plateau on which the city rose is framed by deep ravines, with an impressive line of walls closing the landward side. In the ninth century, the Bagratids had acquired the fortress of Ani and surrounding properties, and in 961, Ashot III moved his capital there from Kars. The city grew quickly, expanding beyond the immediate vicinity of the fortress: Ashot had built his city walls at the narrowest point of the plateau, but by 989 new walls were constructed to the north, enclosing a much larger area. As an entrepôt at an important crossroads, Ani controlled caravan routes between East and West and became a center of trade and production in its own right. In 992, the seat of the Armenian church was transferred to Ani. At its height in the eleventh century, the city was renowned for its wealth and boasted For a useful website, including maps and photographs, see “Virtual Ani,” 2004–, https://www.virtualani.org; P. Cuneo et al., Ani, Documents of Armenian Architecture 12 (Milan, 1984); N. Marr, Ani: Rêve d’Arménie, trans. P. M. Muradyan (Paris, 2001), trans. of N. Marr, Ani, knizhnaya istoriya goroda i raskopki (Leningrad, 1934); Thierry and Donabédian, Armenian Art, 481–91; Ani: Millennial Capital of Armenia, exhibition catalogue, History Museum of Armenia (Yerevan, 2015). 3

FIGURE 19.1. Aght’amar, Church of the Holy Cross, west façade, with sculptural decoration; at the center, Gagik presents the church to Christ (author)

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FIGURE 19.2. Aght’amar, Church of the Holy Cross, plan (redrawn after C. Mango, Byzantine Architecture, 1975)

19.3. Aght’amar, Church of the Holy Cross, interior, a view into the vaulting (author) FIGURE

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a population of more than one hundred thousand. Ongoing excavations are revealing significant elements of the street system, as well as shops, houses, and baths. Once known as the “city of 1,001 churches,” only a handful stand today. The fortified citadel contained the palace of the Bagratids and (presumably) their predecessors, including several ceremonial halls, chapels, and a bath, excavated by the Russians at the beginning of the twentieth century, but incompletely understood. The impressive fortification walls, which guard the city on its vulnerable north side, were built under Smbat, 977–89, following the model of the Land Walls of Constantinople, with two lines of defense: a tall inner wall and a lower outer wall, both lined with towers, preceded by a dry moat (Fig. 19.6). Like the churches, the walls and towers were built with ashlar facing on a concreterubble core, often with patterns in different colors of stone and apotropaic symbols. Inscriptions from subsequent centuries mark numerous repairs and reinforcement. Unlike the Walls of Constantinople, those of Ani have bent entrances, with the gates staggered from the outer to the inner wall.

FIGURE 19.4. Ani, view looking northeast from the citadel, with the cathedral at the center, between the Seljuk Mosque to the left and the Church of the Redeemer to the right; the city walls are visible in the left distance and the remains of the medieval bridge are in the gorge to the right (author)

The Cathedral of Ani, dedicated in 1001, was the work of the renowned architect Trdat, who was also responsible for rebuilding the dome of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople after its collapse in the earthquake of 989.4 The cathedral was begun by Smbat II in 989 and completed by Queen Katramide, wife of Gagik Bagratuni (Figs. 19.7– 19.10). In its design, the cathedral harks back to the plan and the proportions of the seventh-century domed basilica at Mren, which may have served as its model, while elaborated inside and out with architectonic detailing (compare Figs. 12.2–12.4). The tall mass of the building rises above a stepped base, its walls and vaults constructed of carefully carved facing of the distinctive reddish stone characteristic of Ani. As at Mren, there is no narthex. Elegant decorative arcading lines the exterior, the façades punctuated by V-shaped recesses, which correspond to the structural divisions of the interior. Windows are tall and thin, with sculpted frames. The compound piers and arches 4

Maranci, “The Architect Trdat,” 294–305, esp. 299–301.

of the interior are similarly thin and elegant, articulated with multiple setbacks, the linearity of the supports emphasizing the attenuated height. The dome, 7.5 meters in diameter (or 10.4 meters to the midpoint of the piers), rose above pendentives; the central bay is proportionally larger and more prominent than its counterpart at Mren. The structural clarity evident in the cathedral has long intrigued Western visitors: for example, the stepped profiles of the compound piers continue into the vaulting in a way that recalls the articulation of forms in European Romanesque architecture, seeming to clarify the structural system in a similar way. But this view is a bit misleading, as the architectonic detailing in Caucasian buildings of this period is primarily decorative and not always coordinated with the structure. In its “structural rationalism” the cathedral may be unique to the region. While elegant and rational in the major spaces, it is somewhat less so in the side aisles, and the arcading of the exterior bears no relationship to the structural system. From a Western perspective, we expect structural rationalism,

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FIGURE 19.5. Ani, city plan, showing major monuments (after J. Strzygowski, Baukunst, 1918)

but the inconsistencies indicate that within the Caucasus, structure and decoration were usually separate concerns. As a mason who traveled, Trdat may have observed the structural clarity of surviving Roman (as opposed to Romanesque) monuments. 460

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Whether or not Trdat’s cathedral was built in dialogue with a specific monument of the Armenian past, this was clearly the case with another church attributed to him. The Church of Gregory at Ani, known as King Gagik’s Church (or Gagkshen), was constructed ca. 1001–1005, clearly in

FIGURE 19.6. Ani, Northern Walls, looking east across the dry moat (author)

FIGURE 19.7. Ani, cathedral, seen from the southeast (author)

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FIGURE 19.8. Ani, cathedral, a detail of one of the decorative niches on the east façade, with both sculpted and painted ornaments (author)

FIGURE 19.9. Ani, cathedral, plan and elevation (after J. Strzygowski, Baukunst, 1918)

imitation of the Church of the Vigilant Powers (Zvart‘nots‘)—a tetraconch set within a circle, built at almost the same scale (Figs. 19.11A and 19.12; and compare Figs. 12.19 and 12.20).5 Even the architectural sculpture follows the model of Zvart‘nots‘. As at the cathedral, the area beneath the dome is increased in prominence, and the linearity of the piers was given greater emphasis. While Zvart‘nots‘ was the most significant religious site in Armenia, it is nevertheless curious that Trdat chose an architectural model that had experienced structural failure—by 1001, Zvart‘nots‘ was in ruins. Was the copy meant to transfer the sacred associations of the prototype to the new capital city? Whatever his reasoning, despite his successful repair of the dome of Hagia Sophia, it seems that structural theory was not Trdat’s strong suit. Within a decade, King Gagik’s church required structural reinforcement—massive piers were added at the middle of each exedra, but the building collapsed shortly thereafter. As with its 5

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Maranci, “The Architect Trdat,” 297–99.

FIGURE

19.10.

Ani, cathedral, interior, looking southwest (author)

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FIGURE 19.11. Plans of centrally planned churches at Ani: (A) Church of St. Gregory of Gagik; (B) Church of the Redeemer; (C) Citadel Chapel; (D) Church of St. Gregory of Grigor Pahlavuni (after J.-M. Thierry and A. Donabédian, Armenian Art, 1987)

FIGURE

464

19.12.

Ani, Church of St. Gregory of Gagik, view of the ruins (author)

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FIGURE 19.13. Ani, Church of St. Gregory of Grigor Pahlavuni, exterior from the north (author)

prototype, the elevation cannot be reconstructed with any certainty. A variety of centrally planned churches survive at Ani. One of the older examples may be the small Church of St. Gregory, said to have been commissioned by Grigor Pahlavuni as a family chapel in the late tenth century (Figs. 19.11D and 19.13). The central hexagonal space expands outward into six equal horseshoe-shaped niches and is covered by a small dome, approximately 5 meters in diameter. Tiny chapels, set into the wall thickness, flank the eastern niche, and the entrance is off-axis. The exterior is dodecagonal, with the projecting niches separated by V-shaped recesses. The drum of the dome is detailed with arcading, while on the lower level, the windows are individually framed. The dome itself is covered by the characteristic conical roof. The popularity of the centralized plan is also evident at the Church of the Redeemer, built by the general Ablgharib in 1035 on a considerably larger scale, with a dome approximately 9.5 meters in diameter (Figs. 19.11B and 19.14). Octagonal on the interior and nineteen sided on the exterior, the church rises in two stages below the conical roof covering the dome, both stages detailed with

arcading on the exterior. On the lower level of the interior, niches are set into the thickness of the wall, lined with engaged columns, including an enlarged eastern niche for the sanctuary, flanked by tiny chapels. The upper level is set back and comprises the drum of the enormous dome, pierced by twelve thin windows, plain on the interior but detailed on the exterior by twenty-four blind arches. Despite the 1912 restoration, the eastern half of the church collapsed in 1957, perhaps as a result of the reduced mass of the lower walls on that side. In its present state, the church dramatically provides its own cross-section. The Church of the Holy Apostles at Ani, built sometime in the early eleventh century, offers a more complex plan, a domed tetraconch inscribed within a square, with corner chapels, the dome originally approximately 7.6 meters in diameter (Fig. 19.15). Already in ruins when excavated in 1909, the dome apparently rose above pendentives, and the corner chapels may have been domed as well. The nave is rigidly symmetrical, while the chapels take a variety of shapes; those to the east have additional tiny chapels set within the wall thickness. Entered from the north and south, the church lacked a narthex, although each of the four corner

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19.14. Ani, Church of the Redeemer, seen from the southwest (author) FIGURE

chapels was provided with one. The exterior was arcaded and punctuated by the typical V-shaped indentations framing the four apses. The excavations indicated that the church stood in an open courtyard that was gradually filled with burial structures over the course of the next century. Sometime before 1215 (the date of the oldest inscription), a gavit (or forehall; also called a zhamatun) was constructed against the south façade, its roof centered on a muqarnas vault supported above intersecting arches. The curiously inventive form of the gavit is characteristic of thirteenth-century developments, which will be explored further in Chapter 23. The gavit marks the introduction of a new architectural form in the period under discussion, for which the most important example is at the monastery of Hoṙomos, located 15 kilometers northeast of Ani (Figs. 19.16 and 19.17).6 Founded by Abas I (943–53), following the relocation of the capital to Ani, the monastery was adopted by the Bagratid kings for royal burials. Largely rebuilt in

FIGURE 19.15. Ani, Church of the Holy Apostles, with gavit added in the early thirteenth century (redrawn after J. Strzygowski, Baukunst, 1918)

6

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E. Vardanyan, ed., Hoṙomos Monastery: Art and History (Paris, 2015).

FIGURE 19.16. Hoṙomos Monastery, Church of St. John, plan and section of church and zhamatun (redrawn after J.-M. Thierry and A. Donabédian, Armenian Art, 1987)

the eleventh century, the main church is credited to Yovhannes Smbat (1020–42) and dedicated to St. John. The church itself is relatively simple, without decorative elaboration, its central dome on pendentives rising above engaged piers; the bema apse is flanked by pastophoria. The exterior forms are plain, with the exception of the characteristic V-shaped indentations on the façades. In striking contrast is the large and extravagant gavit or, as it is called in the foundation inscription, zhamatun, which projects to the west, probably built as a mausoleum for Yovhannes Smbat, which can be dated by inscription to 1038 and was intended from the outset. Noticeably larger than the church, the rectangular forehall measures 12.4 by 18.8 meters internally. While relatively plain on the exterior, the interior is lavishly detailed. The structure is subdivided into nine bays by arches rising from four freestanding piers and twelve engaged piers, all cylindrical and detailed with tall bases and Doric-like capitals. The lateral walls are broken by small ocular windows, and the nine bays are covered by a variety of roofing forms. The central vault comprises a steep octagonal

pyramid rising above shell-like squinches and open at the top, covered by a canopy on the exterior (that surviving is a later replacement). The wedge-shaped segments of the central vault are covered with intricate carving, both figural and decorative, perhaps intended to evoke an image of heaven. To the east and west, the axial bays have flattened eight-part vaults with scalloped segments, set above squinches. The axial bay to the north is covered by a flattened barrel vault, while all the other bays have flat ceilings, detailed with carved crosses and decorative roundels. While most Armenian churches lacked a narthex, the gavit at Hoṙomos is often considered the prototype of an increasingly popular form of forehall, which finds a particularly rich development in the thirteenth century, when they were added to older churches—as at the Apostles Church— or constructed simultaneously with the church proper—as at Hoṙomos. Scholars have long puzzled over the specific meaning of the terms gavit and zhamatun, but for all intents and purposes, they seem to be interchangeable. Functionally, the space could be used as an assembly hall for the

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FIGURE

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19.17. Hoṙomos Monastery, Church of St. John, interior of the zhamatun, looking west (Zaven Sargsyan)

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FIGURE 19.18. Ot’ht’a Eklesia, basilica, view from the southeast (author)

monastic community, as well as for administrative and legal activities, as numerous secular inscriptions attest—that is, they stand in contrast to the more sacred functions and associations of the naos. Perhaps most important is the use of the space for burials, which were not allowed within the church proper; the gavit could play an important role in the process of patronage, providing an honored place of the burial for donors. In this, it parallels architectural developments within Byzantine lands, as new architectural forms provided spaces for privileged burials in elaborate church designs. The gavit was thus a distinct architectural element, unique to Armenia, and not related to the development of the Byzantine monastic narthex, or lite, to which it is sometimes compared. The formal origin of the architectural design continues to be debated.7 Georgia. The church architecture of Armenia and Georgia remained remarkably similar through the early period, indicative of the close religious 7 P. Mylonas, “Gavits armeniéns et Litae byzantines. Observations nouvelles sur le complexe de Saint-Luc en Phocide,” CahArch 38 (1990): 99–122.

ties of the areas during that time. Both the architectural developments and the religious ties of the tenth century and later are more distinct, reflecting the remarkable individuality of parallel cultures. Although construction techniques and decorative features are often similar, the Georgians preferred the basilica, whether domed or not, to the more centralized designs of the Armenians.8 Architecture flourished from the mid-tenth century onward, beginning in the western Georgian regions, associated with the rule of David III of Tao. 9 Churches were often isolated in the rugged landscape, doubling as monasteries, cathedrals, burial places, and administrative centers. More than anything, however, they stand as monuments to their patrons, for in a land with shifting allegiances and frontiers, churches proved to be the most durable monuments—as their survival testifies. Ot‘ht‘a Eklesia (Dörtkilise, now eastern Turkey), begun ca. 961–65, is a grand, three-aisled basilica, reviving a type known in the early period (Figs. 19.18–19.20). Built in the time of David the Great 8

Alpago-Novello, Art and Architecture in Medieval Georgia.

9

Djobadze, Early Medieval Georgian, for what follows.

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FIGURE

FIGURE 19.20. Ot’ht’a Eklesia, basilica, interior, looking southeast (author)

(r. 958–1001), it is known as “the church of the four (holy men)” as opposed to “four churches,” as the name might suggest. A “splendid monastery” is mentioned in a text of 965, and the church may have been built shortly before that date. In addition to the church, the monastery includes a mortuary chapel, a refectory, a seminary, and a scriptorium, the latter building adjoining the basilica to the west. While lacking a dome, Ot‘ht‘a Eklesia is nevertheless impressive in its austere monumentality and magnificent, pristine setting. Its plan measures 28.5 by 18.6 meters, with the nave vault rising 22 meters above floor level. As with the Armenian churches just discussed, the construction is of ashlar on a rubble core, with the superstructure resting on a stepped base. The church itself is three aisled with the nave and side aisles covered by banded barrel vaults, the lofty central nave rising to include thin clerestory windows, in addition to two zones of small windows in the side aisles. The exterior is

articulated by blind arcades, which step up gracefully on the east and west façades, with an emphasis on linearity and vertical attenuation. Joints visible in the ashlar of the upper east and west façades indicate a change in the design, either during construction or very shortly thereafter. The original nave roof had a shallower pitch and was approximately 4 meters lower—that is, following the angle of the stepped arcades, probably without a clerestory. An inscription at the apex of the east gable names David as kouropalates, a title he received in 978, and thus the modifications to the building must have occurred ca. 978–1001. The western gallery in the nave is also a slightly later addition. The Romanesque-like orderliness suggested by the architectonic detailing is misleading. The bays of the nave are of different dimensions; the arcading of the exterior walls bears no relationship to the internal structural system; even the banding of the barrel vaults doesn’t always match from the nave to the side

19.19. Ot’ht’a Eklesia, basilica, plan and section (after W. Djobadze, Early Medieval, 1992)

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FIGURE 19.21. Öşk Vank (Oshki), Church of St. John the Baptist, view from the southwest (author)

aisles. As in other Caucasian examples, architectonic features are used as an aesthetic solution, rather than as a visual expression of the structure. Ot‘ht‘a Eklesia is unusual in its vaulting, although the nearby monastic Church of Parhali (Barhal) is similarly barrel vaulted and must be slightly later, as it includes all of the design changes of Ot‘ht‘a Eklesia in a single-phase construction. Considerably more common for Georgian architecture, however, is the domed basilica, and of these, the Church of St. John the Baptist at  Öşk Vank (Oshki) is the grandest of tenthcentury churches, built ca. 963–73 by David the Great and his brother Bagrat (Figs. 19.21–19.24). The site served both as a monastery and as an administrative center, although virtually nothing of the secular buildings survives, and the monastic buildings are in ruins. Lavishly decorated with exterior sculpture, images of the founders appear presenting the church at the southeast corner, and the exterior preserves abundant inscriptions, both carved and painted. The plan of the church is

equally complex, measuring 40.6 by 27 meters internally, with the dome rising approximately 30 meters. The cross arms of the domed basilica terminate in apses, and all three apses are framed by chapels—those to the east pastophoria. The single-aisled nave was covered by a banded barrel vault, now mostly fallen, composed of five bays of different length marked by stepped pilasters along the walls. The westernmost bay included a gallery, similar to that at Ot‘ht‘a Eklesia. The dome, with an internal diameter of 8.95 meters, rises on a tall drum broken by twelve large windows, above four piers that define the crossing: those to the east are cylindrical and those to the west compound, equipped with carved seats (presumably for the bishop) facing east. The high arches are slightly pointed, with pendentives in the transition, decorated with shell-like insets. In addition to the rich architectural sculpture, traces of painted decoration survive throughout the interior. The nave is flanked by a long, narrow chapel of uncertain purpose on the north side, while the

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19.22. Öşk Vank (Oshki), Church of St. John the Baptist, plan (after W. Djobadze, Early Medieval, 1992) FIGURE

19.23. Öşk Vank (Oshki), Church of St. John the Baptist, interior, looking east (author) FIGURE

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FIGURE 19.24. Öşk Vank (Oshki), Church of St. John the Baptist, south porch, looking east (author)

south opens into a portico—a marvel of unusual vaulting forms and an explosion of carved decoration, perhaps the best surviving evidence of the innovative approach of the masons coupled with the love of decorative variety. Each of the piers is unique—cylindrical, quatrefoil, octagonal. The vaults are similarly innovative—each unique and lavishly carved, octagonal above squinches, with a central cross framed by scalloped segments. External decoration is similarly robust, the eastern façades marked by blind arcading and V-shaped indentations framing the apses. Both figural and decorative sculpture is often asymmetrically disposed, and the projecting south porch is covered by an asymmetrical gabled roof, with unfinished sculptural decoration below—it shelters an extensive dedicatory inscription in red paint, which provides much information about its construction (see Chap. 16). The elaborated triconch plan is repeated at Kutaisi and Alaverdi on a slightly larger scale. Built more than a generation later, the Cathedral of Ishkani (İşhan) was inaugurated in its present form under Giorgi I (r. 1014–27) and completed under Bagrat IV (r. 1027–72) in 1032 (Figs. 19.25

and 19.26).10 It is similarly a monumental domed basilica of fine ashlar construction, resplendent with relief sculpture, the masons here similarly delighting in variety. Rising on a stepped base, the walls are heavily articulated with multiple setbacks, detailed with pilasters and half-columns that continue into the arcades. The east and west façades include V-shaped indentations, but the exuberant architectonic detailing bears only a nominal relationship to the interior structural divisions. The rhythm of the interior differs, with a banded barrel vault (now fallen) over the nave and the tall dome rising above piers similar to those at Oshki, with squinch pendentives in the transition above slightly pointed arches. The unusual hemicycle in the choir is said to reuse components of a seventh-century building that once stood on the site. The exuberant linearity of the architectural detailing is complemented by a rich painted program, partially preserved, with the Exaltation of the Cross, dramatically set against a  background of lapis lazuli in the dome. The 10 M.  Kadiroğlu, The Architecture of the Georgian Church at Işhan (Frankfurt, 1991).

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473

19.25. Ishkani Cathedral, view from the northwest (author) FIGURE

19.26. Ishkani Cathedral, plan (after W. Djobadze, Early Medieval, 1992) FIGURE

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FIGURE 19.27. Mtskheta, Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles, view from the southeast (author)

western nave was walled off in the nineteenth century to function as a mosque. The picturesque city of Mtskheta was the capital of Iberia until it was relocated to the more defensible Tbilisi in the sixth century. It remained an important religious center, as the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral is alleged to house the chiton of Christ (Figs. 19.27 and 19.28).11 It was built in its present form by the Katholikos Melkisedek in 1010–29 as a domed basilica on the site of the oldest Christian structure in the kingdom. The church was repaired and elongated to the west in the fifteenth century and later, and its multiple phases and consequent irregularities attest to its continued veneration. A domed basilica with side aisles, the exuberant sculptural detailing follows the models established in Tao-Klarjeti. Set in the mountains northeast of Kutaisi, Gelat‘i Monastery was begun in 1106 under the auspices of David IV the Builder, although it was completed by his son Demetrius in 1130 (Figs. 19.29 and 19.30). An important center of learning, it is called “another Athens” and “the second

Jerusalem,” with close connections to the intellectual circles of Constantinople.12 While the church is a good poster child for the revival of Georgia under David, there is little in the architecture that could not be found a century earlier, although it is spacious and lit by large windows. The main church, dedicated to the Virgin, is cruciform with corner compartments, each surmounted by an upper-level chapel or oratory, all subsequently enveloped by annexes on three sides: those to the west and south already in the twelfth century and those to the north in the thirteenth. Unusually, its apse preserves a mosaic of the Theotokos, indicative of the close ties to the Byzantine capital. Surviving from the thirteenth century is the chapel to the east, dedicated to St. George, a smaller version of the main church, as well as the elevated Chapel of St. Nicholas to the west, the belfry to the northwest, and a rectangular building usually identified as the Academy (in the sixteenth century it became the refectory). The south gate, a vaulted passageway, may be from the time of Alpago-Novello, Art and Architecture, 328–31; W.  Djobadze, “Gelat‘i,” in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. J.  Strayer, 5th vol. (New York, 1985), 374.

12

Alpago-Novello, Art and Architecture, 395–401; M.  Bulia and M. Janjalia, eds., Mtskheta (Tbilisi, 2006). 11

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475

19.28. Mtskheta, Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles, plan and elevation (after A. Alpago-Novello, Art and Architecture, 1980) FIGURE

19.29. Gelati Monastery, view from the east (David Khoshtaria) FIGURE

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FIGURE 19.30. Gelati Monastery, plan (redrawn after A. AlpagoNovello, Art and Architecture, 1980)

David, but it has been subsequently modified. David chose to be buried beneath the floor of the passageway and gate of the monastery; many of his successors chose to be buried within the monastery precincts as well. , Unlike Armenia, which experienced a revival in the thirteenth century with innovative new architectural forms, standardization seems to have been the rule within Georgian territories. External façades often include an impressive array of decorative forms, but the plans and structural systems

continued from established types. Nevertheless, the rich developments in both Armenia and Georgia of the tenth and eleventh centuries offer an important corrective to discussions of the period, which tend to center innovation in Constantinople. It is worth considering the increasing political connections with the Byzantine capital and court in light of the earlier appearance of certain architectural forms in the Caucasus: the appearance of the triconch plan, the octagon-domed structural system, systems of arcading, and the stepped base in the Byzantine monuments of Anatolia, and even Constantinople, for example, may ultimately derive from the monuments of the Caucasus.

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CHAPTER TWENTY

,

CONTESTED LANDS Architecture at the Time of the Crusades

F

ollowing the successful completion of the First Crusade and the foundation of the Crusader States in 1099, contacts and cultural exchanges between Western Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean increased, and this is reflected in the architecture. As Western European powers expanded, politically and culturally, it was often at the expense of the Byzantines and marked a traumatic rupture in the Muslim cultures of the  region. While most often discussed solely in terms of French Romanesque and Gothic, Crusader architecture may be better understood as representing local construction practices with an overlay of Western European (or specifically French) details. This chapter attempts to set the heterogeneous architecture within the political and cultural networks of the period. The story of “Crusader architecture” begins long before 1099 and does not end with the final siege of Acre in 1291.1 The growth of two Islamic states in the tenth and eleventh centuries set the stage: the Fatimids to the south and the Seljuks to

1 For background, see J.  Riley-Smith, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades (Oxford, 1995); and for another perspective, P. M. Cobb, The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades (Oxford, 2014); K.  Moore, The Architecture of the Christian Holy Land: Reception from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance (Cambridge, 2017).

the north and east. The Fatimid Caliphate (909– 1171), which followed the Isma’ili Shi’ite form of Islam, was established in the Maghreb and expanded across North Africa in the tenth century. By 973 the Fatimids had set up a new capital at Cairo and eventually controlled much of the Southern Mediterranean—halting Byzantine advances in Syria and Iraq and claiming their former province of Sicily. While generally tolerant of religious minorities and able to balance the dissenting views of the majority Sunni populations, there were exceptions. During the first decades of the eleventh century, the Caliph al-Hakim was openly hostile to Sunnis, Christians, and Jews and in 1009 ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, ostensibly because of the “fraud” practiced in the ceremony of the Descent of the Holy Fire at Easter. Famines and fractions in  the army eventually resulted in civil war and decline. Saladin, originally a vizier, brought an end to Fatimid rule and by 1174 had established himself as sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty (1171–1260). A great military strategist, in his first decade of rule, Saladin reclaimed and consolidated much of the Near East and North Africa and in 1187 defeated the Crusader armies at the Battle of Hattin. To the north, Turks from Central Asia had established the Great Seljuk Empire in Persia in  1037, capturing Baghdad in 1055. Having

Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre, south transept, showing connection to the eleventh-century arcade (author) 479

converted to Sunni Islam, they controlled large areas extending from Anatolia to Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. Under Alp Arslan, the Seljuks invaded Anatolia in the 1060s, decisively defeating the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. Pushing westward, the Seljuks of Rūm (Anatolia) established a capital briefly at Nicaea and subsequently at Konya (Byzantine Ikonion). Much of Anatolia was carved into a series of smaller principalities (or beyliks) by Turkmen generals and followers of Alp Arslan; Syria was similarly subdivided. The twelfth century is marked by Byzantine interventions and reconquest along the west and south coasts of Anatolia, while the Seljuks of Rūm gradually consolidated their holdings, absorbing many of the beyliks (discussed further in Chap. 23). Although the Seljuks had been nominally in control of Jerusalem, the Fatimids retook Palestine shortly before the arrival of the First Crusade. It is doubtful the Crusaders fully comprehended the fractious ethnic, political, and religious landscape they were entering. In addition to divisions among the Muslims, the Christians of the East were far from a monolithic group, with a great variety of religious beliefs and languages. Politically, the Armenians had reestablished themselves (with Byzantine assistance) in Cilicia, while the Byzantines were still in control of the south coast of Anatolia and Cyprus, and there were large Christian and Jewish minorities in Muslim lands. Ostensibly invited by the emperor Alexios I Komnenos to assist in the reconquest of lost Byzantine territories, the army of the First Crusade arrived at the walls of Constantinople in 1096. While helping to restore Byzantine control in western Anatolia, the Crusaders viewed lands further to the east as fair game. After all, Palestine had not been under Byzantine control for almost half a millennium. With Crusader victories at Antioch (1098) and Jerusalem (1099), they established several independent states, forming a narrow strip of land along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, extending into Anatolia: the Principality of Antioch (1098–1268), the County of Edessa (1098–1144), the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099– 1187), and the County of Tripoli (1101–1289). The fluid and permeable regional borders between very different political and religious polities emphasize the impossibility of viewing 480

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Crusader culture in isolation. Indeed, a look at the architecture reveals a history of contestation, exchange, and coexistence. While not always harmonious or stylistically unified, architectural construction could mark territory in overlapping spaces and demonstrate prestige and control to local inhabitants and travelers—as well as to other rulers in close proximity. There is also a long history of local architectural practices to contribute to the mix, as well the standing monuments, representing an evocative religious past, which could not be ignored. Before the Crusades. Jerusalem, with its rich and contested history, provides a good microcosm for exploring the complex nature of Crusader architecture. But it was never the major political or cultural center of the region. For this we must look to Cairo and Damascus and their rich architectural traditions.2 There was also the regional architectural idiom of the Christian communities, which might be categorized as provincial Byzantine, one that provided a link to the Christian past.3 In addition to a massive upsurge in church construction, the Crusaders introduced distinctive architectural features from Romanesque Western Europe, which came to represent their political hegemony.4 To a certain extent, there is a shared architectural vocabulary that may be impossible to disentangle. Nineteenth-century scholarship was caught up in issues of origins: For example, was the pointed arch imported from Western Europe, or does it derive from regional Muslim or Christian usage?5 Are gadroons, or For this see, D. Behrens-Abouseif, Islamic Architecture in Cairo: An Introduction (Leiden, 1989); and R. Ettinghausen, O. Grabar, and M.  Jenkins-Madina, The Art and Architecture of Islam 650–1250, 2nd ed. (New Haven, 2003). 2

D. Pringle, “Church Building in Palestine before the Crusades,” in Crusader Art in the Twelfth Century, ed. J. Folda (Oxford, 1982), 5–46; M. Georgopoulou, “The Artistic World of the Crusaders and Oriental Christians in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” Gesta 43, no. 2 (2004): 115–28. 3

4 J. Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (Cambridge, 1995), esp. 69–73. 5 See, for example, C.-J.-M. de Vogüé, Les Églises de la Terre Sainte (Paris, 1860). Note also C. Enlart, Les Monuments des croisés dans le royaume de Jérusalem: Architecture religieuse et civile, 2 vols. (Paris, 1925–28); but see more recently D.  Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, for an assessment of individual

FIGURE 20.1 Jerusalem, al-Aqsa Mosque, view into the dome at the crossing, looking southeast (Ross Burns, Manar-alAthar Project)

pillow voussoirs, which appear so prominently on the façade of the Crusader Holy Sepulchre, to be read as Eastern or Western? Both appear across the Mediterranean during the twelfth century, in Egypt, Palestine, Sicily, and France.6 The dome on pendentives, usually seen as a Byzantine feature, finds its way into Crusader architecture, while the dome on squinches, which follows Islamic models, does not. Which of these features should be interpreted as cultural signifiers?7 There were certainly forms that bore specific cultural meanings and had been consciously selected. For example, ribbed groin vaults and window tracery appear only in Crusader monuments. Properly read, the architecture of the period can thus provide a window onto cultural interchange and exclusivity. monuments, with bibliography. See also D.  Pringle, Secular Buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: An Archaeological Gazetteer (Cambridge, 1997). 6 The earliest securely dated are those of the Bab Futuh in Cairo, 1087–91; Enlart, Monuments, 1st vol., 97–98.

B. Kühnel, Crusader Art of the Twelfth Century: A Geographical, an Historical, or an Art Historical Notion? (Berlin, 1994).

7

There had been a variety of construction activities in Jerusalem—both Muslim and Christian— in the eleventh century. Interventions in the alAqsa Mosque belong to the mid-eleventh century, sponsored by the Fatimid caliph al-Zahir following the great earthquake of 1033 (Figs. 20.1 and 20.2). The great mosque of Jerusalem was sited facing the Dome of the Rock on the south of the Haram al-Sharif esplanade, on the site of the first mosque in the city. The fifteen-aisle plan was a remnant of the reconstruction by Al-Mahdi (775–85). The wooden dome, rising above a masonry drum and arches at the crossing, is eleventhcentury work, as the mosaic inscription attests.8 Its construction has no parallels in regional Islamic or Christian vocabularies, placing pendentives with disk-shaped recesses at their centers above tiny squinches at the springing. The Abbey Church of the Monastery of the Cross, just outside Jerusalem, was constructed in the 1020–30s. It marked the site associated with 8 For a summary of the scholarship, see Pringle, Churches, 3: 417– 34; the construction may be a remnant of eighth-century construction, although eleventh century seems more likely.

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FIGURE 20.2 Jerusalem, al-Aqsa Mosque: (A) hypothetical reconstruction of al-Mahdi’s mosque; (B) plan showing later modifications (author, redrawn after K. A. C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, 1958; and D. Pringle, in O. Grabar and B. Z. Kedar, Where Heaven and Earth Meet, 2009)

the tree that had provided the wood for the True Cross, which seems to have been a new locus sanctus, although an older church stood on the site. The relic was accessible through a cruciform hole beneath the altar (Figs. 20.3 and 20.4).9 Although under the patronage of the Georgians, the plan and construction are more characteristic of local practice. The basilica featured a dome on pendentives at the crossing and groin vaults above the other bays, terminating in a tripartite sanctuary. The arches are slightly pointed and built of ashlar, much like the pilasters below and the 9

Pringle, Churches, 2: 33–40.

482

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dome they support. Characteristically, the vaults themselves are of rubble. The plan finds some similarity with the domed basilicas of the seventh-century Caucasus, but the design appears elsewhere in and around Jerusalem, as at the Church of John the Baptist at ‘Ein Karim, which marked his birthplace and was probably contemporary with the Monastery of the Cross. In any case, the church offers a good example of local construction practices immediately prior to the Crusades. At the center of Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre represented the ultimate goal of pilgrim and Crusader alike, marking the sites

of  Christ’s Crucifixion, Entombment, and Resurrection. Following its fourth-century foundations, discussed in Chapter 2, the church had suffered damage in the seventh and tenth centuries before it was destroyed in 1009 on al-Hakim’s orders. Subsequently rebuilt with the financial support of the Byzantine emperors, it was completed by Constantine IX Monomachos ca. 1048 (Figs. 20.5–20.7).10 This phase followed Byzantine architectural ideas and was probably directed by a master mason from Constantinople, although built by a mixed crew of local and imported masons. The workmanship helps to identify the builders: the Constantinopolitan team built in alternating bands of brick and stone, with the recessed brick technique in the brick courses, while the local team built solely in ashlar, with slightly pointed arches. Although the rotunda and the porticoed courtyard remained much the same, neither the basilica nor the atrium was reconstructed; at the Anastasis Rotunda an open, conical vault replaced the original wooden dome, and an apse was added on its eastern façade. Probably the south entrance became the main point of access at this time. The courtyard became the focal point of the complex, enveloped by numerous annexed chapels organized on two levels. Along its eastern perimeter, the chapels marked events from the Passion of Christ, including the so-called Prison of Christ, the Flagellation, the Crown of Thorns, the Division of the Garments, and, in an elevated position, the Chapel of Calvary, above the so-called Chapel of Adam. Stairs led down to a grotto beneath the ruins of the basilica, identified as the site of the Invention of the Cross. Another range of chapels extended south from the rotunda. There were also additional chapels on the gallery level, constructed above Calvary. One, with a dome transition of trumpet squinches, was built in the recessed brick technique. This stands in contrast to the dome transition on one of the south chapels, with Islamic-style squinches and slightly pointed arches (compare Figs. 20.7A and 20.7B). As the Crusaders took possession of Jerusalem in 1099, they attempted to erase the previous Coüasnon, Holy Sepulchre; Corbo, Santo Sepolcro di Gerusalemme; R.  G.  Ousterhout, “Rebuilding the Temple: Constantine Monomachus and the Holy Sepulchre,” JSAH 48 (1981): 66–78.

10

FIGURE 20.3 Monastery of the Cross, Church of the Holy Cross, plan (after D. Pringle, “Church Building,” 1982)

FIGURE 20.4 Monastery of the Cross, Church of the Holy Cross, interior looking northwest (Megan Boomer)

centuries of Islamic control. The al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock were transformed to Christian usage and situated within the millennial narrative of the city’s religious history, identified as the Temple or Palace of Solomon and the Temple of the Lord, respectively. These figured prominently into Crusader history, with the Dome of the Rock administered by the Augustinians, while the alAqsa was first the royal residence, subsequently the headquarters of the Knights Templar.11 Although 11

See Pringle, Churches, 3: 417–34.

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FIGURE 20.5 Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre, plan of the eleventh-century complex: (1) Patriarchate; (2) Anastasis Rotunda; (3) Aedicule of the Tomb of Christ; (4) inner courtyard; (5) Omphalos marker; (6) Prison of Christ; (7) Chapel of the Flagellation; (8) Chapel of the Crown of Thorns; (9) Chapel of the Division of the Garments; (10) Crypt of the Invention of the Cross; (11) Calvary; (12) Chapel of St. Mary; (13) Chapels of St. John, Holy Trinity, and St. James (author, redrawn after V. Corbo, Santo Sepolcro, 1981)

they were decorated with Christian inscriptions and imagery, these disappeared with the reconquest of the city in 1187. At the al-Aqsa, the Crusaders demolished large areas along the sides, reducing the building to seven aisles, with new construction added, most of which has been removed; a lone rose window along the east façade marks the location of the Templars’ chapel. The central three bays of the porch of the al-Aqsa had been built by the Templars, although subsequently reconfigured and expanded. Crusader Romanesque. As the Crusaders settled in the region, some of their earliest monuments reflect their Western European origins: St. John (now the Great Mosque), Beirut, and St. John at Giblet (Byblos) were both begun ca. 1115 and are almost purely Romanesque constructions 484

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(Fig. 20.8). Both have banded barrel vaults over the nave and groin vaults over the aisles and terminate in three apses. Neither would have seemed out of place in southern France or northern Spain.12 The Abbey Church of St. Anne in Jerusalem offers a more composite design (Figs. 20.9– 20.11).13 Built on a site near the Pool of Bethesda associated at least since the seventh century with the house of Joachim and Anna and the location of the Virgin Mary’s birth, the church replaced an older monument dedicated to the Virgin, destroyed in the early eleventh century, probably by al-Hakim. The crypt below the eastern end of the 12

Folda, Art of the Crusaders, 69–73.

13

Pringle, Churches, 3: 142–56.

FIGURE 20.6 Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre, view in Anastasis Rotunda, looking east (author)

FIGURE 20.7 Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre, transition to the dome in two eleventh-century chapels: (A) elevated chapel above Calvary; (B) Chapel of the Holy Trinity (author)

church expanded from the cave associated with the birth of the Virgin. In its present form, the church may be dated primarily to ca. 1131–37, when the abbey received much support from King Fulk and his consort, Melisende, although it was heavily restored in the nineteenth century. In plan, the building is three aisled, with a domed crossing, terminating in triple apses. Nave and side aisle bays are covered by groin vaults above compound piers. Constructed of local stone, the forms are heavy, expressed as simple masses on the exterior. Pilasters mark the divisions on the north and west façades, enlarged at the southwest corner to support a belfry that no longer survives. Although details are carefully carved, there is quite a bit of irregularity in the church, which is almost 2 meters wider at the west than at the east, and the west façade is relatively plain. At the springing of the vaults, brackets frame the piers to support the groin vaults, suggesting that the building may have been planned originally for banded barrel vaults instead, similar to those in the transept. CHAPTER TWENTY: CONTESTED LANDS

485

FIGURE 20.8 Beirut, Cathedral of St. John (now Mosque of AlOmari), plan and transverse section (after D. Pringle, Churches of the Crusader Kingdom IV, 2009)

Although many features of St. Anne’s may reflect contemporary developments in French Romanesque, the structure also compares favorably with the domed basilica design at the Monastery of the Cross, suggesting perhaps the transformation of local architectural models by Latin Kingdom patrons. The gadroon arch on the west façade window is also noteworthy. The domed basilica design proved popular and was repeated at a variety of other Jerusalem sites, as may have been at St. Mary Latin, St. Mary of the Germans, St. Mary the Great, and St. Mary Magdalene, all incompletely known.14 The Crusaders built a church at Abu Ghosh, a site with no previous biblical associations, which they identified as the biblical Emmaus, ca. 1140 (Figs. 20.12 and 20.13).15 The complex incorporated a Roman cistern, which became a sacred spring, in the large crypt, as well as an Arab caravansary. The three-aisled church itself is enclosed in fortress-like outer walls, with heavy rectangular piers, and all bays are covered by groin vaults. At the springing of the nave vaults, curious “elbow columns” are inserted below the transverse arches. An invention of the Crusaders, it seems, the elbow columns may indicate a change in design from barrel to groin vault, introducing a sort of 14

Pringle, Churches, 3: 228–61, 327–35.

15

Pringle, Churches, 1: 7–17.

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last-minute nod to the structural rationalism of the Romanesque compound pier. Interventions at other prominent holy sites are more difficult to sort out, in part because of the archaeological complexity and in part because of the continued contestation and destruction of the sites. New construction appeared at the Tomb of the Virgin, replacing an older Byzantine church that has entirely disappeared. While the Crusader crypt was preserved, the church above is similarly lost.16 At the site of the Ascension, too, an octagonal church rose on the location of the fourthcentury rotunda, although both are known only from very limited remains.17 At Bethlehem, most scholars have understood the Crusader architectural interventions as minimal, while concentrating on the decorative details—including figural paintings on the columns and a new program of  mosaics on the upper walls, the latter with Byzantine participation. But Bethlehem had been used by Baldwin I and Baldwin II as their coronation church, and we might expect greater interest in the site. One suggestion is that the triconch east end, which is usually attributed to a Justinianic reconstruction (on no firm documentation), may be the work of the Crusaders. Indeed, the triconch form finds better comparisons in the European Romanesque than in sixth-century Byzantium.18 The Holy Sepulchre. The major enterprise of the period was the reconstruction of the Holy Sepulchre, whose short-lived Byzantine phase was presented above. Following the completion of the First Crusade in 1099, the complex was reconceptualized in accordance with Western European standards, motivated by the limited scale of the existing building (Figs. 20.14 and 20.15).19 William of Tyre noted that at the time of the First Crusade, 16

Pringle, Churches, 3: 287–306.

V. Corbo, Ricerche Archeologiche al Monte degli Ulivi (Jerusalem, 1965); Pringle, Churches, 3: 72–87.

17

18 See  J.  Pickett, “Patronage Contested: Archaeology and the Early Modern Struggle for Possession at the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem,” in Visual Constructs of Jerusalem, eds. B. Kühnel, G. Noga-Banai, and H. Vorholt (Turnhout, 2014), 35–44.

Ousterhout, “Architecture as Relic”; Pringle, Churches, 3: 6–72; Folda, Art of the Crusades, 177–245.

19

FIGURE 20.9 Jerusalem, Abbey Church of St. Anne, view from the northwest (author)

there was only a rather small chapel here, but after the Christians, assisted by divine mercy, had seized Jerusalem with a strong hand, this building seemed to them too small. Accordingly, they enlarged the original church and added to  it a new building of massive and lofty construction, which enclosed the old church and in marvelous wise included within its precincts the holy places. The chronology of the Crusaders’ construction may be outlined as follows. Begun ca. 1114 and completed ca. 1120, the Cloister of the Canons was built to the east of the Byzantine complex, on the site of the Constantinian basilica.20 This phase included the subterranean Chapel of St. Helena, an expansion of the crypt of the Invention of the Cross; the vaulting of the chapel rests below the grade level, its dome projecting into the cloister (Figs. 20.16 and 20.17). It is not clear if a master 20

For chronology, see Folda, Art of the Crusades, 177–245.

plan had been developed at that early date, and subsequent work apparently proceeded slowly. The Anastasis Rotunda was left in its eleventhcentury form, with much of the Byzantine decoration in place, but the Byzantine courtyard and its subsidiary chapels were replaced by a domed transept and a Romanesque pilgrimage choir, its radiating apsidioles replacing the Byzantine chapels. The Chapel of Calvary was expanded but contained within the south transept. The choir was dedicated in 1149 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the conquest of Jerusalem. Much of the building activity must belong to the decade 1140–49; it was certainly not fully completed at the time of the dedication. Writing ca. 1170–74, John of Würzburg refers to “this new church,” emphasizing the newness and spaciousness of the Crusaders’ additions. To connect the crusader transept to the rotunda, the Byzantine apse was removed, and the portals to either side were enlarged. For the first time, all of the Holy Sites were housed under one CHAPTER TWENTY: CONTESTED LANDS

487

FIGURE 20.10 Jerusalem, Abbey Church of St. Anne, plan and longitudinal section (after D. Pringle, Churches of the Crusader Kingdom III, 2007)

FIGURE 20.11 Jerusalem, Abbey Church of St. Anne, interior, looking northeast, showing brackets at the springing of the groin vaults (author)

roof, with the monumental entrance at the south transept. While visually connected, the resulting building is replete with disquieting disjunctions. The basic planning concepts evident in the three different phases stand in stark opposition to each other. The centralized design of the Early Christian rotunda, for example, was subverted by the addition of the Byzantine apse and sanctuary, reversing the orientation from west to east, and the unity of focus was fragmented with the addition of the numerous subsidiary chapels. In turn, the private devotional character of the Byzantine phase was exploded by the introduction of the pilgrimage choir, designed to accommodate large congregations of worshippers. As each phase incorporated large elements of its predecessor, the inherent contradictions in planning became permanent elements of design—a directionally ambivalent pilgrimage church, with a rotunda in the place of the nave, enveloped by an array of subsidiary spaces of varying dates.

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The design of the Crusader church appears to have been rethought on several occasions, with new ideas introduced long after construction had begun. Several design changes are evident at the level of the high vaults. The crossing bay was originally intended to be covered by a tower but was subsequently transformed into a dome on pendentives. Quadripartite ribbed groin vaults were built above the transept arms and choir, corresponding to the latest fashion in French architecture (Fig. 20.18). Nothing in the rising walls and supports suggests that the ribbed vaults were intended from the inception; the lower vaults are unribbed, and the compound piers lack colonnettes or pilaster strips to correspond to the ribs of the vaulting, as was common in contemporaneous French architecture. The high vaults mark the first instance of ribbed vaulting in the Holy Land, and they rank among the earliest examples of their use in the high vaults of a medieval church. They must have resulted from the introduction of new building technology from France toward the middle of the twelfth century. Like their French counterparts, the ribs have rebated shelves to support the vaulting compartments and stems that are visible in the extrados of the vaults. Other design afterthoughts clutter the exterior of the Holy Sepulchre. The Crusader belfry (now partially fallen), constructed above a Byzantine chapel to the left of the south transept entrance, disrupts the balance of the façade (see Fig. 20.14). Belfries and towers were standard elements in European Romanesque architecture, although not in Byzantine. The so-called Chapel of the Franks was added to the right side of the entrance, with stairs and a domed vestibule that served as a second entrance to the elevated Chapel of Calvary. In spite of the numerous changes, there was a clarity and openness to the crusader’s building that is difficult to imagine today. The twelfth-century visitor encountered a panoramic view that swept from Calvary, at the extreme right side, to the Tomb on the left. Set next to Calvary, as if to endow them with sanctity, were the tombs of the Latin Kings. The two most sacred sites in Christendom were joined by the new construction of the Crusader transept. William of Tyre

FIGURE 20.12 Abu Ghosh, section, ground floor plan, crypt plan (after D. Pringle, Churches of the Crusader Kingdom I, 1997)

could rightfully claim that the new crusader building “enclosed the old church and in marvelous wise included within its precincts the holy places.” In spite of excellent workmanship, spolia and reused columns were incorporated into the construction, and the connections between the older and new parts are jarring juxtapositions at best: CHAPTER TWENTY: CONTESTED LANDS

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bizarre vault forms connect to the rotunda and to the north gallery, with completely different rhythms on either side (Fig. 20.19). The masons were making every attempt to preserve as much as possible of the older building—and for good reason. By the high Middle Ages, the architecture of the Holy Sepulchre had come to be regarded as sacred, and through its tumultuous history the building itself had become a venerated relic. Visually, the historical juxtapositions appear completely illogical, but by their very awkwardness, they testified to the building’s antiquity and significance. The striking contrast of old and new provided an immediate visual reference to the historic validity of the site. From another perspective, many of the new features were coded “Latin.” The south façade, with its two-level double gate, for example, compares with that of the Platerias façade at Santiago de Compostela, while the transept and choir with ambulatory and radiating chapels were standard features from the great pilgrimage churches of Western Europe from the preceding decades. But elements also had regional resonance. There are a few details

20.13 Abu Ghosh, interior, looking east through the nave, with “elbow columns” at the springing of the high vault (author) FIGURE

FIGURE 20.14 Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre, view of the south façade (author)

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FIGURE 20.15 Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre, plan of Crusader Church: (1) Patriarchate; (2) Anastasis Rotunda; (3) Tomb of Christ; (4) Choir; (5) Chapel of St. Mary; (6) Chapels of the St. John, Holy Trinity, and St. James; (7) Prison of Christ; (8) Ambulatory; (9) Chapel of St. Helena; (10) Chapel of the Invention of the Cross; (11) Calvary above the Chapel of Adam; (12) Portal (author)

FIGURE 20.16 Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre, Chapel of St. Helena, interior looking east (author)

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FIGURE 20.17 Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre, Chapel of St. Helena, plan and section (after D. Pringle, Churches of the Crusader Kingdom III, 2007)

that may be of Islamic origin, such as the gadroons on the arches. The double gates of the south façade could find comparison with Jerusalem’s Golden Gate, situating the church within the monumental language of the city. Much of the new sculpture on the façade mimicked regional models, such as the inhabited scrolls and the wind-blown capitals. Indeed, scholars are still at odds to determine what was spoliated and what was newly carved (see Fig. 20.14). In short, the Crusaders’ Holy Sepulchre participated in a variety of architectural dialogues, with both the past and the present. Crusader Gothic? The new Gothic style, which emerged in French architecture after the mid-twelfth century, was slow to take hold in the Crusader states, with little evidence before the fall of Jerusalem in 1187. Combining the structural advantage of the pointed arch and the ribbed groin vault, the Gothic system allowed for tall, lightweight, daring construction—although perhaps 492

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not entirely appropriate in a region troubled by earthquakes.21 At the Church of Notre Dame of Tortosa (Tartus, Syria), the high vault remained a banded barrel vault, although decorative aspects of the building were updated (Figs. 20.20 and 20.21). One of the oldest Marian sanctuaries in the region, the church was an important pilgrimage shrine, particularly after the fall of Jerusalem. Designed and built in the second half of the twelfth century, the church was apparently left unfinished in 1188. Much of its Gothic appearance resulted from later modifications, notably its carved capitals and elegant engaged colonnettes.22 These details give the architecture some degree of 21 R. O’Neill, “Gothic on the Edge: Light, Levitation, and Seismic Culture in the Evolution of Medieval Religious Architecture of the Eastern Mediterranean,” PhD diss., Columbia University, 2015. 22

Folda, Art of the Crusaders, 302–305.

FIGURE 20.18 Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre, Crusader choir, looking east (author)

lightness, but thanks to the absence of a clerestory and use of a banded barrel vault, the structure remains heavy and curiously out of date. At the Cathedral of St. John at Sebaste, for example, the ruined church preserves unique evidence of a sexpartite ribbed groin-vault system for the nave, constructed ca. 1167–79, with a connection to the Cathedral of Sens (Fig. 20.22).23 At the Cenacle (the Upper Room at Sion) in Jerusalem, it is still hotly debated whether the elegant vaulting should be dated before the fall  of Jerusalem or to a period of Western presence after 1229, as seems more likely (Fig. 20.23).24 The renovations at Tortosa are notable here, but they provided little more than a N.  Kenaan-Kedar, “The Cathedral of Sebaste: Its Western Donors and Models,” in The Horns of Hattin, ed. B.  Z.  Kedar (Jerusalem, 1992), 99–120.

23

For the early date, see H. Plommer, “The Cenacle on Mount Sion,” in Crusader Art in the Twelfth Century, ed. J. Folda (Oxford, 1982), 139–66; for the later date, see Enlart, Monuments des Croisés, 2nd vol., 250; see most recently A. Re’em and I. Berkovich, “New Discoveries in the Cenacle: Reassessing the Art, Architecture and Chronology of the Crusader Basilica on Mount Zion,” in New

24

cosmetic facelift to a structurally conservative building.25 The coastal city of Acre became the chief port for the Kingdom of Jerusalem after its conquest in 1104 and an important entrepôt in its own right.26 The city fell to Saladin in 1187 but was retaken in 1191, after which it became the de facto capital of a rump kingdom. By 1228/9 the city came under the jurisdiction of the military order of the Hospitallers. Much of the city’s organization is known solely from the excavated substructures. The Hospitallers’ extensive compound covered an estimated 4,500 square meters, with great halls organized around a large central courtyard (Figs. 20.24 and 20.25). Construction began after 1192 on the orders of Guy de Lusignan and expanded in several phases through the subsequent century. The large, eightbayed hall closing off the southern side, often Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and Its Region, ed. G. Stiebel et al. (Jerusalem, 2016), 56–92. J. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land: From the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291 (Cambridge, 2005), 81–83. 25

26

Pringle, Churches, 4th vol., 3–35.

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FIGURE 20.19 Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre, south transept, showing connection to the eleventh-century arcade (author)

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FIGURE 20.20 Tortosa (Tartus, Syria), view from the southwest (author)

identified as the refectory, may be the most impressive space, added no earlier than the 1220s or 1230s. Heavy cylindrical piers and wall consoles carry quadripartite ribbed groin vaults. While adding a French identity to the space (augmented by fleurs-de-lis on the consoles), several of the ribs have fallen away from the vaults, exposing the smooth arrises to which they had been joined. The vault has remained intact, indicating that in terms of structure, the ribs and the vault proper functioned separately and the ribs were not providing any structural reinforcement for the vaults. The distinction between the rib and the web of the vault is significant, for in French Gothic architecture, the two functioned as a unit, either bonded together during construction or with the rib securely attached to the vault with mortar.27 Moreover, if the vault was damaged and suffered

FIGURE 20.21 Tortosa (Tartus, Syria), interior looking east (author)

M. Aubert, “Les plus anciennes croisées d’ogives: leur role dans la construction,” BullMon 93 (1934): 5–67 and 137–237, for the early development of ribbed vaulting in France; note esp. 139–45; J.  Fitchen, The Construction of Gothic Cathedrals (Chicago, 1961), 69–71.

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FIGURE 20.22 Sebaste, Cathedral of St. John, plan (after D. Pringle, Churches of the Crusader Kingdom II, 1998)

FIGURE 20.23 Jerusalem, Cenacle, interior view (author)

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FIGURE 20.24 Acre, Hospitaller Complex, plan (after D. Pringle, Churches of the Crusader Kingdom IV, 2009)

partial collapse, it was normally the web that fell and not the rib. In French Gothic architecture, the ribs allowed for the construction of thin vaults, and under normal circumstances, the ribs were unnecessary once the mortar had set. In many twelfthcentury examples, the ribs were constructed with a rib stem flanked by rebated shelves on the backside, into which the webs were bonded, as at the high vaults of the Holy Sepulchre. This detail, visible in the extrados during recent repairs, would have been invisible in the completed building. In French

Gothic architecture, the system of rib stems and rebated shelves seems to have been gradually abandoned with the greater technical mastery of vault construction in the thirteenth century. Nevertheless, either the greater stress or perhaps the strength of the mortar served to effectively unify the ribs and the vault. In contrast, the Crusader vaults are considerably more massive, while the vault ribs appear neither rigid nor firmly attached. The lack of bonding is evident elsewhere, as in the knights’ hall at Crac des Chevaliers. Here

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FIGURE 20.25 Acre, Hospitaller, interior of Hall of the Knights (author)

the windows of the portico have elegant bar tracery, and the groin vaults have thin, profiled ribs (Fig.  20.26). But, like the vaults at Acre, some of the ribs have fallen, and it is clear they were not bonded.28 Can the ribbed groin vault serve as a cultural signifier for Crusader architecture? The refectory provides a very instructive disjunction between architectural style and construction technology. The ribs and the tracery are elements of style, but in other aspects the actual vault construction has more in common with the traditional architecture of the Middle East than with the Gothic architecture of Western Europe. From the eleventh century onward, the standard vault form used in the Middle East area was a rather heavy, unribbed groin vault, built above slightly pointed arches. Normally, the arches and the springers framing the vault were of ashlar construction, but the vault itself was more irregular, R. G. Ousterhout, “The French Connection? Construction of Vaults and Cultural Identity in Crusader Architecture,” in France and the Holy Land: Frankish Culture at the End of the Crusades, ed. D. Weiss (Baltimore, 2004), 77–94.

28

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often of mortared rubble. This type of  vault appeared before, during, and after the Crusader presence in the Holy Land. Out of context, these vaults are almost impossible to date. In certain parts of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, for example, it is impossible to tell the eleventh-century Byzantine vaulting from the twelfth-century Crusader construction. All of this points to a well-developed local tradition of construction, capable of withstanding dramatic changes of rulership and patronage. The ribbed groin vaults at Acre fit into this picture. Except for the ribs, the vaults are for the most part typical regional creations. Crusader buildings still appear massive and rough, even when light, skeletal elements of the Gothic are introduced: a continuation of local construction practices, onto which the signature elements of French Gothic style have been superimposed, the result is a hybrid building. Obviously, there must have been European-trained artisans present, necessary for the transfer of tracery patterns and the rib profiles. But the bulk of the labor force must have been local, and the defining characteristics of the building remain indigenous. Gothic details

FIGURE 20.26 Crac des Chevaliers, portico (R. Van Oers, Wikimedia Commons)

may have affected the outward appearance of buildings, but they did not dramatically alter the development of an architecture that remained primarily regional. The Islamic response. At Damascus, new architectural forms and a new vocabulary may represent a more distinct attempt at the construction of an Islamic identity. At the Hospital of Nur al-Din of ca. 1154, for example, the four-iwan courtyard plan is preceded by a monumental portal, with a distinctive half-vault of muqarnas on its façade and a fully developed muqarnas dome in its vestibule (Fig. 20.27).29 The building draws on forms recently developed within Islamic lands and employed (almost) exclusively in Islamic buildings—except for a spoliated Roman pediment used as the lintel. It is curious that after the fall of Jerusalem, as the Crusaders shift their base to Acre and subsequently to Cyprus, their architecture becomes more distinctively Western, while the Islamic architecture of nearby centers takes its own course. 29 Ettinghausen, Grabar, and Jenkins-Madina, Art and Architecture of Islam, 304–309.

With the reconquest of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187, the older Islamic shrines on the Haram al-Sharif were reclaimed. While the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa had been decorated with Christian inscriptions and imagery, both were subsequently “purified” and stripped of their Christian content. Other constructions on the esplanade, such as the Qubbat al-Mi’raj, represent a similar practice of reclaiming the site by the Muslims. Nevertheless, the similar architectural vocabulary and the use of Crusader spolia make the ethnic and religious distinctions all but impossible to unravel today. For example, the refashioning of the reclaimed al-Aqsa Mosque in 1214 incorporated Crusader spolia into its façade. Spolia are also prominent in the Gate of Divine Presence, the Gate of the Chain, the Dome of the Ascension, and the Dome of the Balance.30 After the fall of Acre, a variety of architectural pieces found their way to Cairo, where they were reused Z. Jacoby, “The Workshop of the Temple Area in Jerusalem in the Twelfth Century: Its Origins, Evolution, and Impact,” ZKunstg 45 (1982): 325–94; S. Auld, ed., Ayyubid Jerusalem: The Holy City in Context 1187–1250 (London, 2009).

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in the entrances of several mosques.31 Most notable is the elegant Gothic portal from Acre, reused in its entirety at the madrasa of Sultan al-Malik al-Nasir Muhammad, while the Mausoleum– Madrasa complex of Sultan Qalawun (1294–95) takes on distinct Gothic window forms along the façade (Fig. 20.28).32 Fortifications. Considering their tenuous situation, it should come as no surprise that the Crusaders excelled at defensive architecture. Their limited survival should also come as no surprise.33 Rather than inventing new forms, however, the contribution of the Crusaders comes from blending elements familiar from Western Europe with what could be learned from Byzantine, Islamic, and Armenian fortifications. Prior to the Crusades, few of the defensive systems of Western Europe were of permanent materials; instead, they were earthen ramparts, topped by a wooden palisade. Traveling overland, the participants in the First Crusade experienced firsthand the effectiveness of the Late Antique fortifications of Constantinople, Nicaea, and Antioch, as well as more recent Byzantine defenses of Anatolia built against the Arab incursions. Strategically positioned on easily defended hills or ridges, these usually took the form of enclosures with massive towers, as at Ankara. For construction in the Crusader states, much is to be credited to the military orders of the Templars, Hospitallers, and the Teutonic knights, who had been charged with the protection of pilgrims and their routes of travel. The simplest and most common form of fortification was the twostoried stone keep (or donjon), which had been known from Western Europe for more than a century. Square or rectangular, more than eighty have been identified from archaeological remains, functioning as guard posts for routes of travel,

20.27 Damascus, Hospital of Nur al-Din, main entrance façade (author) FIGURE

FIGURE 20.28 Cairo, reused Crusader portal on the complex of al-Nasir Muhammad (Véronique Dague, Wikimedia)

Z. Jacoby, “Crusader Sculpture in Cairo: Additional Evidence on the Temple Workshop of Jerusalem,” in Crusader Art of the Twelfth Century, ed. J. Folda (Oxford, 1982), 122–38. 31

Behrens-Abouseif, Islamic Architecture in Cairo, 95–101; L.-A. Hunt, “Churches of Old Cairo and Mosques of al-Qahira: A Case of Christian–Muslim Interchange,” Medieval Encounters 2 (1996): 43–66. 32

33 H.  Kennedy, Crusader Castles (Cambridge, 1994); Pringle, Secular Buildings; A.  Boas, Archaeology of the Military Orders (London: Routledge, 2006).

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FIGURE 20.29 Plans of Crusader fortresses: (A) Castrum Rubrum; (B) Mi‘iliya (after D. Pringle, Secular Buildings, 1997)

places of refuge, or residences, with the upper level serving as a hall. Floors are barrel vaulted, often with a staircase set into the thick outer wall. A good example is the Red Tower (Castrum Rubrum; Burl al-Ahmar), built during the first half of the twelfth century (Fig. 20.29A).34 Towers could be associated with other masonry buildings or set within an enclosure wall, and more elaborate forms of castles could develop around an early core centered on a tower, as at Beaufort.35 Another simple type was the enclosure castle, which depended on a fortified outer wall, usually with fortification towers and surrounded by a dry ditch. The rectangular enclosure, sometimes called a quadriburgium, was known from early Arab fortresses in the region, which ultimately developed on the model of the Roman castrum. The hilltop castle known as Castrum Regis (Mi‘iliya, first mentioned in 1160) is a simple example of this type (Fig. 20.29B).36 Occasionally quadriburgia were combined with a donjon, as at the seigneurial Castle of Giblet (Biblos).37 Most are twelfth century and ultimately proved less effective than castles that took advantage of the

topography. Castles set on spurs, ridges, or promontories could take on more elaborate, irregular forms, as happened at Beaufort, where the strategic position resulted in a complex history of occupation and construction, both Frankish and Muslim, with multiple levels dependent on vaulted substructures. Most impressive of the twelfth-century castles is Saone (Qal‘at Saladin), which greatly expanded from an older fortification, running along the narrow summit of a ridge, separated from the mountain by a great ditch, with a stone needle rising to extend the drawbridge across the 60-foot gap (Figs. 20.30 and 20.31).38 For this type of castle, the Armenians were masters, and their constructions across Cilicia must have impressed the Crusaders, as they presented an effective response to siege warfare, taking advantage of strategic siting, with strong ashlar construction rising directly from bedrock.39 Of the more elaborate enclosure castles, Belvoir is the most impressive, although its siting compares to spur castles (Fig. 20.32A). Built by the Hospitallers (after 1169) with a rectangular concentric plan, the outer enclosure measures approximately 100 by 110 meters, lined with projecting towers. A deep dry moat separates it from

34

Pringle, Secular Buildings, 38–39.

35

Pringle, Secular Buildings, 31.

38

36

Pringle, Secular Buildings, 71.

39

37

Kennedy, Crusader Castles, 64–67.

Kennedy, Crusader Castles, 94–97.

R.  W.  Edwards, The Fortifications of Armenian Cilicia (Washington, DC, 1987).

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FIGURE 20.30 Saone (Qal‘at Saladin), plan of the fortress (author, after IFPO-DGAMS)

FIGURE 20.31 Saone (Qal‘at Saladin), stone needle to support the drawbridge (Raki_Man, Wikimedia Commons)

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FIGURE 20.32 (A) Belvoir, plan of the fortress; (B) Crac des Chevaliers, plan of the fortress (author, after D. Pringle, Secular Buildings, 1997; and M. Benevisti, Crusaders, 1970)

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20.33 Crac des Chevaliers, distant view from the west (author) FIGURE

the hilltop along three flanks. While much of the superstructure has disappeared, the scale and symmetry are impressive. The inner ward is a smaller version of the outer enclosure, approximately 50 by 50 meters, with kitchens, stables, a chapel, and cisterns. Its projecting gate tower had a bent entrance.40 Of the topographically strategic spur castles, Crac des Chevaliers is the best preserved and best known (Figs. 20.32B and 20.33).41 Constructed by the Hospitallers after the surrounding lands came into their possession in 1144, Crac was intended to be their headquarters in Syria. Replacing an older Kurdish fortress, it took on a concentric plan on a much grander scale, ultimately approximately 150 by 210 meters overall, carefully adjusted to the hilltop location. The twelfth-century castle included just the inner section, but following earthquakes in 1170 and 1202, it was strengthened and expanded with the outer enclosure, all of careful ashlar construction. An elaborate bent entrance led from the 40

Pringle, Secular Buildings, 32–33.

Boas, Archaeology of the Military Orders, 130–33; Kennedy, Crusader Castles, 146–63.

41

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east gate of the outer wall to the east gate of the inner enclosure. The passageway is vaulted and guarded by murder holes. The twelfth-century castle had square towers, but the thirteenthcentury additions were built with more practical round towers of fine ashlar, with a sloping glacis added to stabilize the inner enclosure. The largest fortifications appear on the vulnerable south side, where the castle was isolated from the extension of the ridge by a dry moat. An aqueduct connected at this point, draining into a reservoir between the two lines of walls. The northwest tower of the inner enclosure includes a postern gate, guarded by machicolations beneath its three arches. Elsewhere, the corbelled machicolations that line the walls are the work of the Mamluks, added after the castle fell to Baybars in 1271. Barrel-vaulted passageways encircle the inner enclosure, whose irregular courtyard includes the knights’ hall and chapel. The chapel, a single aisle covered by a banded barrel vault, may have been added after the 1170 earthquake. The hall may be twelfth century, but its vaults were enlivened with ribs from the thirteenth, preceded by an elegant Gothic portico, of ca. 1230, detailed with plate tracery (see Fig.  20.26).

The  mostly thirteenth-century castle at Margat similarly combines a sophisticated defensive system with elegant Gothic detailing.42

, In many ways, the architecture of the Crusaders stands apart from Byzantine and other regional architectures, but it provided an important point of connection with the styles and technologies of Western Europe. Within the region, perhaps the greatest exchanges came in the area of military architecture, as both sides were fighting with the same technology—and advances on one side were quickly adopted by the other. This also led to the dramatic transformation in European fortification architecture. Richard Lionheart could not 42

Kennedy, Crusader Castles, 163–79.

have conceived the design of Chateau Gaillard at Les Andelys (1196), for example, without a personal knowledge of Crusader castles.43 The developments in religious architecture had less of an impact. Within the Middle East, as territories became more contested, architectural styles became more distinct as cultural signifiers. Thus, after the thirteenth century, Gothic ribbed groin vaults disappeared from the regional vocabulary along with the Crusaders—although they continued on Cyprus, where the Crusaders retreated. As we shall see, the Crusaders’ experience stands in sharp contrast to that of the Normans in Sicily, discussed in the next chapter. P.  Ettel, A.-M.  Flambard Héricher, and T.  E.  McNeill, eds., Château Gaillard: Études de Castellologie Médiévale. Bilan des Recherches en Castellologie: Actes du Colloque International de Houffalize (Belgique) 2006, Château 23 (Caen, 2008).

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

,

THE EXOTIC WEST Venice, Southern Italy, and Sicily

I

ncreased contact between Byzantium and Western Europe found a variety of architectural manifestations in the Middle Byzantine centuries. Southern Italy—Apulia, Basilicata, and Calabria— had remained, with a brief interlude, part of the Byzantine Empire, despite the contestations of Lombards, Arabs, and Normans, with a Greekspeaking Orthodox population, including monasteries following the order of St. Basil. But in contrast to other regions discussed in the previous chapters, there was not a Byzantine hegemony in south Italy. These were the westernmost reaches of the empire, and both Latin as a language and Rome-centered Christianity held sway. Rome was much closer than Constantinople, both geographically and ideologically, and there were a variety of other players in the field as well. Between 827 and 902, Sicily was conquered by the Arabs, who held control of the island until the arrival of the Normans, 1061–91; the Arab period marks something of a rupture in the island’s history.1 Unfortunately, there are few physical remains from that time. The Normans are

1 For background, see S. Davis-Secord, Where Three Worlds Meet: Sicily in the Early Medieval Mediterranean (Ithaca, 2017); B. Kreutz, ed., Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries (Philadelphia, 1992).

much more visible: they had entered southern Italy as mercenaries in the early eleventh century and by mid-century they had established a base at Melfi, where a Norman-style castle still stands. From there, they expanded their power base, gradually gaining control of the south, as well as of Sicily. Under the Normans, Sicily flourished in the twelfth century, with a multiethnic, religiously heterogeneous population with its capital at Palermo. In this mixed social context, a new architecture developed that artfully juxtaposed Byzantine, Western European, and Islamic forms. In contrast, within Rome and the Papal States, architecture remained conservative: most new church constructions were timber-roofed basilicas, following long-established models. In contrast, new monumental mosaic programs of the eleventh and twelfth centuries may reflect the influence of Byzantium in medium and iconography. There are also records of the importation of artworks and craftsmen, as at Montecassino under Abbot Desiderius, and throughout the peninsula, Italians seem to have been particularly fond of bronze doors fabricated in Byzantium, such as those at St. Paul’s outside the Walls, dated 1070.2 Nevertheless, the M.  Frazer, “Church Doors and Gates of Paradise: Byzantine Bronze Doors in Italy,” DOP 27 (1973): 145–62; H. Bloch, “The 2

Palermo, Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio (Martorana), view into the vaulting, looking south (Michael Waters) 507

new developments in the architecture of the East made little impact in central Italy. The experience of Venice also differed from that of the south, as it had transformed from a Byzantine protectorate into an ally and an economic competitor with Constantinople. The Pax Nicephori of 811 (between the Byzantines and the Carolingians) had confirmed Venice’s semi-independence, although it was the only north Italian city to maintain an affiliation with Byzantium.3 The relationship is perhaps best exemplified by the ducal Church of San Marco, which had been built as a full-scale copy of the imperial mausoleum Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. That is, rather than turning to contemporary architectural forms, Venice looked deep into Byzantine history as it constructed a legendary past for itself. The varying experiences in the north and south reflect the vicissitudes in the perception and reception of Byzantine culture in the West. In addition to luxury items, often what nonByzantines sought from the exotic East were monumental forms that connoted prestige, power, and sanctity.4 But in the Italian experience, rarely did Byzantine forms exist in isolation. Members of the religiously and ethnically heterogeneous populations ultimately contributed to the formation of hybrid architectures that defy easy categorization—neither squarely Byzantine nor Romanesque, and they are often omitted from the canon—or as in the case of San Marco, taken incorrectly as a solely Byzantine product. But the hybridity of the architecture is worth emphasizing here, as it reflects both the mixed populations and the mixed workforces—not to mention the aspirations of the patrons. At the same time, while we may know the names of the patrons who financed the building projects, there are no written records of the identities or origins of the builders—names and signatures are considerably more common in the visual arts. Moreover, all across Italy, elements of Byzantine (past and present), Islamic, Norman Romanesque, and indigenous Italian architectures Origin and Fate of the Bronze Doors of Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino,” DOP 41 (1987): 89–102. 3

T. Madden, Venice: A New History (New York, 2012).

As discussed by J.  Lowden, Early Christian and Byzantine Art (London, 1997), 309–46. 4

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are frequently similar, with whole-hearted adoption and integration of imported forms ultimately obscuring the origin of specific architectural features.

, Southern Italy. By the tenth century, Orthodox builders in South Italy had adopted the cross-insquare church type—one already popular across the Byzantine Empire. Unfortunately, none of the handful of surviving examples is securely dated; most are small, representing private foundations.5 San Pietro at Otranto, for example, which measures approximately 9 by 10 meters overall, follows the basic proportions and articulation of the building type in a compact design, common to the region—lacking both a narthex and extra sanctuary bays (Figs. 21.1 and 21.2). Constructed of a rough ashlar, the exterior is articulated by a “triumphal arch” system of blind arcades on three façades, corresponding to the internal structural divisions, which are marked by engaged columns on the interior walls. The dome rises above pendentives and rests on four cylindrical piers; cross arms and corner bays are barrel vaulted. Based on the first layer of painting, the church may date toward the end of the tenth century.6 The so-called Cattolica (the name perhaps a corruption of katholikon) at Stilo is similar in scale but differs in its proportions (Fig. 21.3; and see Fig. 15.9B). The four corner bays are topped by domes, identical in diameter to the central dome, and thus the nine bays are all more or less the same measure, as are the three semicircular apses. The cross arms are thus oddly narrow, but the dome rises above thin, spoliated columns, which allows a sense of openness to the interior. Nevertheless, the characteristic hierarchy in the spatial massing of the cross-in-square church type is subverted. Walls are constructed of rough brick on a rubble core, without articulation 5 For an overview of developments, see A.  J.  Wharton, Art of Empire: Painting and Architecture of the Byzantine Periphery (Penn State, 1988), 127–60; also R. Bergman, “Byzantine Influence and Private Patronage in a Newly Discovered Medieval Church in Amalfi: S. Michele Arcangelo in Pogerola,” JSAH 50 (1991): 421–45; C. Romano, La Basilicata, la Calabria (Milan, 1988).

L.  Safran, S.  Pietro at Otranto: Byzantine Art in Southern Italy (Rome, 1992).

6

FIGURE 21.1 Otranto, San Pietro, seen from the north, showing the façade articulation (Mark J. Johnson)

except for a few dogtooth courses; the domes are more carefully built, the drums detailed with both dogtooth and reticulate revetments. The odd proportions and five-domed plan of Stilo are repeated at San Marco in Rossano, although the construction is of a rough mortared rubble, and the internal divisions are more pronounced. The cross-in-square plan also finds its way into the cave churches of the region, as at San Salvatore in Giurdignano. By the eleventh century, larger vaulted basilicas were being constructed, although it is unclear if these emerged under Byzantine or Norman rule. While many were timber roofed, following north Italian or northern European models introduced into the south by the Normans, several are vaulted, using the domed bay as a modular unit. Multidomed basilican churches began to appear in Apulia sometime in the eleventh century.7 For these, the Cathedral of San Sabino at Canosa is perhaps the most important, although its date remains in question, and the church has been much altered around its medieval core (Figs. 21.4 and 21.5).8 Although a dedication of 1102 7

FIGURE 21.2 Otranto, San Pietro, plan and transverse section (after L. Mongiello, Chiese di Puglia, 1988)

Papacostas, “The Medieval Progeny,” 395–402.

A. Wharton Epstein, “The Date and Significance of the Cathedral of Canosa in Apulia, South Italy,” DOP 37 (1983): 79–90; and more 8

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FIGURE 21.3 Stilo, Cattolica, seen from the west (Mark J. Johnson)

FIGURE

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21.4

Canosa, San Sabino, interior looking east (Mark J. Johnson)

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FIGURE 21.5 Canosa, San Sabino, plan, with shading to indicate the original portions of the church. The mausoleum of Bohemond is attached to the south transept (after P. Belli d’Elia, Pouilles, 1987)

is recorded by inscription, this is probably the rededication of an existing church of older date. The construction of alternating bands of brick and ashlar in the construction finds better comparison before the arrival of the Normans, perhaps as early as the second quarter of the eleventh century. The plan has three domed bays covering the nave, with an additional two domes over the transepts, with major support piers with engaged columns, with spoliated shafts and capitals. The domes all are blind, without drums, rising above pendentives. If the model here is the five-domed recently, G.  Bertelli and A.  Attolico, “Analisi delle strutture architettoniche della Cattedrale di San Sabino a Canosa: primi dati,” in Canosa: Richerche Storiche, ed. A. Attolico (Canosa, 2010), 723–58; E.  Fernie, “The Date, Iconography, and Dedication of the Cathedral of Canosa,” in Romanesque and the Mediterranean: Points of Contact, eds. R. M. Bacile and J. McNeill (Leeds, 2015), 167–72.

Holy Apostles in Constantinople, as is often suggested, its basic plan has been transformed from a Greek cross to a Latin cross. The addition of the curious mausoleum of Bohemond of Antioch, who died in 1111, might follow the model of the imperial mausolea appended to the Holy Apostles.9 Other multidomed churches in the region are simpler, with three domes in series above the nave, usually three blind domes above pendentives. The Ognissanti at Valenzano of the late eleventh century is a good example, with the side aisles covered by quadrant vaults.10 There is 9 See, most recently, M. J. Johnson, “The Mausoleum of Bohemond in Canosa and the Architectural Setting of Ruler Tombs in Norman Italy,” in Romaneseque and the Mediterranean: Points of Contact, eds. R. M. Bacile and J. McNeill (Leeds, 2015), 151–66. 10 L.  Mongiello, Chiese di Puglia. Il fenomeno delle chiese a cupola (Bari, 1988).

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FIGURE 21.6 Torcello, cathedral complex seen from the west, with the cathedral on the left and Santa Fosca on the right (author)

considerable variation in the multidomed churches and their original inspiration remains in question. Although the Transitional Period churches of Cyprus have been suggested, they are much smaller and less well constructed. If the model is Justinianic, it may be simply the idea of the domed bay as modular unity rather than one specific building. Venice and the Lagoon. Within the Venetian Lagoon, the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta at Torcello, rebuilt ca. 1008 under bishop Orso Orseolo, reflects the conservative trend in the architecture of the period (Figs. 21.6 and 21.7).11 With the exception of the campanile—a freestanding tower to the east of the church—there is little in the threeaisled basilica that could not have appeared centuries earlier, and nearby Ravenna offers some useful comparisons. Constructed on the site of an older 11 For an overview, see D.  Howard, The Architectural History of Venice (Yale, 2002), esp. 7–42.

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church of the seventh to ninth centuries, the seventh-century baptistery (now in ruins) was joined on axis to the narthex façade. The lateral walls may be preserved from the older building, but the nave arcade and high walls of the clerestory zone are from the early eleventh century, all constructed of brick, characteristic of northern Italy. Despite the conservative nature of the building, a number of features reflect contact with the Eastern Mediterranean—including the mosaic decoration, of which a standing Theotokos in the apse and a monumental Last Judgment on the west wall are preserved. The apse also preserves a stepped synthronon (perhaps from the ninth century)—a feature more common in the East—and the sanctuary is enveloped by a templon with a high architrave. Finally, the interior is reinforced by tie beams, both within the nave arcades and extending across the nave, above every other column. In contrast, the adjacent Church of Santa Fosca at Torcello, also from the eleventh century,

FIGURE 21.7 Torcello, cathedral, interior looking east toward the apse (Ismoon, Wikimedia Commons)

is an anomaly not easy to categorize (Figs. 21.8 and 21.9). The centralized plan is sometimes associated with the martyrium function of the church, which housed the relics of the martyr Fosca, brought to the island sometime before 1011. Its design combines features of a cross-in-square church and an octagon-domed church. The plan is an atrophied Greek cross, with two freestanding columns and two small groin-vaulted compartments at each corner, extended to the east with a tripartite sanctuary. The central square bay transitions in its elevation to a circle by means of an odd combination of superimposed squinches and pendentives. The design presupposes a dome of approximately 9 meters in diameter, but either this collapsed long ago or it was never constructed, and the space is covered by a wooden roof. While often compared to the octagon-domed churches of Greece, it is at best a distant cousin. All trace of interior decoration has disappeared, although the detailing of the apses, with dentil courses, dogtooth friezes, and blind arcades with multiple setbacks, recalls contemporary Byzantine decorative

FIGURE 21.8 Torcello, Santa Fosca, plan (after Antonella Manzo)

features, but here (as elsewhere in the Veneto), they are combined with carved marble applique. The graceful porch of colonnades supporting stilted arches is most likely twelfth century. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE EXOTIC WEST

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FIGURE 21.9 Torcello, Santa Fosca, interior looking east (Michael Waters)

Within the context of the Veneto, San Marco remains unique (Figs. 21.10 and 21.11). From the limited archaeological evidence of the crypt, scholars sometimes claim that the first Church of San Marco in Venice, begun after the furta sacra (holy theft) of the saint’s relics, stolen by Venetian merchants from Alexandria in 828, followed the cruciform model of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople (see Fig. 8.24).12 The relationship is much clearer in the present building, begun ca. 1063 under doge Domenico Contarini (1042– 71). Work progressed quickly and the church celebrated its first consecration in 1073 and was completed under doge Vitale Falier (1086–96).13 The interior gives something of the impression of how the Holy Apostles may have appeared, with five domes on pendentives, organized in a Greek-

F. Forlati, “Il primo San Marco: nota preliminare,” Arte Veneta 5 (1951): 73–76; R. Cecchi, La basilica di San Marco. La costruzione bizantina del IX secolo. Permanenze e trasformazioni (Venice, 2003).

12

13

Demus, San Marco.

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cross plan, rising above cluster piers, replete with mosaic and marble incrustations. A monk from San Nicolò di Lido noted in the early twelfth century that the church was “a skillful construction entirely similar to that of the Twelve Apostles in Constantinople.”14 The unprecedented building would have responded to the emerging civic pride within eleventh-century Italy, offering visual competition to Venice’s rival Pisa, which was building its distinctive, Romanesque cathedral at the same time. It also provided visual testimony of Venice’s cosmopolitan character, its close relations and growing rivalry with Constantinople—both recognizing and subverting the architectural vocabulary of the Byzantine capital. As ducal chapel (although not the cathedral), San Marco held a distinct political role, but it also expressed the religious aspirations of Venice to be the spiritual center of the northern Adriatic (supplanting nearby Grado), while appropriating the all-but-extinct authority of the apostolic see of Alexandria. 14

Demus, San Marco, 90.

FIGURE 21.10 Venice, San Marco, plan (redrawn after T. Dale, “Cultural Hybridity,” 2010)

FIGURE 21.11 Venice, San Marco, interior, looking east (Michael Waters)

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Triangulating between the evocative descriptions of the vanished Holy Apostles, the ruins of  the Church of St. John at Ephesus, and San Marco may provide an image of the famous lost original and its signitive design, but it may be more useful to examine San Marco in its own right, as one of the major architectural undertakings of its time—for both East and West. As such, the church represents an interesting mixture of Italian Romanesque and Byzantine elements. Both early and contemporary Byzantine features find their way into the building. The use of the domed bay as an element of modular design follows sixth-century Byzantine architectural practices, as does the use of cluster piers and the hemispherical forms of the domes, with windows around their bases. The decoration of marble and mosaic also follows Byzantine practices, and many Byzantine spolia were subsequently incorporated into the building. However, the construction technique reflects local practices: the bricks are locally produced, laid with thin mortar beds, used as a facing on a rubble core of poor quality; in the domes, bricks were laid in concentric courses, following Western practices, rather than radially. A variety of details find good comparison in contemporary Constantinople, such as the detailing of pilasters and niches, the bundled triangular and semicircular shafts on the piers, and the arched “hearts” in spandrels, all of  which compare favorably to St. George of Mangana.15 The presence of at least one Byzantine mason at San Marco seems likely, although it is undocumented. Nevertheless, how the design and measurements were transferred from Constantinople to Venice is anyone’s guess. The discrepancies from the prototype are also noteworthy, most notably the shifted orientation, with the sanctuary in the east bay rather than centrally placed and the central and western domed bays slightly larger than the others. These changes give greater emphasis to the longitudinal axis, so that the building reads not unlike a Romanesque basilica with a transept and was better able to serve the Latin liturgy. As an active and symbolically redolent monument, San Marco received continued attention and benefaction from the Venetians. The narthex M. Dalla Costa, La Basilica di San Marco e i restauri dell’Ottocento (Venice, 1983).

15

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was expanded, and the exterior was redone with many additions of columns, capitals, statues, and revetments after the 1204 sack of Constantinople by the forces of the Fourth Crusade, of which the Venetian fleet comprised a significant element. In the fourteenth century, the domes were provided with tall caps formed by lead sheeting over an armature, to give them greater visual prominence. The mosaics of the interior were completed only gradually, ultimately covering approximately 8,000 square meters, with areas easily identifiable as Byzantine or Venetian Gothic workmanship, as well as early and high Renaissance. San Marco became the cathedral of the city only in 1807. With the marshy nature of the Venetian subsoil, the added weight of vaulting proved to be a challenge for builders, requiring deeper foundations, thicker walls, and a fraught later history of structural repairs: the domes of San Marco were encircled by iron rings in 1527 (by the Florentine Jacopo Sansovino) in an effort to stabilize them. While it was a characteristic feature in Byzantine architecture from the sixth century onward, vaulting proved to be a challenge in medieval Venice. While similarly cruciform, the Church of Santi Maria e Donato on the island of Murano is more conservative than San Marco and more typical for medieval Venice—with timber roofs rather than domes (Fig. 20.12). The Murano Church was built sometime before 1141 (when the date was inscribed in its mosaic floor) on the site of an older church. The relics of St. Donatus had been translated there in 1125, and the new church must date shortly thereafter. As at San Marco, it joins forms from disparate sources. With its tall transepts, blind arcades, and brick construction, it recalls the early churches of Milan, with the exception of the elaborately decorated east façades, which face the water. These are detailed with dwarf galleries, coupled columns, and marble and brick dentil and dogtooth courses—an effective fusion of the Romanesque and the Byzantine. The interior features spoliated columns and capitals, wooden tie beams, an inlaid marble floor, and an apse mosaic (the last probably thirteenth century)—all recalling contemporary Byzantine forms. Norman Sicily. Twelfth-century Sicily is often regarded as the poster child for cultural diversity during the Middle Ages. While the court was Norman, the population was heterogeneous,

FIGURE 21.12 Murano, Santi Maria e Donato, seen from the southeast (Michael Waters)

ethnically, linguistically, and religiously, with many either Orthodox Greek or Muslim. Inscriptions are often multilingual, and the Norman rulers employed titles in differing languages and alphabets. While little survives from the period of Arab hegemony, many of the Norman buildings maintain distinctive features that compare favorably with contemporary monuments in North Africa and Egypt, and one may suspect the masons responsible for many of the distinctive monument on the island were trained in that tradition. This is particularly evident in secular architecture, as in the surviving palaces known as the Ziza and the Cuba.16 Although we may speak of “tolerance” between the various religions and ethnicities, perhaps “pragmatic pluralism” is a better description of the state of affairs. In architectural terms, a synthesis was achieved only gradually. Several of the smaller churches follow Byzantine models and were built by or for the Greek-speaking

See discussion by R. Di Liberto, “Norman Palermo: Architecture between the 11th and 12th Century,” in A Companion to Medieval Palermo: The History of a Mediterranean City from 600 to 1500, ed. A. Nef (Leiden, 2013), 139–94. 16

Orthodox population (Fig. 21.13).17 Of these, the most important is Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio in Palermo, better known as the Martorana, begun by George of Antioch, an Orthodox Greek and the prime minister of Roger II—both of whom are pictured in the mosaic decoration (Figs. 21.13A and 21.14). Completed by 1143, it was a private chapel, originally attached to George’s residence, served by Greek clerics who were charged to pray for the souls of founder and his family, who were subsequently buried in the church. At its core is a compact cross-in-square church, approximately 12.5 meters square overall, slightly larger than San Pietro at Otranto. Rapidly enlarged by several phases of expansion, including the narthex (before 1151) and an atrium, the latter was subsequently replaced by a western extension and a belfry (by  1184); subsequent alterations affected the appearance of the building to the east and west of the naos.18 17 In general, see G. di Stefano, Monumenti della Sicilia normanna, 2nd ed., with W. Krönig (Palermo, 1979). 18 S. Ćurčić, “The Architecture,” in The Mosaics of St. Mary’s of the Admiral in Palermo, ed. E.  Kitzinger (Washington, DC, 1990), 26–67.

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FIGURE 21.13 Comparative plans and façade elevations for (A) Palermo, Martorana; (B) Mazara, San Nicolò Regale; and (C) Castelvetrano, Santa Trinità di Delia (after S. Ćurčić, “The Architecture,” 1990)

FIGURE 21.14 Palermo, Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio (Martorana), view into the vaulting, looking south (Michael Waters)

FIGURE 21.15 Castelvetrano, Santa Trinità di Delia, view from the southeast (Mark J. Johnson)

The original façades were arcaded with multiple setbacks and the arches are slightly pointed, while the naos forms a cubic volume with an isolated dome rising above its core. On the interior, the dome is supported by columns, but the transition is effected by means of squinches rather than pendentives. The barrel-vaulted cross arms and the groin-vaulted corner bays rise to the same height, so that the building lacks—both within and without—the spatial modulation of a contemporary Constantinopolitan church. Moreover, the squinches are formed by two setback arches at the corners, both of which project beyond the cornice. The transition to the dome stands in stark contrast to standard Byzantine use of the pendentive, which allows a smooth transition between the zones in the elevation. With this type of squinch, common in Egypt and North Africa, the geometry shifts abruptly from square to octagon to circle.19

Compare to the dome added by al Hafiz (ca. 1129–49) to the alAzhar Mosque in Cairo; Behrens-Abouseif, Islamic Architecture in Cairo, pl. 48.

19

In spite of the Byzantine sheen of the mosaic decoration, the architectural forms are much closer to that of Islamic Egypt or North Africa than to that of Byzantium. As with many of the Palermitan churches, the floors are of an elegant opus sectile, which similarly stands between cultures, with a geometry common in Islamic architectural decoration, evidence of a shared decorative vocabulary. A Greek dedicatory inscription crowns the exterior façades, as one might find in Arabic on contemporary mosques. It may be worth noting that George had served in the Zirid court in Tunis before coming to Sicily; in many ways, the hybrid character of his chapel reflects his complex personal history. Similar features characterize the slightly smaller churches of San Nicolò Regale at Mazara and Santa Trinità di Delia near Castelvetrano (both from the first half of the twelfth century), which lack both later additions and mural decoration on the interior so that the fine construction technique is visible (Figs. 21.13B and 21.13C, 21.15, and 21.16). San Caltado in Palermo is also similar, a palace chapel built ca. 1160 apparently for George’s successor, Maio of Bari (Fig. 21.17). CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE EXOTIC WEST

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FIGURE 21.16 Castelvetrano, Santa Trinità di Delia, interior, view into the dome, looking east (Michael Waters)

FIGURE 21.17 Palermo, San Cataldo, view from the north (Mark J. Johnson)

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FIGURE 21.18 Monreale, cathedral, interior view, looking east (Mark J. Johnson)

It combines the cross-in-square plan with the triple-domed format employed in some of the South Italian basilican churches—however, with the domes all raised above squinches of Islamic derivation and with the extrados of the attenuated domes exposed, with windows placed on the diagonals. Although lacking mural decoration, the opus sectile floor is preserved. In all examples, the construction is careful, of limestone ashlar, with spoliated columns and capitals. The later history of the Martorana is indicative of the dilemmas faced by Sicilian builders: a small, centralized church of Byzantine scale and proportions may have been desirable for aesthetic or symbolic reasons, and while it could serve as a private chapel, it might not have met more complex functional requirements. The basilica format was more conducive to large congregational worship. Thus, the cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale featured rich mosaic and marble decoration in their interiors, following Byzantine models, while adopting non-Byzantine basilican plans (Fig. 21.18). Most interesting in this respect is the Cappella Palatina in Palermo, built 1130–43 by Roger II as

a combination palace chapel and audience hall—a domed, centrally planned sanctuary joined to a basilica (Figs. 21.19–21.21). It provides a fascinating (and instructive) example of juxtapositions— formal, functional, and symbolic, of diverse origins. It is very tempting to simply dissect the chapel into its constituent parts and to view them as cultural signifiers. In this simplistic configuration, the three-aisled basilica nave may be viewed as the Norman or Italian element of the design, while the domed sanctuary and its rich mosaic decoration reflect Byzantine input, and the wooden muqarnas ceiling over the nave represents the Muslim contribution. However, it is never so simple. To a certain extent, the juxtapositions may be intentional, as signifiers of differing functions and cultural associations. In a multilingual society, the visual vocabulary may comprise the common tongue, and Roger seems to have been seeking forms that could speak to cultures of his kingdom.20 20 W.  Tronzo, The Cultures of His Kingdom: Roger II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton, 1997); and more recently, B.  Brenk et al., eds., La Cappella Palatina a Palermo,

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21.19 Palermo, Cappella Palatina, plan and reconstructed south façade elevation (after S. Ćurčić, DOP, 1987) FIGURE

21.20 Palermo, Cappella Palatina, interior view into the sanctuary (Wikimedia Commons) FIGURE

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FIGURE 21.21 Palermo, Cappella Palatina, interior view, looking west into the nave (author)

The chapel was two storied, raised above a crypt—apparently an older church—with an arcaded façade opening to a palace courtyard that may have included a “window of appearances”— all features that might compare with Byzantine palaces.21 But within the chapel, much has been altered. There was originally a royal viewing box in the upper north wall of the sanctuary, with the mosaic program adjusted to the view and to the royal presence. The nave was visually dominated by the muqarnas ceiling, probably constructed and certainly painted by artisans from Cairo.22 Moreover, the nave was originally without mosaic decoration—what is there was added after Roger’s 4 vols. (Modena, 2010); T. Dittelbach, ed., Die Cappella Palatina in Palermo: Geschichte, Kunst, Funktionen (Swindoft, 2011). S. Ćurčić, “Some Palatine Aspects of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo,” DOP 41 (1987): 125–44. 21

E. Grube and J. Johns, The Painted Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina (Genoa, 2005).

22

death, under either William I or William II. As a consequence, the differences between the two components would have been much more striking— the east looking like a Byzantine church, the west like a Fatimid palace hall—with a solid templon at the separation. The juxtaposition of styles may have been intended to distinguish the heavenly and earthly realms, ruled by Christ and Roger, respectively. While decorated in the Byzantine manner, the form and the construction of the dome, raised above stepped squinches, follows Muslim prototypes; in the nave, similarly, the arcades are distinctively stilted and slightly pointed, different from both Byzantine and Western counterparts. Here, as throughout Norman Sicily, much of the workforce must have come out of the Muslim tradition, often with the best surviving—and closest—comparisons in North Africa. Ironically, when the mosaic program was extended into the nave by Western artists (with inscriptions in Latin), this actually gave the interior a more Byzantine character. The great image of the enthroned Christ on the west wall above the ruler’s throne platform, for example, corresponds to descriptions of the decoration in the audience hall known as the Chrysotriklinos at the Great Palace in Constantinople. In short, the present appearance of unity in the interior was not originally intended; it developed only gradually. This stands the Cappella Palatina very much in contrast to the Cathedral of Monreale, the grand project of Roger’s grandson William II, 1174–82, where there is a greater degree of integration of Byzantine, Western, and Islamic forms and motifs, which are consequently not as easily sorted out. Although scholars have attempted to situate the monuments of the region within a Norman context, based on patronage, the Sicilian churches ultimately have little in common with the architecture of Normandy. The basilica design, employed in the cathedrals at Monreale or Cefalù, has more in common with the medieval architecture of southern Italy. Indeed, the church at Monreale is a copy of Cefalù, which in turn was a copy of the destroyed abbey church at Mileto in Calabria, built by Roger  I.  Roger’s brother, Robert Guiscard, had brought monks from Normandy to his foundation at Santa Maria at Santa Eufemia (destroyed) and to Santa Trinità at Canosa, CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE EXOTIC WEST

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which he had enlarged.23 Although Normandy may lie behind these churches, it is several stages removed. At the same time, the mosaic artisans seem to have been imported—at least initially, coming as a part of the larger political agenda of imitation and competition with the Byzantine court in Constantinople. It is clear they often had difficulty adjusting their programs to unfamiliar spaces. At Monreale, for example, windows were suppressed and colonnettes removed to create a uniform surface for the mosaic decoration. The sense of unity should be credited to the mosaicists, rather than to a collaborative enterprise of artists and masons.24 Even within the Cappella Palatina, the mosaicists struggled to organize a Byzantine decorative program into a not-veryByzantine space, as evident in overlapping and asymmetric panels on the south wall. In the final analysis, while the Byzantine elements might have provided the buildings a sense of power, prestige, or opulence, they never appear in isolation. Looking beyond the well-known churches in and around Palermo with their mosaic decoration, the Orthodox monastic churches of the Valdemone, on the east side of the island, are constructed of brick or a colorful mixture of brick and stone. Often the churches have domed bemas, rather than centrally positioned domes.25 In their planning, they appear closer to the domed mihrabs in the mosques of North Africa than to European or Byzantine models, and the domes are consistently raised above squinches. The churches of Santa Maria at Mili, founded in 1091, and Santi Pietro e Paolo at Itàla, founded 1093, are timber-roofed basilicas, but with domes above their sanctuaries, both apparently founded under the auspices of Roger I. At Mili, which is single aisled, the dome rises above stepped squinches in brick (Fig. 21.22). Itàla is three aisled with the dome transition See  M.  D’Onofrio, “Comparaisons entre quelques édifices de style normand de l’Italie méridionale et du royaume de France aux XIe et XIIe siècles,” in Les Normands en Méditerranée dans le sillage des Tancrède. Colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle (24–27 septembre 1992). Actes, eds. P. Bouet and F. Neveux (Caen, 1994), 179–201. 23

R. G. Ousterhout, “Collaboration and Innovation in the Arts of Byzantine Constantinople,” BMGS 21 (1997): 93–112.

24

25 C.  Nicklies, “Builders, Patrons, and Identity: The Domed Basilicas of Sicily and Calabria,” Gesta 43 (2004): 99–114.

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FIGURE 21.22 Mili, Santa Maria, axonometric section (after F. Basile, Chiese, 1938).

formed by corner conches with setbacks, similar to Delia but set within a minaret-like tower block (Fig. 21.23). Both have interlace arcading along the lateral façades. The domed bemas of Norman Sicily in turn impacted the architecture of Calabria, where similar forms appeared, as, for example, at Santa Maria at Staiti or San Giovanni at Bivongi (Fig. 21.24). The domes are raised above squinches in the Arab matter, unlike the domes on pendentives of the earlier cross-in-square churches of the south; interlaced arcading also appears. The grandest of the Valdemone group is the Church of Pietro e Paolo at Agrò, near Casalvecchio Siculo, a three-aisled basilica, with both a central dome and a domed bema (Figs. 21.25–21.27). An  inscription mentions a minor restoration of 1171/72 (which names a protomaistor named Girard the Frank), and the building must date before then, perhaps as early as the reign of Roger II in the 1130s. The centrally positioned dome is raised above multiple-stepped squinches, while the bema dome rises above muqarnas, with the octagonal dome itself rotated 22.5 degrees. Both domes are pumpkin domes, with scalloped surfaces. The remainder of the nave is timber roofed, while the side aisles are vaulted. Unlike the muqarnas ceiling of the Cappella Palatina, here the muqarnas of the bema dome are structural, made of brick. The exterior detailing is distinctive and

FIGURE 21.23 Itàla, Santi Pietro e Paolo, view from the southwest (Mark J. Johnson)

FIGURE 21.24 Bivongi, San Giovanni, view into the dome (Mark J. Johnson)

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FIGURE 21.26 Agrò, Santi Pietro e Paolo, plan and section (after F. Basile, Chiese, 1938) FIGURE 21.25 Agrò, Santi Pietro e Paolo, east façade, with decorative arcading and polychrome masonry (Mark J. Johnson)

colorful, with pilasters and interlaced arcades with banded voussoirs—features that may derive from a regional koine resulting from an intermingling of Byzantine and Islamic sources. Clearly one of the most remarkable features of this architecture is the degree of freedom with which their architects experimented with Islamic forms in building intended for Orthodox worship. The hybrid monuments of Norman Sicily may represent the new regime’s desire to break with the old divisions and prejudices and to bring a new era of tolerance. When William II died without heir in 1189, however, Sicily came under the control of the German Hohenstaufens, who had their own agenda, as well as stronger ties to Rome and the north.

, This and the previous chapter challenge us to examine how we might utilize architecture as a gauge of identity and cultural interaction. Unlike 526

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portable objects, which can readily change hands as they move between places and cultures, a work of architecture remains a fixed marker in the landscape long after its builders have departed. All the same, contexts have changed with the historical circumstances and demographic shifts. To situate a building within its original cultural context and to glean the historical information it may provide, it is necessary to ask some fairly basic questions and to make some fairly basic distinctions.26 First, architectural style and construction technique are not the same, although they are often confused. Traditional art history, based on formal analysis and dealing with influences and appropriations, normally addresses style rather than technical concerns. The outward appearance of a building, its decorative aspects, can be discussed without a specific knowledge of how it was built. R.  G.  Ousterhout, “Architecture and Cultural Identity in the Eastern Mediterranean,” in Hybride Kulturen im mittelalterliche Europa, eds. M.  Borgolte and B.  Schneidmüller (Berlin, 2010), 261–75; see also R. G. Ousterhout and D. F. Ruggles, “Encounters with Islam: The Medieval Mediterranean Experience,” Gesta 43, no. 2 (2004): 83–85.

26

FIGURE

21.27

Agrò, Santi Pietro e Paolo, interior view, looking west into the nave (Mark J. Johnson)

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The same holds true for medieval architectural practices: formal elements could have been seen and imitated long after a building was completed. But construction technique is a different matter, for it is based on specialized knowledge that could only be transmitted through the active participation in a workshop. This is not to say that building technology was privileged information—the so-called secret of the master masons—but that many critical details of construction were no longer visible when a building was completed, and thus they could not have been learned from observation alone. Medieval architectural technology was passed on through a program of apprenticeship, of “learning by doing,” and disseminated by traveling masons. In a professionally illiterate society, the transfer of specialized knowledge required human beings as the vehicles. Second, perhaps more importantly, the cultural experience of the patron is not necessarily the same as that of the artisan. The history of medieval art and architecture is often written as a history of patronage because the sources tell us about the patrons, not about the artists or builders. But we should not assume that because a patron was familiar with the monuments of Paris

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or Constantinople that his masons came equipped with the same knowledge. For architecture, patrons could dictate certain things, such as budget, scale, appropriate materials, and liturgical necessities, but in the end, it was up to the masons to translate the patron’s wishes into architectural form. A careful reading of relevant documents may thus provide us with part of the picture, but only a part. It can never replace the close analysis of the building itself. Finally, architecture is a group endeavor, rarely accomplished by a single individual. The patron, the master mason, and teams of workers, both skilled and unskilled, contributed to the final product. Sorting out their individual contributions may be difficult, if not impossible, in projects for which no written records survive. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that a work of architecture is the result of the participation of numerous individuals, involving negotiations and compromises, and not simply the single-minded vision of an omniscient patron. In this context, the cultural intersections in south Italy, Sicily, Venice, and the Levant challenge us to look beyond mainstream developments and to situate the architectural production within its local and regional contexts.

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EXPORTING A CULTURE/ IMPORTING A CULTURE Bulgaria, Kievan Rus’, and Serbia

T

he new political entities established in the East during the ninth through twelfth centuries were heavily indebted to Byzantine culture, albeit in differing ways. In each case, associations with Byzantium developed as a part of establishing a state religion in territories where the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope in Rome were competing for prominence. Religion thus came as part of a political negotiation, with attendant cultural baggage—that is, as Byzantium sought to export its political influence, the newly emerging states were eager to import its cultural heritage. Following the invasions of the Avars and the Slavs into the Balkan peninsula beginning in the late sixth century, new polities emerged, of which the Bulgarian state was the most prominent. While their territories had once been part of the Byzantine Empire, the new population was in its majority pagan. In contrast, the Russian state emerged in eastern Slavic lands (now Ukraine and western Russia), beyond the boundaries of Byzantium, but they looked to Constantinople in the creation of a national identity and a religion. The Serbian state, which appeared following the demise of the first Bulgarian Empire, similarly found itself heavily influenced by Byzantium, politically and

religiously, but also from lands neighboring to the west and north. In none of these emerging states was the adoption of Constantinople-based Orthodox Christianity a given; Rome also held sway in religious matters, with the two centers very much in competition. For all, their history would have been much different without the mission of Cyril and Methodius, who were sent from Constantinople to evangelize the Slavs of Great Moravia in 862– 63. The two translated the Bible into Old Church Slavonic and devised an alphabet to represent the non-Greek sounds of the Slavic language. The older Glagolitic alphabet was replaced with the Cyrillic alphabet, still used in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Russia. In terms of architecture, the “Byzantine connection” may be sought in several different ways: technically, with an established tradition of construction techniques and vaulting systems; formally, with the adoption of specific building types, notably the centralized, domed church; and symbolically, with special meanings that were associated with the appropriation of Byzantine forms. Bulgaria. The first Bulgarian state was founded ca. 681 following a major defeat of the Byzantine army; it was established on territory

Vladimir (near), Church of the Prov on the Nerl (Moscow Institute of Architecture Scientific Library) 531

once part of the Byzantine Empire. Bulgaria gradually emerged as Byzantium’s major northern rival.1 Boris I (r. 852–89) accepted Christianity in 864 and imposed the Orthodox religion on his state, while negotiating an independent national church. Under Boris’s patronage, Cyril, Methodius, and their disciples taught the new alphabet and established schools. By the end of the century, Old Bulgarian had become the official language. What became styled as the First Bulgarian Empire expanded to control much of the Balkans, but it lasted little more than a century: its army suffered a major defeat in 969, and with a second major defeat in 1018, the Bulgarian state ceased to exist, its territories incorporated into the Byzantine Empire. The first capital at Pliska was established under Khan Krum at the beginning of the ninth century. Discovered in 1898, the site was immediately incorporated into a Bulgarian national narrative.2 Rather than being founded from scratch (as is often claimed), however, the Bulgarian capital seems to have been established on the site of an early Byzantine fortified settlement: the huge outer enclosure of 2,300 hectares, surrounded by earthen ramparts, was larger than Constantinople; the inner enclosure was a castrum of 50 hectares with sturdy stone walls (Figs. 22.1A and 22.1B).3 The excavated foundations within it are impressive for their large-scale ashlar construction, but much of what has been interpreted as ninth century and Bulgarian may in fact be early Byzantine. The great gridded foundations within the inner enclosure, usually termed the Palace of Khan Krum, are more likely the remains of a Byzantine fortress. The basilican audience hall, built on the same fortress site, also seems to predate the foundation of the Bulgarian capital. The Great 1 For background, see J.  Fine, The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth (Ann Arbor, 1991); Whittow, The Making of Byzantium; F. Curta, The Other Europe in the Middle Ages: Avars, Bulgars, Khazars, and Cumans (Leiden, 2008), among others. 2 Aboba-Pliska, 2 vols., IRAIK 10 (Sofia, 1905); with more recent analysis in J. Henning, ed., Post-Roman Towns, Trade, and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium, 2nd vol., Byzantium, Pliska and the Balkans (Berlin, 2007). 3 Ćurčić, Architecture of the Balkans, 175–78; and the cautions expressed by Mango, Byzantine Architecture, 300–306.

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Basilica at Pliska has a similarly controversial historiography—it is most likely an early Byzantine structure, although it was still in use at the arrival of the Bulgarians (Fig. 22.2A).4 For all, the scale and forms seem improbable for a migratory people who brought with them no architectural tradition. Rather than grandiose constructions reviving older architectural forms, the first capital seems to have been a rather modest affair within the castrum, known almost exclusively from excavated foundations. Among the earliest new constructions, two residential court buildings were constructed side by side, both approximately 14 by 19 meters, with large central halls, opening to the south through triple doorways and flanked by smaller rooms (Fig. 22.1C). It remains unclear how the two functioned. A pagan temple lay to the south. Following the 811 burning of the city by Nikephoros I (for which the account suggests wooden buildings), Pliska was rebuilt and expanded. The north area was enclosed by a fortification wall, measuring 84 by 128 meters overall, with additional court buildings to the west and a second pagan temple at the center (Fig. 22.1D). With the Christianization of Bulgaria under Boris, the southern temple was rebuilt as a basilican church, perhaps to function as the cathedral, with the addition of apses and side chambers (Fig. 22.1E). It was enlarged in a third phase, probably in the late ninth century.5 Within the palace enclosure, a small chapel was added, probably also in the late ninth century, likely under Symeon (Fig. 22.1F). The latter is instructive, both for its small scale (8.5 by 13 meters) and for its typology: although known only from foundations, it was clearly a cross-in-square church, with four freestanding columns and pilasters along the walls to articulate the structure—that is, following an up-to-date Byzantine model. All considered, what is most striking in the architecture of Pliska is the diminutive scale, particularly noticeable in the church architecture. Within Pliska, another nine small basilicas have 4 Compare the views of K. Mijatev, Die mittelalterliche Baukunst in Bulgarien (Sofia, 1974), esp. 30–35; and Krautheimer and Ćurčić, ECBA, 311–21; to Ćurčić, Architecture of the Balkans (2010), 150, 175–78, 230–31, 280–85. 5

Ćurčić, Architecture of the Balkans, 283–84.

FIGURE 22.1 Pliska through its history: (A) Byzantine fortified enclosure (fifth century?); (B) Byzantine fortified site at the center of the enclosure (early sixth century?); (C) Bulgarian residential court buildings with the gridded foundations of the early Byzantine fortress, with the foundations of an apsed audience hall superimposed; with foundations of a temple to the left (ca. 800?); (D) palace complex under Omurtag, with new fortification and temple (early ninth century); (E) palace complex under Boris, with the temple transformed to a church (ninth century); (F) palace complex under Symeon, with the palace chapel added and the church rebuilt (late ninth century) (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

FIGURE 22.2 Pliska, basilicas, plans drawn to the same scale: (A) Great Basilica, probably fifth or sixth century. (B–D) Ninthcentury basilicas: (B) so-called Typical Basilica; (C) Boyar Church; (D) Basilica No. 5 (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

been excavated; all seem to be from the ninthcentury phase. While differing in detail, all are relatively small and architecturally conservative (Figs. 22.2B–D). The forms of the palaces are distinctive, however, with a central hall or halls flanked symmetrically by subsidiary rooms. The same form appears as the “episcopal palace” at the Great Basilica at Pliska and is later repeated in the imperial and patriarchal palaces at Preslav. Similar forms are known from the Byzantine palace at Rhegion (outside Constantinople), for example, and thus the Bulgarian examples may be following an established Byzantine type. Nevertheless, it is difficult to read a distinct ideology into the limited remains from the first Bulgarian capital. Things become easier to interpret under Boris’s successor Symeon (r. 893–927), who was both ambitious and enterprising; he moved the capital from Pliska to Preslav sometime after 893, with much new construction. A smaller settlement than Pliska, the outer enclosure of Preslav encompassed 350 hectares, with an inner citadel of 25 hectares. Schooled in Constantinople, Symeon staged his coronation in Hagia Sophia. His strong associations with the Byzantine capital help to explain much of the development in Preslav. Although limited to excavated foundations, details 534

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of the palace and cathedral complexes have been compared to features in Constantinople.6 A strong association with Constantinople must also lie behind the design of the impressive Round Church, attributed to Symeon and dated 907 (Figs. 22.3 and 22.4). A unique creation, it finds its best comparison with the centrally planned churches of the Justinianic era, as well as subsequent constructions, such as the seventh-century St. John at the Diipion or Basil I’s Church of St. Elijah in the Great Palace (both known only from descriptions), which could have provided a model.7 Rather than serving Simeon’s court, however, the Round Church lay outside the citadel and was part of a monastery, whose incomplete remains lay to the south. The rotunda was twelve sided with an internal diameter of 10 meters; the outer wall is lined with niches expressed on the exterior and buttresses in between; on the interior, twelve freestanding columns of Proconnesian marble formed a narrow ambulatory, with an enlarged bema on the eastern side and an ambo at the center. A deep, 6

Ćurčić, Architecture of the Balkans, 288–90.

P.  Magdalino, “The Byzantine Antecedents to the Round Church at Preslav,” Problemi na Izkustvoto 2 (2012): 3–5. 7

FIGURE 22.3 Preslav, Round Church, plan (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

FIGURE 22.4 Preslav, Round Church, interior view with remains of the colonnade (C. Mango, Dumbarton Oaks Image Collection and Fieldwork Archives)

colonnaded narthex to the west was flanked by stair turrets, indicating an upper level. The atrium was similarly niched. In contrast to the architectural forms, which find their best comparison in early Byzantium, the decoration of

ornamental sculpture and glazed ceramic tiles adheres to contemporary Constantinopolitan models, as at the Church of the Theotokos tou Libos, and suggests that craftsmen from the Byzantine capital were employed at Preslav.

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The close associations between Preslav and Constantinople are evident elsewhere as well. Cross-in-square churches, which became standard in Middle Byzantine Constantinople, are found in abundance in and around Preslav, often bearing the hallmarks of the Constantinopolitan monuments: four columns as supports, the structural system articulated on the façades, an extended three-part sanctuary (Figs. 22.5A–C). As with much of the architecture of the period, most are known only from foundations. The excavation of the Church of St. Panteleimon at the Patleina Monastery also encourages a connection with Constantinople (Fig. 22.5D). Rather than columns, the dome rose above piers, but with concave surfaces facing the central bay. While unusual, the supports are quite similar to the reentrant piers at St. George of Mangana, perhaps rising to squinches. Not all Bulgarian architecture of the period reflects the close association with Constantinople— nor should we expect it to. Many small churches, both basilican and domed, find no comparisons in the capital. At Messembria (Nesebar), on the Black Sea coast, for example, the Church of St. John also follows a cross-in-square plan but of rough rubble construction, with limited brick detailing around doors and windows and with piers as the support and a cylindrical dome drum (Fig. 22.6). It is for all intents and purposes a provincial Byzantine church, probably built in the tenth century. In 969, the Bulgarians suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Byzantines, effectively marking an end to the First Bulgarian Empire, although a continued presence lingered in the western territories, where Samuel (986–1014) established a short-lived kingdom, centered at Ohrid and Lake Prespa.8 This came to an end with the annihilation of the Bulgarian army by Basil II in 1018. Of the monuments of the period, the Church of St. Achilleios at Mikre Prespa is the most important (Fig. 22.7). It was built just before 1000 by Samuel, as part of his new capital. Located near his palace, the church was to be the seat of the Bulgarian patriarch and to house the relics of St. 8 N. Moutsopoulos, “Anaskafe tes basilikes tou Agiou Achilleiou,” EEPS 5 (1971–72): 47–461; D. Evyenidou, I. Kanonides, and Th. Papazotos, The Monuments of Prespa (Athens, 1991).

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FIGURE 22.5 Preslav, church plans: (A) Avradaka no. 1; (B) Avradaka no. 2; (C) Bial Briag no. 1; (D) St. Panteleimon at Patleina Monastery (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

Achilleios, which Samuel had stolen from Larissa. The largest medieval church in the Balkans, the three-aisled basilica measured approximately 22 by 44 meters overall. Originally with pier supports and galleries above the side aisles, its

FIGURE 22.6 Nesebar, St. John, exterior from the southwest (author)

FIGURE 22.7 Mikre Prespa, Church of St. Achilleios, plan (after Moutsopoulos, EEPS, 1971–72)

bema was flanked by domed, cruciform pastophoria. The south chapel (diakonikon) contained the tomb of the saint, and an additional four tombs lined the wall of the south aisle, associated with the founders, with one probably that of Samuel. While roughly built, the size of St. Achilleios certainly says something about the ambitions of its patron. But why select a basilican plan, rather than something more up to date? One suggestion

is to resonate with the Byzantine past, signaling a revival; another reason may have been the congregational needs for a cathedral in a capital. While many Byzantine sites preserved Early Christian basilicas, still in use, at other sites basilicas continued to be constructed, often (but not always) as cathedrals. At Nesebar/Messembria, the sixth-century Old Metropolis was overhauled. At Servia, Serres, and Veroia, new cathedrals were constructed from scratch on basilican plans

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FIGURE 22.8 Sapareva Bania, St. Nicholas, view from the southeast (Ivan Vanev)

(see Figs. 10.16 and 17.7). Thus, while St. Achilleios may have had a particular meaning within the context of Samuel’s new capital, it was not a unique creation. That said, with the demise of the First Bulgarian Kingdom and the return of the territory to Byzantine control, architectural production continued very much along the same lines—that is, for the period of 1018–1185, what appears in the region might be characterized as provincial Byzantine with Constantinopolitan associations. For example, the small cruciform Church of St. Nicholas at Sapareva Bania is built in the recessed brick technique, a hallmark of the Byzantine capital (Fig. 22.8). But the lack of sophistication and squat proportions suggest local builders, perhaps guided by an imported mason. In contrast, the Church of St. George at Kolusha is quite similar in its construction, although more sophisticated, on a cross-in-square plan with a tall drum. Both must be from the twelfth century (Fig. 22.9). The Petritzos Monastery, or the Theotokos Petritzonitissa, now known as Bachkovo, was founded in 1083 by Gregory Pakourianos, a Byzantine general of Caucasian (Armeno-Georgian) origin.10 Although its typikon is preserved, the monastery itself has been largely reconstructed. Nevertheless, it provides some sense of the cultural richness 9

9 Ćurčić, Architecture of the Balkans, 308–15; M.  Altripp, Die Basilika in Byzanz (Berlin, 2013). 10 E. Bakalova, ed., The Ossuary of the Bachkovo Monastery (Plovdiv, 2003).

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FIGURE 22.9 Kolusha, St. George, seen from the southwest in 1898 (from S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

of the period. The monastery was originally inhabited by Georgian monks, who maintained their own school. The katholikon was a triconch, apparently following the Athonite (or possibly Georgian) model. Most impressive today is the eleventh-century ossuary, well preserved outside the monastic enclosure, on sloping ground (Figs. 22.10 and 22.11). The building is two storied, barrel vaulted in both levels, with the lower level serving for burial of the bones of the monks, in fourteen grave pits beneath the floor. The upper level was covered by a banded barrel vault and served as a funerary chapel; both are decorated with wall paintings. The exterior of the upper chapel is detailed with blind arcades, formed of stepped pilasters and torus moldings, which bear no relation to the internal structure. In fact, the combination of banded barrel vault, torus moldings, and the lack of relationship between interior and exterior call to mind the monuments of the Caucasus, a connection quite probable considering the origin of the founder: compare, for example, the vaulting and external arcading at Ot‘ht‘a Eklesia or the torus moldings prominent on the facades at Ishkani (see Figs. 19.21 and 19.28). However, the construction at Bachkovo is of banded brick and stone, as one might find in Constantinople. In short, the ossuary is a hybrid monument—one that challenges the notion of a distinct regional identity in Bulgarian architecture. With the weakening of Byzantine power in the Balkans following the death of Manuel Komnenos, a Second Bulgarian Empire was founded in 1185, with a capital at T’rnovo. This parallels developments in Serbia, to be discussed shortly.

FIGURE 22.10 Bachkovo, Ossuary, view from the southeast (author)

FIGURE 22.11 Bachkovo, Ossuary, section and plans at the upper and lower levels (after Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

FIGURE

22.12

Asenova Krepost, Church of the Mother of God Petrichka, seen from the south (author)

We will return to Bulgaria in a subsequent chapter, although the Church of the Bogoroditsa Petrichka at the Asenova Krepost (Asen Fortress, Byzantine Stenimachos), near Asenovgrad, is best discussed here (Fig. 22.12).11 Built ca. 1200 as part of an older part of the fortress, set high on a rocky outcropping above a mountain pass, the church is long, narrow, and single aisled, with a domed naos. Although raised on a vaulted substructure, unlike Bachkovo, the lower level was never intended as a burial crypt; it was simply a level platform to anchor the church on uneven terrain. Built of banded brick and stone with arcaded exterior facades, construction details and decorative articulation—notably brick patterning— find their best comparisons in Middle Byzantine Constantinople. Even the unusual belfry, rising above the narthex, may find comparison in the Byzantine capital—a subject to which we shall return. Thus, through the various transitions and 11

Ćurčić, Architecture of the Balkans, 480–82.

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discontinuities of medieval Bulgarian history, its architecture seems firmly connected to that of Constantinople. Kievan Rus’. The situation in early Russia differed from that of its Balkan neighbors, as Kievan Rus’ rose in territory outside the extent of the Byzantine Empire and with no building tradition in permanent materials. Nevertheless, Byzantine architecture played a critical role in the Christianization of Kievan Rus’, as well as in the transformation and subsequent transmission of Russian culture. Although new architectural concepts were regularly introduced into Russia after the eleventh century—from the Romanesque and Gothic architecture of Western Europe, from Renaissance Italy and Baroque Germany—once introduced, the Byzantine element never entirely disappears.12 In 987, the Russian ambassadors sent by Prince Vladimir were overwhelmed by the visual splendor 12 D. Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture and the West (New Haven, 2007).

of the liturgical celebrations in the churches of Constantinople, declaring “we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth . . . we only knew that God dwells there among men . . . we cannot forget that beauty.”13 No doubt they were responding to the interior of Justinian’s Hagia Sophia, the major site of ecclesiastical ceremony. It was (at least in part) on the basis of the architectural impression that Vladimir converted Kievan Rus’ to Orthodox Christianity, following the Byzantine model— rather than Islam, Judaism, or the Church of Rome. The metropolitan see of Kiev was established as subservient to that of Constantinople; Byzantine priests were dispatched, bringing with them the instructions for liturgical celebrations, devotional texts, icons, relics, and other religious paraphernalia to strengthen the relationship with Byzantine Orthodoxy. Wishing to share the prestige and wealth of the Byzantine Empire, Vladimir married the Byzantine princess Anna, who was the sister of the reigning emperor Basil II, and a political alliance with Byzantium was eagerly pursued. Russian architecture quickly followed the ideological lead. Most important in this respect is the introduction of architecture in brick and stone, which supplanted the traditional Russian architecture of wood, at least for the most important constructions. The physical manifestation of a broader cultural transformation, masonry architecture appeared hand in glove with the expansion of Kiev as a political and religious center in the late tenth and eleventh centuries. Until the late ninth century, Kiev consisted of a series of undistinguished small habitation sites on the easily fortified promontories above the Dnieper River. For the early period, there is no evidence of an urban center, no princely administrative site, no numismatic evidence, no buildings in permanent materials, and no indication of long-distance trade—it was an “extreme border zone.”14 By the mid-tenth century, however, Kiev was on the rise. Stone architecture began to appear on the Starokjivs’ka Hill, probably as a consequence of trading connections with the Byzantines in the Crimea. Excavated remains are exceptionally 13

For text, Zenkovsky, Medieval Russia’s Epics, 66–67.

J. Callmer, “The Archaeology of Kiev to the End of the Earliest Urban Phase,” HUkSt 11 (1987): 323–64. 14

fragmentary, but archaeologists have identified several stone buildings and evidence of costly decorations; a Byzantine connection is supported by the appearance of brick, polychrome tiles, mosaic, and fresco, as well as Proconnesian and other types of marble among the finds. Thus, Kiev seems to have possessed Byzantine-style masonry architecture as early as the middle of the tenth century, and there must have been Greek masons and craftsmen, as well as clergymen, in residence several decades before the official conversion in 988. Only following the Christianization of Rus’, however, is there a monumentalization that could characterize Kiev as an urban center. Vladimir expanded and fortified the Starokjivs’ka Hill settlement, and within it, his first major projects were the construction of the Tithe (Desyatinnaya) Church, which was completed in 996, and an adjacent palace of identical construction technique (Fig. 22.13).15 Dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin, the church was financed by a tithe on Vladimir’s income and measured 33.5 by 37 meters overall; at its center was a dome approximately 5 meters in diameter. Destroyed by the Mongol sack of 1240, the building is known only from its partially preserved excavated remains. Scholars disagree as to whether it should be reconstructed as a domed basilica, a cross-domed basilica, or a cross-in-square church—or even if it was domed at all.16 Enveloped by ambulatories or subsidiary spaces, the poor coordination suggests a change of design as the building was enlarged, but the excavations indicated construction occurred within a short period of time. The interior was lavishly decorated with marble and mosaic, some fragments of which have survived. Of the palace, only the plan is preserved. Together they created an ideological center for Vladimir’s state, with Byzantine-style architecture conveying symbolic 15 A.  I.  Komech, Drevnerusskoe zodchestvo konca X-nachala XI v. (Moscow, 1995); Rappoport, Building the Churches of Kievan Russia; W.  Brumfield, A History of Russian Architecture (Cambridge, 1993); for new excavations, see O. Ioannissian and G. Ivakin, “Desjatinnaja cerkov’ v Kieve: ‘staryĭ vzgljad’ v novom osveshhenii,” in Archeologia Abrahamica, ed. L. Beliaev (Moscow, 2009), 179–202.

G. Ivakin, Ioannisian, and D. Jolshin, “Arhіtekturno-arheologіchnі doslіdzhennjacerkvi Bogorodicі Desjatinnoiv Kievі u 2008–2011 pp,” in Slov’jani і Rus’: arheologіja ta іstorіja (Kiev, 2013), 73–80.

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541

FIGURE 22.14 Kiev, reconstructed Golden Gate, seen from the west (author)

FIGURE 22.13 Kiev, Tithe Church, hypothetical reconstructed plan and plan of excavated foundations (redrawn after Ivakin et al., Slov’jani i Rus’, 2013)

messages of status and authority. Vladimir’s successor Jaroslav dramatically expanded the city in the early eleventh century. With successive expansions, Kiev achieved a maximum population of around forty thousand, which was probably maintained into early thirteenth century, before the area succumbed to the Mongols in 1240. When Jaroslav expanded Kiev into a substantial city, both Byzantine models and Byzantine ideas came into play, replicating significant toponyms so that Kiev emerged as a sort of “copy”: in a period of rapid growth and emerging civic and national consciousness, the identity of Kiev as a city gained credibility and luster through the symbolic association with Constantinople. The new cathedral was dedicated to St. Sophia; two nearby monasteries were dedicated to St. Eirene 542

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and St. George; and the main entrance to the walled city was called the Golden Gate (Fig. 22.14). Although both St. Sophia and the Golden Gate were probably built by Byzantine masons, neither looked very much like its prototype—St. Sophia had thirteen domes; the Golden Gate was surmounted by a domed chapel; the resonant dedications seem to have been enough to have conveyed the intended meanings to a population that had never seen the Byzantine capital. In fact, the Golden Gate (heavily restored in 1982) became the prototype for the common form of Russian urban and monastic gate surmounted by a chapel. Rather than the Golden Gate of Constantinople, its model may have been the Chalke Gate, the entrance to the Great Palace, which had a chapel on its upper level (see Fig. 15.21). Although we do not have the names of individual artisans recorded, Byzantine masons were certainly at work in Kievan Rus’ in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but the references to them are extremely vague; they are usually referred to as “masters,” following the Greek maistor or mastoras. The Laurent‘ev Chronicle of 989 and the Ipat‘ev Chronicle of 991 record simply that Vladimir brought Greek masters to construct the Tithe

FIGURE 22.15 Kiev, St. Sophia, east façade, with areas of eleventhcentury masonry exposed (author)

Church in Kiev. At the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin in the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev (built 1073–78), the monastery’s Paterikon reports that a local team of workmen was headed by four masters from Constantinople. Other Greek masters seem to have been at work in Kiev, Chernigov, and Pereslavl’ in the eleventh century, as well as at Kiev, Vitebsk, and Pskov in the twelfth.17 In addition, where we find mosaic decoration in the early churches, as at St. Sophia, we can be certain that Byzantine artisans were present. There are a variety of technical features in early Russian architecture that can only be explained by the presence of Byzantine masons. The construction technique is normally an opus mixtum, with alternating courses of brick and rough stonework. Russians learned brick production from Byzantium: even the word for brick—plint or plinf—comes from the Greek word plinthos; the bricks were long and flat, about a foot square and two inches thick, as they were in Constantinople.18 A moderately large church would have 17

Rappoport, Building the Churches of Kievan Russia, esp. 193–211.

Rappoport, Building the Churches of Kievan Russia, 5–53; after the fourteenth century, the word kirpich, of Turkic origin, is also used. 18

required more than a million bricks, which would have been produced in kilns on site. In the wall construction of the early churches, the bricks were set in the recessed brick technique, a hallmark of Constantinople and areas under its influence in the tenth through twelfth centuries (Fig. 22.15).19 Often the technique was combined with pilasters, niches and stepped arcades, and occasionally decorative patterns in brick, all of which were common in Constantinople. Similarly, wooden beams strengthen the walls and foundations; domes were built without formwork, so that they are slightly egg shaped. Similar technical details appear in the early monuments of Chernigov and Novgorod. While technically identical to the churches of Constantinople, formally the early Russian churches are perplexingly distinct. Working in Kiev, however, Byzantine masons faced challenges unknown in Constantinople. After the Russian state was Christianized, it required large congregational churches for the recently converted population—a need that was often met in Byzantium by existing Early Christian basilicas. Masons familiar with the structural H.  Schäfer, “Architekturhistorische Beziehungen zwischen Byzanz und der Kiever Rus in 10. und 11. Jahrhundert,” IstMitt 23–24 (1973–74): 197–224.

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FIGURE 22.16 Kiev, St. Sophia, plan and reconstructed longitudinal section (after Y. Aseyev, V. Volkov, and M. Kresalny, in H. Logvin, Kiev’s Hagia Sophia, 1971)

systems of the small, vaulted churches could not hope to replicate the form of Hagia Sophia. This is evident in the layering of spaces at the Tithe Church and more clearly understood at Jaroslav’s St. Sophia in Kiev, begun before 1037, which, despite its Baroque exterior, preserves much of its original form (Figs. 22.15–22.18). Both churches elaborated a basic Byzantine schema, by which the domed core of the building was enveloped by a series of ambulatories and galleries. At St. Sophia, these increased the interior space systematically to create what was necessary for a large congregation. The central domed bay of the naos measures about 7.5 meters across, but the entire building covers a vast area of about 40 by 49 meters. Barrel-vaulted aisles and domed chapels were multiplied, expanding outward, wrapping around the core in a logical manner. Marble columns were not available, and thus cruciform piers were introduced to support the naos dome, adding to its stability and allowing for the increase in the verticality 544

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at the core of the building, so that the dome rises 29 meters off the floor, with the vaults stepping down gradually around it. The resultant pyramidal massing of forms is characteristic of contemporaneous Byzantine churches built on a much smaller scale. In the final analysis, St. Sophia in Kiev represents an expansion and elaboration of Byzantine ideas to suit the different needs of the recently Christianized Russian state. The fact that no identical building survives on Byzantine soil should not detract from the basic Byzantineness of the building. All of the individual components find good Byzantine comparisons, and even the manner in which they are assembled accords with established Byzantine practices. That said, it is noteworthy that Byzantine masons transmitted to Russia a limited repertory of construction techniques and architectural forms, and this fact has important implications for subsequent architectural developments. The conservatism of the Russian workshops may have been encouraged by their relative isolation. For example, vaulting types were limited: domes were invariably set above pendentives, raised on windowed drums, their interior surfaces left plain; scalloped pumpkin domes and ribbed domes, so popular in the Byzantine capital, are never found. Other vaults were almost invariably limited to barrel vaults; groin vaults appear only during the early twelfth century with the introduction of new architectural ideas from Romanesque Europe. Even variations based on the barrel vault are rare. A Byzantine staircase, for example, was normally covered by a ramping barrel vault, but in the Russian examples, barrel vaults were stepped in series, as occurred in the staircase at St. Sophia in Kiev. There is also a uniformity in the design. Early Russian architecture consisted primarily of variations of a building type that was introduced with the earliest churches of Kiev. This basic formula was copied at other locations, with some alterations to meet specific needs. The St. Sophia churches in Polotzk (1044–66) and Novgorod (1045–50), for example, might be best understood as “copies” of St. Sophia in Kiev, replicating its basic forms, dedication, and construction techniques, although perhaps less coherent in their organization (Figs. 22.19 and 22.20). At Chernigov, the Transfiguration Cathedral (ca. 1036) has arcades separating

FIGURE 22.17 Kiev, St. Sophia, reconstructed east façade and axonometric section (after Y. Aseyev, V. Volkov, and M. Kresalny, in H. Logvin, Kiev’s Hagia Sophia, 1971)

the central domed bay from the aisles, but the basic configuration is the same, as is the recessed brick technique (Fig. 22.21). The tall cross-insquare core of Kiev’s St. Sophia, with its central dome raised above cruciform piers, provided a model for the smaller and simpler Russian churches. The attenuated proportions of the naos of St. Sophia had resulted from the pyramidal massing of components, as the tall core of the building was enveloped by layers of subsidiary spaces. In smaller churches of simpler design, the attenuated core stands on its own, a towering block, as at the Dormition Cathedral in Kiev or in St. George at the Yuriev Monastery in Novgorod.

By the mid-twelfth century, activity had shifted northward, notably with the establishment of the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal under Andrei Bogolyubsky (1157–75). With the shift northward came a shift in cultural orientation, with Andrei said to have “invited craftsmen for every land,” notably masons from Western Europe, who introduced ashlar stone construction and a variety of details associated with Romanesque architecture, such as the corbel table frieze and external stone sculpture. Nevertheless, the basic church type of Byzantine derivation was maintained. The Dormition Cathedral at Vladimir, begun by Andrei in 1158–60 and expanded 1185–89, is virtually

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FIGURE 22.18 Kiev, St. Sophia, interior of the naos, view into the dome (author)

FIGURE 22.19 Novgorod, St. Sophia, view from the south (Wikipedia)

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FIGURE 22.20 Novgorod, St. Sophia, plan and longitudinal section (after H. Faensen and V. Ivanov, Early Russian Architecture, 1975)

indistinguishable in plan from its Kievan predecessors (Figs. 22.22 and 22.23). At the same time, there is a greater vertical attenuation to the exterior, which rises to a tall block, with the linear articulation of arcades and window forms more Romanesque than Byzantine. The church became the seat of the Metropolitan of all Russia, as well as the coronation church (until 1440) and a site of great spiritual significance, housing the famed icon of the Virgin of Vladimir. The tiny Pokrov

FIGURE 22.21 Chernigov, Transfiguration Cathedral, plan and longitudinal section (redrawn after A. Komech, Drevnerusskoe, 1995)

(Veil of the Virgin) Church on the Nerl River near Vladimir, built ca. 1165, presents the distilled essence of the Vladimir style—a domed, cross-insquare church with cruciform piers on the interior, the exterior an attenuated, arcaded block—standing out dramatically in the strafing northern light (Figs. 22.24 and 22.25). A final development is noteworthy in this period, seen at the Piatnitsa Church in Chernigov, an all-brick construction of ca. 1200, which replaces the blocky exterior with gradual stepping up to the dome (Fig. 22.26). Destroyed in 1943,

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FIGURE 22.22 Vladimir, Cathedral of the Dormition, view from the southwest (Moscow Institute of Architecture Scientific Library)

FIGURE 22.23 Vladimir, Cathedral of the Dormition, plan and longitudinal section through the south aisle (after K. J. Conant, in S. H. Cross, Medieval Russian Churches, 1949)

FIGURE

22.24 Vladimir (near), Church of the Prov on the Nerl (Moscow Institute of Architecture Scientific Library)

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FIGURE 22.25 Vladimir (near), Church of the Prov on the Nerl, plan and transverse section, with suggested restoration of the outer gallery (redrawn after Moscow Institute of Architecture Scientific Library)

22.26 Chernigov, Piatnitsa Church, seem from the southeast (author) FIGURE

aspect of the design. The plan (approximately 11.5 by 16 meters) remains virtually identical to that of the Pokrov Church. In sum, while maintaining core elements derived from Byzantine architecture, by the end of the twelfth century Russian architecture was charting its own course. The Mongol (Tatar) invasions of the early thirteenth century, which destabilized much of Russia in the 1220s– 1230s, brought an end to the first phase of its architecture, which would be revived after 1300 with the rise of Moscow (discussed in Chap. 27). Serbia. With the demise of the First Bulgarian Empire and the weakening of Byzantine control in the region following the death of Basil II in 1025, Serbia began to emerge as an independent polity.20 Much of the area that was to become the Serbian Kingdom (including what is now southern Serbia, Kosovo, and parts of Macedonia) had been part of the Byzantine Empire, often with close associations with Constantinople, as is evident in the architecture. Both the tiny quatrefoil Church of the Virgin at Veljusa and the fivedomed Church of St. Panteleimon at Nerezi, for example, reflect the architecture of the capital and were built for cosmopolitan patrons (see Figs. 15.9B, 13.21, 17.8, and 17.9). By the middle of the twelfth century, however, Byzantine control was challenged by local rulers, the most important of whom was Stefan Nemanja, grand župan of Raška ca. 1166–96, who led a protracted struggle against the Byzantines, finally achieving independence following the death of Manuel Komnenos in 1180.21 In a region already Christianized but not urbanized, Nemanja sought to solidify his base with ecclesiastical support, patronizing the construction of churches and monasteries. This program was followed by his successors as well, and as a consequence we can find a significant political message in the surviving monuments. The associated architecture is sometimes referred to as the Raška School. What is intriguing in this respect is how the early Serbian state both

Ćurčić, 486–87; F. Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250 (Cambridge, 2006); J. Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest (Ann Arbor, 1994).

20

the church was reconstructed with great authenticity in the 1960s. On the façades, the central arch of the cross arm is flanked by lower quadrant arches, and the dome rises above superimposed gables (kokoshniki), which emphasize the vertical 550

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21 For the history see among others, Fine, Early Medieval Balkans; and Fine, Late Medieval Balkans; F. Curta, Southeastern Europe.

FIGURE 22.27 Kuršumlija, Church of St. Nicholas, seen from the northeast (heavily restored) (N. P. Ševčenko)

emulated and distanced itself from Byzantium in its architecture. Critical for the development of Serbian architecture is the Church of St. Nicholas at Kuršumlija, in what is now southern Serbia (Fig. 22.27; and see Fig. 13.15C). Closely aligned with the buildings of Constantinople, St. Nicholas was built on an atrophied Greek cross plan, with a dome approximately 5 meters in diameter. Like the Chora in Constantinople, it similarly had an annexed chapel to the south and was built in the recessed brick technique. Both the lunettes and the dome had large windows, and the interior of the dome is ribbed—that is, the church bears all the characteristics of a Constantinopolitan monument. An unusual feature is the extra bay to the west of the naos, separated from it by a broad arch, with arcosolia on either side. Should this space be understood as part of the naos or as the narthex? The church was expanded in a second phase with the addition of a deep narthex preceded by a twintowered portico, a feature unknown in Byzantine architecture but common to European Romanesque

and executed in a rough mix of stone and brick. While both phases are often attributed to the patronage of Stefan Nemanja, the naos is more likely Byzantine—perhaps during the campaigns of Manuel in 1148–50, while the western additions are the work of Nemanja, ca. 1166–68.22 The odd juxtaposition at St. Nicholas was subsequently followed at the Church of St. George in the monastery of Djurdjevi Stupovi, begun sometime after 1166 and completed by 1170–71, under the patronage of Stefan Nemanja—and indicating that both phases of St. Nicholas should date before this time (Fig. 22.28). On a narrow hilltop site, the church merges the twin-towered western portion with the atrophied Greek-cross naos, covered by an oval dome (4.4 by 5.5 meters in diameter). Vestibules flank the naos to either side. Despite the heavy reconstructions at both sites, it is clear that Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 491–95; note also M.  Mihaljević, “Constantinopolitan Architecture of the Komnenian Era (1080–1180) and Its Impact in the Balkans,” PhD diss., Princeton University, 2010.

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FIGURE 22.28 Church of St. George at Djurdjevi Stupovi Monastery, plan and longitudinal section (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

the builders at St. George came from a different tradition: construction is all porous limestone, the eaves are lined with corbel tables; the interior of the dome drum features a curious blind arcade. Materials, towers, and details all impart a Romanesque character to the church exterior, while the liturgical organization of the interior maintains what would be necessary for Orthodox monastic use. In short, the odd juxtapositions in both buildings reflect the dual cultural and political orientation of medieval Serbia, which maintained economic ties to the towns along the Adriatic littoral, where a version of the Italian Romanesque had been developed. Nemanja subsequently captured Kotor in 1196, but cultural connections clearly precede this event. 552

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A similar sort of juxtaposition is found at the Church of the Mother of God (Bogorodica) at the Studenica Monastery, founded by Stefan Nemanja, the most important foundation of medieval Serbia. Both the church and the monastery set a standard for subsequent Serbian architecture. The monastery is a roughly circular, walled enclosure, with monastic cells, the refectory, and other buildings set against the wall, with the katholikon freestanding at its center (Figs. 22.29-22.30). Sometime called “the cross in the circle,” the basic organization follows the Byzantine model.23 Entered from the west, the gate led directly to the church, which was originally preceded by a freestanding phiale, or holy water font, similar to those of Mount Athos. This was subsequently enclosed by the construction of a large outer narthex ca. 1230. The refectory lay immediately to the north of the gate. To the south, several small chapels were added. The church itself follows the Byzantine model of the atrophied Greek-cross plan—perhaps following that established in the region by St. Nicholas, but the construction was by builders from the Adriatic littoral (Figs. 22.31 and 22.32).24 Begun sometime after 1183, the church was apparently still incomplete when Nemanja abdicated in 1196 to become a monk in the monastery. In its design, the church omits the western towers of St. Nicholas and St. George, while maintaining the narthex; the intermediary western naos bay, like that at St. Nicholas, was equipped for burials—with the sarcophagus of Nemanja in the south recess. The lateral vestibules of St. George are also repeated here, although each is equipped with an apse in its eastern wall. It is also substantially larger, measuring approximately 10 by 28 meters overall. Despite these similarities, the most striking discrepancy is the external appearance of the church, constructed of a locally quarried marble, carefully cut into ashlar blocks, some 50 centimeters thick. Architectural detailing is essentially Romanesque, with corbel tables along the eaves, elaborated jambs, archivolts, windows, and architectural sculpture. All would compare favorably with the contemporaneous architecture of the 23

Popović, Krst u Krugu.

S. Ćirković, V. Korać, and G. Babić, Studenica Monastery (Belgrade 1986), 32–42; also Čanak-Medić and Bošković, L’architecture de l’epoque de Nemanja. 24

FIGURE 22.29 Studenica Monastery, aerial view (Alxadj, Wikimedia Commons)

Adriatic coast, as, for example, St. Lawrence at Trogir.25 Some Byzantine features were retained, however, such as the great arch with setbacks on the lateral façades, as well as the window openings in the lunettes. The latter were intended to be threepart windows, like those of St. Nicholas, but were altered in the final form, with Romanesque bifora incongruously inserted into each light. Most striking, however, is the inclusion of a purely Constantinopolitan dome, built of brick and stone, a pumpkin dome on the interior, with engaged colonnettes and scalloped eaves on the exterior. The juxtaposition of styles and concomitant change in materials has long intrigued scholars.26 Should we attribute the building to a mixed workshop, with the Romanesque team responsible for the wall construction and the Byzantine-trained masons in charge of the dome? Did they work in tandem or in succession? One wonders how the combination of forms was understood by the contemporary viewer. 25

,

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 445–47.

See Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 496–99; Čanak-Medić and Bošković, L’architecture de l’epoque de Nemanja, 88.

26

In contrast to the exterior, the interior appears almost purely Byzantine, functionally equipped and decorated for the Orthodox liturgy. The thirteenth-century successors to Studenica repeat many of the same concerns. At the Monastery of Sopoćani, for example, founded by Uroš I (reg. 1243–76) sometime after 1250, the monastic organization is remarkably similar— roughly circular with a freestanding katholikon at the center (Figs. 22.33 and 22.34). Seen from the exterior, the church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, reads as a Romanesque basilica with a gratuitous dome (the present one is reconstructed); the interior is essentially a domed Byzantine microcosm. The region and its architecture will become more important to our discussion in the fourteenth century. The stylistic dichotomy persists, reflecting the continuing mix of political and cultural associations of the medieval Serbian state.

Nationalist narratives and self-referential nationalist historiographies have colored the study

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22.30 Studenica Monastery, plan (after S. Popović, Krst i Krugu, 1994) FIGURE

of architecture, often in contradiction of historical realities. Should the emerging architectures of Bulgaria, Russia, and Serbia be viewed as evidence of nascent national identities? Historical maps are difficult to draw against competing territorial claims. Medieval Bulgaria went back and forth between Bulgarian and Byzantine control, and many of its historical monuments are now in Macedonia and Greece. Much of medieval Russia is now in Ukraine, which also holds claim to its historical culture, while much of medieval Serbia lies in Kosovo and Macedonia. Such geographic discontinuities are not unique,

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but if we focus instead on the medieval narratives and historiographies, we find a different set of cultural engagements as a part of identity construction. Just as buildings are conservatively based on other buildings, symbolism also draws upon established imagery. Architecture can represent power, prestige, and authority, and for Bulgaria, Russia, and Serbia, the Byzantine Empire represented a certain set of values worth imitating—a prestige bias. In the uneven Bulgarian experience, builders may not have found distinct forms to distinguish themselves from the Byzantines, while in Russia and Serbia,

FIGURE 22.31 Studenica Monastery, view of the church from the southeast (author)

FIGURE 22.32 Studenica Monastery, interior of the naos, looking west; note the brick construction in the pendentive (author)

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22.33 Sopoćani Monastery, plan (after S. Popović, Krst i Krugu, 1994) FIGURE

22.34 Sopoćani Monastery, Church of the Trinity, seen from the south; the western portico and belfry are later; the dome has been reconstructed (author) FIGURE

other styles—specifically the Romanesque of Western Europe—came into play. But for all, two underlying themes were maintained. First, the churches were the settings for Orthodox worship, following the model of Constantinople; the idea of the naos as a domed microcosm prevails. Second, although there were other rising

centers of political power in the period, none had the historical legacy or the cachet of Constantinople—even in its decline it was the logical referent. The symbolic resonance of the imperial city continued through the thirteenth century, even after the disastrous events of 1204, as will be discussed in the next chapter.

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PART FOUR

,

THE LATE BYZANTINE AND POST-BYZANTINE CENTURIES Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

,

THE DIFFICULT THIRTEENTH CENTURY

A

map of the thirteenth-century Mediterranean is almost impossible to draw, with an evershifting balance of power and an increasing number of players, as well as cultural interchanges across often hostile frontiers. At its core, central authority in Constantinople collapsed in 1204, as the city and much of Byzantine territory fell under the control of Western Europeans, mostly from Flanders, France, and Venice (whom the Byzantines call simply the Franks).1 A period of internal disruption had followed the death of Manuel Komnenos in 1180, and the lack of leadership within the capital allowed the participants of the Fourth Crusade to alter their course and capture Constantinople, rather than continuing on to Jerusalem. Although Baldwin of Flanders was established as ruler in Constantinople, Venice and Venetian economic interests were critical, as the so-called Latin Empire subdivided the territories under their control. The consequences of the Fourth Crusade should not be underestimated, although its motivations continue to be debated. Against the Seljuk success For history, see D. Queller and T. Madden, The Fourth Crusade, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, 1999); and the studies in G.  Ortalli, G.  Ravegnani, and P.  Schreiner, eds. Quarta Crociata, 2 vols. (Venice, 2006). 1

in Anatolia and the Ayyubid conquest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187, Western interventions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries had seen little success, leading Pope Innocent III to call for a new crusade in 1198. The royal families of Europe were indifferent to the call, and the crusade was organized by the lesser nobility, who contracted the Venetians for their transportation and provisioning. As the crusade set sail in 1202, it was considerably smaller than expected, and the participants were unable to pay their bill. The economy of Venice would have collapsed if the crusade had not succeeded—and it had to turn a profit. A chance encounter with a Byzantine pretender to the throne, who promised untold riches, led to the rerouting of the fleet to Constantinople, whose citizens, not surprisingly, showed little interest in the pretender. A siege soon followed, for which the Byzantine forces were unprepared. Many from the Byzantine court simply fled in panic. Poorly organized from the beginning, the crusaders suddenly found themselves in possession of Constantinople and its empire, with little notion of what to do next—except to loot the city. Needless to say, the crusade never made it to Jerusalem.

Geghard Monastery, interior of gavit, looking north (author) 561

The conquest of Constantinople significantly altered the balance of power in the eastern Mediterranean, led to the fragmentation of the Byzantine Empire, and solidified the break between the churches of Rome and Constantinople. Rival Byzantine claimants to the throne emerged: the so-called Empire of Nicaea in western Asia Minor; the Despotate of Epiros in northwest Greece, centered at Arta; and the self-styled Empire of Trebizond in the eastern Black Sea—all were led by relatives of the Komnenos or Angelos dynasties. Boundaries and allegiances fluctuated through the century. In 1261, led by the usurper John VIII Palaiologos, the Nicaean faction retook Constantinople, although the city had been decimated by the looting of the Franks. The fragmented political picture continued for the next centuries, exacerbated by religious and economic rivalries with Western Europe and the growing political challenges of the Turks. Anatolia also witnessed a shifting balance of power. Various Turkish tribes had entered Anatolia after the Seljuk victory at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, but the situation was far from stable.2 There had been a concerted effort by the Byzantines, assisted by Crusaders, to reconquer lost territories, and this allowed the Empire of Nicaea to control western Anatolia. But there was also infighting among the Seljuk successors, as well as with other Turkish beyliks (principalities) through the twelfth century. By 1205 the Seljuks had emerged as the dominant force, with their capital established at Konya, although their political power was curtailed by the arrival of the Mongols at mid-century. At first glance, this confused state of affairs seems as if it should not have been conducive to architectural production. On the contrary, buildings of the period exhibit a robustness that belies the political instability—indeed, they often emerge as symbols of power within redefined systems of territorial control. Stylistically, with the fragmentation of the Byzantine state (and former territories) came a concomitant visual fragmentation of 2 For history, see C. Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey: A General Survey of the Material and Spiritual Culture and History c. 1071–1330 (London, 1968); A. C. S. Peacock and S. N. Yıldız, eds., The Seljuks of Anatolia: Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East (London, 2013).

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the architecture. In church construction, the design of the naos followed planning types established in the Middle Byzantine period, but its formal language increased in complexity, with a greater emphasis on surface decoration and the addition of multiple subsidiary spaces—porticoes, expanded narthexes, ambulatories, galleries, annexed chapels, and belfries. A general loosening of architectural rigor is evident in planning, as well as in the lack of relationship between interior spaces and exterior articulation. Moreover, frequent political intersections led to cultural interchanges, from which a variety of hybrid architectural forms emerge. Constantinople. As evinced by the rich collections of relics, reliquaries, and luxury goods from the Byzantine capital now in Venice and across Europe, the participants of the Fourth Crusade were far more interested in loot than in cultural investment. Significant evidence of architecture in Constantinople from the period 1204–61 may be limited to the addition of flying buttresses and a belfry—both Western features—to the façade of Hagia Sophia, probably after the earthquakes of the 1230s (Fig. 23.1).3 Both are new elements in Late Byzantine architecture: belfries and the use of bells became common thereafter, and Gothic-style buttressing was less so. Nicaea. The lacuna created by the Latin Occupation of Constantinople is difficult to fill, although the developments in western Asia Minor during the so-called Empire of Nicaea—where much of the Byzantine court had fled—may help to bridge the gap.4 The capital city of Nicaea (İznik) is best known from texts, which speak of its beauty and the revival of Greek culture, but there is little construction surviving from this period. Early in the century, Theodore I Laskaris restored the walls of the city, raising their height and adding an outer wall, lined with towers, perhaps 3,500 meters in overall length—a smaller Mainstone, Hagia Sophia, 102–13, suggests an earlier date for the buttresses; see also, S.  Ćurčić, “Some Reflections on the Flying Buttresses of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul,” Sanat Tarihi Defterleri 8 (2004): 7–22; and A.  Berger, “Die Glockenturm der Hagia Sophia,” Sanat Tarihi Defterleri 8 (2004): 59–73.

3

4 For history, see M.  Angold, A Byzantine Government in Exile: Government and Society under the Laskarids of Nicaea (1204–1261) (Oxford, 1975).

FIGURE 23.1 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, ca. 1680, view from the southwest, showing the belfry rising above the buttresses of the west façade (F. Grelot, author’s collection)

version of the Land Wall of Constantinople (Fig. 23.2).5 The church often identified as St. Tryphon, built ca. 1254–58 by Theodore II Laskaris, gives some impression of the construction of the period (Fig. 23.3). Now in ruins, it had an atrophied Greek-cross naos, enveloped by an ambulatory, perhaps following the model of the nearby Koimesis Church. Constructed of rough bands of brick and stone, archaeological evidence indicates lavish decoration of mosaic and marble revetments.6

A.  M.  Schneider and W.  Karnapp, Die Stadtmauer von Iznik (Nicaea), IstForsch 9 (Berlin, 1938); C.  Foss and D.  Winfield, Byzantine Fortifications: An Introduction (Pretoria, 1986), 79–122. 5

Never fully published, but see S.  Eyice, “Die byzantinische Kirche in der Nähe des Yenişehir-Tores zu Iznik (=Nikaia) (Kirche C),” Materialia Turcica 7, no. 8 (1981–82): 152–67; Peschlow, “The Churches of Nicaea/Iznik.” 6

Fortresses through the Aegean territories were refurbished and new ones added to form a defensive chain down the coast, where Magnesia and Nymphaion also served as imperial residences. The ruins of the imperial palace built by John Vatatzes after 1222 survive at Nymphaion (Nif ) (Fig. 23.4).7 Originally a three-storied block— presumably with the audience hall on the uppermost level, it is now a hollow shell, isolated on the plain outside the fortified acropolis. Church E at Sardis, a cross-in-square church known from its excavated remains, is also from this period (see Fig. 16.3). Topped by five domes, with those at the corners blind, the exterior featured a variety of brick patterning.8 Churches surviving at monasteries at 7 H. Buchwald, “Lascarid Architecture,” JÖB 28 (1979): 261–96, with chronology in need of revising for the Chian monuments. 8 H.  Buchwald, Churches Ea and E at Sardis, Archaeological Reports of Sardis 6 (Cambridge, MA, 2015).

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FIGURE 23.2 İznik/Nicaea, aerial view of the two lines of the city walls near the Istanbul Gate, seen from the east (Mehmet Buldu)

FIGURE 23.3 İznik/Nicaea, church identified as St. Tryphon, plan and hypothetical elevation of the lateral façade (after U. Peschlow, “Churches of Nicaea,” 2003)

Latmos (Bafa Gölü) may belong to this period as well, such as the island monasteries on İkiz Ada and Kahve Asar Ada, whose churches have elaborate brick decoration on the façades, similar to Church E (Fig. 23.5).9 Several churches on Chios may belong to this period as well, such as the Panagia Church at Sikelia. Unfortunately, for most examples, the chronology is not secure. Epiros. In northwest Greece, Arta emerged as the capital of the Despotate of Epiros in this period, ruled by the family known as the Komnenodoukai (combining the names Komnenos and Doukas, 1204–1318), with a court in residence, refurbished fortifications, and secular and religious constructions to resonate as a center of power, often with associations with Constantinople.10 Numerous Byzantine churches were erected or enlarged under the ruling families, beginning with the Panagia Vlacherna, the katholikon of a male monastery just outside the city, transformed 9 U. Peschlow, “Der Latmosregion in byzantinischer Zeit,” in Der Latmos: Eine unbekannte Gebirgslandschaft an der türkischen Westküste, ed. A. Peschlow-Bindokat (Mainz, 1996), 58–87. 10 For history see D.  Nicol, The Despotate of Epirus, 1267–1479 (Cambridge, 1984).

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FIGURE 23.4 Nymphaion (Nif ) palace, seen from the west (author)

into a nunnery ca. 1224–30 (Figs. 23.6 and 23.7).11 As the name (after the Blachernae) implies, the foundation had explicit Constantinopolitan and imperial connotations, and it became the mausoleum church of the ruling family. The church is a three-aisled, barrel-vaulted basilica, measuring just under 13 meters square (excluding the narthex), the result of several distinct phases of construction. It replaced an older basilica, of which the apse of the diakonikon is the only remaining part. In a subsequent phase, toward the middle of the century, domes were inserted into the vaulting, with a narthex added toward the end of the century. Construction is a rough mixture of brick and stone, with exuberant brick decoration around the windows, in the gables, and on the domes. But like the brick decoration, the For a reassessment of the churches and their history, see S. Georgiadou, “Architecture and Statehood in Late Byzantium: A Comparative Study of Epiros and Trebizond,” PhD diss., University of Illinois, 2015.

building is oddly irregular, with little attempt at symmetry. The domes are not aligned and are poorly coordinated with the supports, with an additional colonnette inserted into each of the nave arcades. And rather than being expressed prominently on the exterior, the lateral domes are tucked behind decorated gables. Complexity may be the watchword here. With the added segregation of the aisles, the building likely functioned as three churches side by side, and as a family mausoleum, it perhaps followed the model of Constantinople’s Pantokrator Monastery.12 Other churches of Arta took a variety of forms: the Kato Panagia, built by Michael II (1231–68), has a high transverse barrel vault rather than a dome—an architectural type limited almost exclusively to thirteenth-century Greece.13 St. Theodora, built to accommodate the tomb of the wife

11

12

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 562–71.

H.  Küpper, Bautypus und Dachtranseptkirche (Vienna, 1996).

13

Genesis

der

griechischen

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565

23.5 Kahve Asar Adası/ Latmos, church, view from the east (author) FIGURE

FIGURE 23.6 Arta, Church of the Blacherna, view from the northeast (author)

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of Michael II, is a three-aisled basilica with a vaulted portico; St. Basil’s is a single-aisled basilica with lateral chapels. All are small in scale, their flat façades carpeted with brick and tile decoration, including carved bricks and glazed tiles (Fig. 23.8). An attempt at monumentality is evident with the construction of the Pantanassa at Philippias, just outside Arta, now in ruins, also associated with Michael II (Fig. 23.9). A cross-in-square core, with a dome estimated just over 5 meters in diameter, was enveloped by domed subsidiary chapels, porticoes, and a belfry, measuring approximately 25 by 32 meters overall.14 The naos itself appears to have been similar to Church E at Sardis, while the porticoes and belfry are likely the result of modifications later in the century, executed by a team familiar with Western European architecture: Gothic-style portals were introduced, and the keystones of ribbed vaults were found in the excavation. Fragments of opus sectile, wall painting, and gilded sculpture give a tantalizing suggestion of the luxurious nature of the foundation. The Pantanassa provides a prelude to the most important of these, the Panagia Paregoretissa. Begun at mid-century as a modest cross-in-square

FIGURE 23.7 Arta, Church of the Blacherna, plan and longitudinal section (after A. K. Orlandos, ArchBME, 1936)

FIGURE 23.8 Arta, Church of St. Theodora, detail of the west façade (author)

14

P. L. Vocotopoulos, Pantanassa Filippiados (Athens, 2007). CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE DIFFICULT THIRTEENTH CENTURY

567

23.9 Philippias, Church of the Pantanassa, plan, partially restored (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

FIGURE

FIGURE 23.10 Arta, Church of the Paregoretissa, east façade (Giannis Chouliaras)

church, it was transformed before ca. 1290 into an octagon-domed naos enveloped by a two-storied ambulatory, measuring 22.10 by 20.27 meters overall (Figs. 23.10–23.12).15 Sutures in A.  K.  Orlandos, He Paregoretissa tes Artas (Athens, 1963); L. Theis, Die Architektur der Kirche der Panagia Paregoretissa in Arta/ Epirus (Amsterdam, 1991).

15

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the masonry on the east façade indicate that the ambulatory is a later phase, and the masonry changes just above the lozenge frieze on the main apse. At that point, reused columns were inserted to act as brackets to support engaged columns, which rise through three levels to support the dome in an octagon-domed system, the dome close to 6 meters in diameter, above a naos close

to 9.20 meters square. While the transformation harks back to that at Nea Mone on Chios, the solution at the Paregoretissa is unique; the corbelled columns appear as odd intrusions, and at the upper level, colonnettes support Gothic traceries and arches with figural sculpture of Italian character. But like the Pantanassa, the eclectic character was the result of conscious choice. The dome preserves a substantial portion of its mosaic decoration; this and the marble champlevé relief decoration indicate the lavishness of the foundation, perhaps intended to be the new cathedral for the city. The exterior appears as a massive block today, although the rough masonry and the pilasters of the lower level suggest there was originally a portico of light construction surrounding the building on three sides. Above is regular cloisonné masonry with two levels of windows, all two-light windows, each framed by a setback arch and dogtooth. Although the windows are aligned on the west façade, they are staggered on the lateral facades. Four domes rise above the corner bays on the gallery level, with an open baldachin centered on the west gallery. Bands of brick patterning decorate the east façade, although oddly asymmetrically disposed. Constructed quickly, the church was apparently never completed, and the gallery spaces were left undecorated. The thirteenth-century architecture of Epirus had a great impact in the region, extending to what is now Albania (St. Nicholas at Mesopotam; Holy Trinity at Berat) and Macedonia (St. Nicholas at Prilep; Perivleptos at Ohrid), and will have repercussions well into the fourteenth century (see Chap. 26). A final example, the tiny monastic Church of St. Demetrius at Kypseli may be emblematic of the Epirote style (Figs. 23.13 and 23.14). Likely dating from the end of the century, the monastery is associated with a high court official named Michael Zorianos, according to a brick inscription on the south façade (reading ΜΧΛ/ΖΡΝ).16 Despite its complexity, the building measures a mere 13.7 by 13.2 meters. Built in two closely related phases, the naos has a transverse barrel vault rather than a dome, with quadrant vaults in the lateral bays, while the ambulatory FIGURE 23.11 Arta, Church of the Paregoretissa, plans for a ground floor and gallery levels, and longitudinal section (after A. K. Orlandos, Paregoretissa, 1963)

P. Vocotopoulos, The Monastery of Saint Demetrios at Phanari: A Contribution to the Study of the Architecture of the Despotate of Epiros (Athens, 2012).

16

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FIGURE

570

23.12

Arta, Church of the Paregoretissa, interior of the naos, looking northeast (author)

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FIGURE 23.13 Kypseli, Church of St. Demetrios, view from the east (author)

has domed chapels at the eastern corners. Subdivided, the ambulatory spaces are too small to be functional, most no more than 2 by 2 meters, covered by transverse barrel vaults. Space is fragmented, with disjunctions expressed on the exterior. The two domed chapels at the eastern corners are different scales, with distinctive domes and apses and no attempt at symmetry. In short, although it is small, the significance of the building is expressed by complexity of forms, rather than by monumentality, enhanced by the abundant surface decoration in brick and tile. Morea. Although coming under the control of Western Europeans, the situation in the Peloponnese could not be more different than that of Constantinople. Following the conquest of the Peloponnese (or Morea) in 1205 by William of Champlitte and Geoffrey of Villehardouin, Andravida (or Andreville) was established in the northwest as the capital and administrative center. The castle at nearby Chlemoutsi (or Clermont, 1220–23) was a luxurious, French-style fortified royal residence (Fig. 23.15). The most ambitious undertaking, built by Geoffrey de Villehardouin in 1220–23, Chlemoutsi consisted of a hilltop hexagonal citadel and outer enclosure, with features similar to those at Crac de Chevaliers (see CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE DIFFICULT THIRTEENTH CENTURY

FIGURE 23.14 Kypseli, Church of St. Demetrios, plan and transverse section through the bema and lateral chapels (after P. Vocotopoulos, Monastery of St. Demetrius, 2012)

571

23.15 Chlemoutsi Castle, aerial view (©Ministry of Culture & Sports, Ephorate of Antiquities of Eleia— Chlemoutzi Castle, Archaeological Receipts Fund) FIGURE

Fig. 20.33). A port and economic center was subsequently established at Glarentza (Clarence), a villeneuf, comparable to Aigues Mortes in the south of France.17 While the “triangle of power” developed in the northeast Peloponnese may have been exclusively Western in its architecture and population, the cultural developments of the period were not without the support of the local Greek archontes, who were quickly integrated into the feudal system.18 Indeed, while the urban centers were primarily Latin—at least in the administration, the countryside remained Greek. Interethnic assimilation, coupled with a regional identity, came to be shared by both Latins and Greeks— the pragmatism of a premodern frontier zone. The ruling Villehardouins learned to speak Greek, and there were a variety of Greeks who spoke 17 D. Athanasoulis, “The Triangle of Power: Building Projects in the Metropolitan Area of the Crusader Principality of the Morea,” in Viewing the Morea: Land and People in the Late Medieval Peloponnese, ed. S. E. J. Gerstel (Washington, DC, 2013), 111–51.

For background, see G.  Page, Being Byzantine: Greek Identity before the Ottomans (Cambridge, 2008); and A.  Bon, La Morée franque: Recherches historiques, topographiques et archéologiques sur la principauté de d’Achaïe (Paris, 1969). 18

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French; there were intermarriages on all social levels. Unlike Constantinople, the Peloponnese had less of the ideology of Byzantine superiority and the consequent automatic disparagement of foreigners. Ethnic identity was more negotiable; language barriers were crossed; Orthodox and Catholics attended services in each others’ churches; Byzantines became feudatories in the Frankish system. Moreover, they intermarried, and their children could in effect choose their ethnic identity. Both groups felt a localized identity that, by the end of the century, stood in opposition to both Angevin and Constantinopolitan rule. Throughout the territory, a number of large basilicas were constructed in a Gothic style, to serve the needs of the new, Roman Catholic population. French Cistercians founded monasteries at Zarakas and Isova, although both were subsequently abandoned and are now in ruins. The Church of St. Sophia at Andravida was built at mid-century as a timber-roofed structure with a vaulted sanctuary with squared apses, covered by ribbed groin vaults on pointed arches—forms immediately recognizable from the mendicant churches of France and Italy (Fig. 23.16). Although

FIGURE 23.16 Andravida, Church of St. Sophia, remains of the sanctuary, looking northeast (author)

FIGURE

23.17

Glarentza, Church of St. Francis, plan partially restored (after D. Athanasoulis, “Triangle of Power,” 2013)

the church belonged to the Dominicans, it doubled as an audience hall for Geoffrey de Villehardouin, as well as the court chapel and cathedral. The Church of St. Francis at Glarentza, dated to the 1260s, was similar in form and function to St. Sophia at Andravida—that is, serving a combination of monastic (Franciscan), public assembly, and lay worship, with a similar plan (Fig. 23.17).

These buildings dramatically commanded the landscape with their distinctive foreignness. In all, however, the imported plans, details, and structural systems combined with regionally established construction techniques, testifying to workshops of mixed backgrounds—that is, they speak more of cooperation than of conflict. At the same time, standard design continued. The numerous small,

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23.18 Merbaka, Church of the Koimesis, view from the southeast (author) FIGURE

domed churches of the Peloponnese, constructed in a Byzantine style but exhibiting Gothic detailing, have been viewed within an Orthodox Byzantine context and thus were thought to belong to an earlier period, but this interpretation is now in question.19 The Church of the Koimesis at Merbaka, for example, is a carefully constructed cross-in-square church, lavishly decorated on the exterior with a combination of brick patterning, spolia, carved stone, and glazed ceramic bowls (Fig. 23.18). Much seems to depend on the nearby Hagia Mone, dated 1149, with which it is often compared (see Figs. 17.22 and 17.24). Many of the ceramic bowls are in a technique known as proto-majolica, introduced For the older view, see Bon, Morée franque; challenged by M. L. Coulson, “The Church of Merbaka: Cultural Diversity and Integration in the 13th Century Peloponnese,” PhD diss., Courtauld Institute of Art, 2002; Ch. Bouras, “The Impact of Frankish Architecture on Thirteenth-Century Byzantine Architecture,” in The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, ed. A. Laiou and R. P. Mottahedeh (Washington, DC, 2001), 247–62.

19

574

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from Italy around the middle of the thirteenth century; these, in combination with some Gothic details—colonnettes and capitals in the window frames—place Merbaka into the latter part of the thirteenth century and within the context of Frankish patronage, perhaps associated with William of Moerbeke, archbishop of Frankish Corinth, as the unusual toponym suggests. Churches at Gastouni, Elis, Geraki, and elsewhere fit into a growing picture of Moreote architecture as the product of a mixed workforce serving a heterogeneous clientele. At Gastouni, the Panagia Katholike is close in style to the churches of Epirus, but it is decorated with proto-majolica bowls similar to those at Merbaka (Fig. 23.19). The dedicatory inscription records that it was a private foundation of 1278/79 by the Kalligopoulos clan, a local family of archontes, or wealthy landowners, who prospered under the Villehardouins—among whose brothers, the oldest was named Youliam, or William. The unusual name selection could be the result of either prestige bias or intermarriage. There is even the suggestion that the Kalligop-

FIGURE 23.19 Gastouni, Church of the Panagia Katholike, view from the north (author)

ouloi converted to Catholicism—something not unheard of in this period.20 The katholikon of the Blachernai Monastery at Elis offers a more obvious blending of forms (Figs. 23.20 and 23.21). The three-aisled basilica was once thought to have been begun in the twelfth century and finished in the thirteenth, with a lancet window in the gallery, ribbed groin vaults in the narthex, and Gothicstyle colonnettes and crocket capitals. More likely, this is one build, as there are Gothic elements mixed into the alleged Byzantine portions.21 In all, these small buildings may have been private rather than institutional foundations—that is, the outward appearance may be more indicative of social status rather than ethnicity. Trebizond. Founded in 1204 by the grandsons of Andronikos Komnenos with Georgian support, the “Empire” of Trebizond in northwest

Anatolia, ruled by the so-called Grand Komnenoi, survived until 1461 (Fig. 23.22). With the advance of the Seljuk Turks northward, Trebizond was cut off from Greek- and Latin-ruled territories to the west; its history was more closely aligned with that of Anatolia and the Black Sea than with the later Byzantine Empire.22 Nevertheless, the Trapezundines saw themselves as Greeks and sought to define their state vis-à-vis Laskarid Nicaea and subsequently Palaiologan Constantinople. Their fluctuating and negotiable identities are evident in their architecture. The cathedral Church of the Panagia Chrysokephalos (Fatih Camii) was the first largescale project of the Grand Komnenoi; it also served as their mortuary and coronation church and was thus the most important church of the empire (Figs. 23.23–23.25).23 Begun sometime after 1214,

D. Athanasoulis, “He anachronologese tou naou tes Panagias tes Katholikes ste Gastoune,” DChAE 24 (2003): 63–78.

22

20

H. Grossman, “Syncretism Made Concrete: The Case for Hybrid Architecture in Post–Fourth Crusade Greece,” in Archaeology in Architecture: Studies in Honor of Cecil  L.  Striker, ed. J.  Emerick and D. Deliyannis (Mainz, 2005), 65–73.

21

M.  Angold, “Byzantium in Exile,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History 5: c. 1198–1300, ed. D.  Abulafia (Cambridge, 1999), 543–68; also W. Miller, Trebizond: The Last Greek Empire (London, 1926). For the churches see Ballance, “The Byzantine Churches of Trebizond”; and Georgiadou, “Architecture and Statehood.”

23

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FIGURE 23.20 Elis, Church of the Blacherna, view from the south (author)

FIGURE 23.21 Elis, Church of the Blacherna, plan (after D. Athanasoulis, “Triangle of Power,” 2013)

it was completed by 1235, when the second ruler of Trebizond, Andronikos I Gidon (1222–35), was buried there. They also replaced the major pilgrimage Church of St. Eugenios (Yeni Cuma Camii), although the chronology for both continues to be debated—neither has been examined in detail, as both function as mosques. Both were originally three-aisled basilicas, of ashlar construction, with 576

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banded barrel vaults over the nave, similar to the older St. Anne, as well as to nearby Georgian barrel-vaulted churches. In both, however, the central bays were reconfigured to insert a crossing and dome, as well as projecting lateral porches, all probably following the model of the newly built Hagia Sophia—and both phases in the thirteenth century. In their barrel-vaulted form, the churches had a regional identity, while remodeled with domes, their Byzantine identity would have been emphasized—perhaps reflecting the re-establishment of power in Constantinople. The most important monument of this period, Hagia Sophia, is usually dated ca. 1238–63 and attributed to Manuel I, built to be the new mortuary church of the imperial family (Figs. 23.26– 23.28).24 A monastic church, located 3 kilometers west of the city, the Hagia Sophia is a singular construction. It was built on a cross-in-square plan of large scale, 14 by 31 meters overall, expanded by barrel-vaulted, colonnaded porches on three sides. Its dome is raised above four columns, A. Eastmond, Art and Identity in Thirteenth-Century Byzantium: Hagia Sophia and the Empire of Trebizond (Burlington, 2004); Georgiadou, “Architecture and Statehood,” argues for a slightly later date. 24

FIGURE 23.22 Trebizond (Trabzon), view of the city from the north, with remains of the Byzantine citadel and palace at the center (author)

FIGURE 23.23 Trebizond, Faith Camii/Church of the Panagia Chrysephalos, view from the northeast (Sofia Georgiadou)

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FIGURE 23.24 Trebizond, Faith Camii/Church of the Panagia Chrysephalos, plan (redrawn after S. Ballance, AnatSt, 1960)

23.25 Trebizond, Faith Camii/ Church of the Panagia Chrysephalos, interior, looking east (author) FIGURE

with both columns and capitals imported from Constantinople, as was likely the cross-in-square plan, unusual in the region. In contrast, its stone construction and carved detailing betray its mixed origins, exhibiting a combination of regional, Caucasian, and Seljuk features, with relief sculpture in profusion on the south porch and curious muqarnas decoration on the west porch. The origin of its distinctive lateral porches remains 578

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unclear. Significant construction continued in Trebizond into the fifteenth century. The Seljuks of Rûm. Following their success in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuk Turks swept across Anatolia, as far west as Nicaea, which they held briefly, while establishing Konya (the formerly Byzantine city of Ikonion) as their capital in 1091.25 Forming a separate sultanate from the Great Seljuk Empire centered in Persia, they identified their territory as Rûm, or Roman (meaning Byzantine), gradually expanding their control from central Anatolia to reach both the Mediterranean Sea in the south and the Black Sea in the north. As a consequence of the continuing turmoil, however, we do not have significant evidence of cultural production until at least the end of the twelfth century. Konya was captured by the Mongols in the battle of Köşe Dağı in 1243, although the Seljuks continued to rule a vassal state after that time, with significant architectural production. During the first half of the thirteenth century, the Seljuks undertook an ambitious building program of unprecedented scale, building mosques, schools, hospitals, and fortifications, and they established networks of caravansarays along the major east–west and north–south trade routes— evidence of their economic prosperity and ability to marshal a workforce. Both stand in sharp contrast to the comparatively modest Byzantine construction of the preceding centuries. The 25

Peacock and Nur Yıldız, Seljuks of Anatolia.

FIGURE 23.26 Trebizond, Church of St. Sophia, view from the southeast, with the belfry in the distance (author)

workforce must have been heterogeneous, for there is ample evidence in the architectural details and masons’ marks for Caucasian builders participating in design and construction. Konya centers on an artificial mound, the acropolis of the ancient city, which became the citadel of the Seljuk city, including an older Byzantine church at its summit (now disappeared), as well as the mosque and the palace of the Seljuk rulers. The city walls were expanded and refurbished on the order of Alaeddin Keykubad (r. 1219–36) in 1219–21 and are documented in older views, although they no longer survive (Fig. 23.29). Lavishly decorated with sculpture—both spolia and newly created figural pieces—as well as numerous inscriptions, the walls formed a sort of mirror of the state, as well as an expression of personal imperial authority. They incorporate the pre-Islamic past with the present in a nexus of history, myth, and religion—that is, with messages not unlike those of the sculptural programs assembled for the foundation of Constantinople in the early fourth century.26

From the palatial residence in Konya’s citadel, a late twelfth-century pavilion survived into the nineteenth century, when it was photographed.27 Originally two storied, it had balconies facing in three directions over the city. Although older, it was refurbished by Alaeddin Keykubad, as was the city’s central mosque, the Alaeddin Camii, which lay behind the palace to the south (Fig. 23.30).28 A curious mélange of different elements and styles, with an overall trapezoidal shape, the complex combines commemorative, funerary, and religious forms and functions, including the distinctive conically roofed tomb tower of Kılıç Arslan II (r. 1156–92) within its courtyard, along with an unfinished tomb tower, as well as a hypostyle hall, a domed mihrab, and adjoining hall. The preponderance of early Byzantine spolia has led to the suggestion that the mosque replaced a converted fifth-century church, whose building materials were systematically reused. The distinctive

S. Redford, “The Seljuks of Rum and the Antique,” Muqarnas 10 (1993): 148–56.

28

26

F. Sarre, Der Kiosk von Konia (Berlin, 1936); R. McClary, Rum Seljuq Architecture, 1170–1220: The Patronage of Sultans (Edinburgh, 2017), 3–38.

27

S.  Redford, “The Alaeddin Mosque in Konya Reconsidered,” Artibus Asiae 51 (1991): 54–74.

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579

23.27 Trebizond, Church of St. Sophia, plan (after D. Talbot Rice, Church of Haghia Sophia, 1968) FIGURE

north façade, which faced the palace, features windows framed by spoliated Byzantine mullions, as well as elegant portals framed in bichrome marble interlace and sculpted frames, the work of an architect from Damascus. One curious feature is the elbow columns, flanking the doorway—an import from Crusader architecture, presumably by way of Syria. 580

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The İnce Minareli Medrese at Konya, built after the Mongol takeover in 1258, continues the tradition of fine sculpture. Its elegant façade combines vegetal motifs, interlace, and long bands of calligraphy, two of which frame the door and overlap (Figs. 23.31 and 23.32). The tall minaret (destroyed by lightning in 1901) was decorated with glazed tiles, as was the dome covering the interior. The latter rises

FIGURE 23.28 Trebizond, Church of St. Sophia, interior, looking east (author)

FIGURE 23.29 Konya, view of the city walls in 1826, decorated with spolia and other sculptures, now destroyed (L. de Laborde, Voyage en Orient I, 1837)

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581

23.30 Konya, Alaeddin Camii, detail of the north portal (H. Comertel, Wikimedia Commons) FIGURE

23.31 Konya, İnce Minareli in 1884, seen from the citadel in 1884 (John Henry Haynes, University of Pennsylvania Museum Archives) FIGURE

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FIGURE 23.32 Konya, İnce Minareli, interior view (author)

above “Turkish triangles” which provide the transition above the square space, flanked by the rooms of the students and an axial ayvan mosque. Dormitories for the students flank the central hall, which in older medreses would have been an open court. The Sultan Han, built by Alaeddin Keykubad in 1330s, on the road near Aksaray, offers a good example of the type of caravansaray built as charitable foundations for the comfort and protection of travelers—a sort of medieval version of the truck stop (Figs. 23.33 and 23.34). Enclosing an area of approximately 3,900 square meters, rooms are organized around a courtyard that provided essential services, such as bathing, cooking, and dining, as well as accommodation. A raised mosque appears at the center of the courtyard. The large hall included stables for pack animals within its side aisles, with a raised platform at its center for their keepers. The exterior is relatively austere, appearing like a fortress, with the exception of the elegantly decorated portal, covered by a muqarnas vault. A similar vault marks the entrance into the hall, whose central aisle is covered by a banded barrel vault and a dome, with transverse vaults over the side aisles. Impressive in its own right, the

Sultan Han is but one of perhaps two hundred Seljuk caravanserais built within a fifty-year period. Divriği. The Seljuks were not the only Turks building in Central Anatolia. The Great Mosque and Hospital at Divriği, built 1228–29 by the local dynasty of the Mengujekids, offers a dizzying array of architectural forms reflecting the range of cultural interchange in thirteenth-century Anatolia (Figs. 23.35–23.38).29 The plan is a relatively conservative five-aisled mosque, with a high dome above the mihrab; this is combined with a centrally planned madrasa-like complex that served as the hospital, with rooms organized around a covered courtyard. A corner room in the latter, designated a tomb chamber, has a high dome and a window opening into the mosque. The common combination of functions and standard typology stands in sharp contrast to the decorative program. The vast array of architectural sculpture and vault forms in the complex are without parallel. Each of the portals is distinctive in its carving, 29 O. Pancaroğlu, “The Mosque–Hospital Complex at Divriği: A History of Relations and Transitions,” Anadolu ve Çevresinde Ortaçağ 3 (2009): 169–98.

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583

23.33 Sultan Han, plan and longitudinal section (after A. Gabriel, Monuments turcs I, 1931) FIGURE

23.34 Sultan Han, interior of the vaulted hall (author) FIGURE

584

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FIGURE 23.35 Divriği, Mosque– Hospital, north portal (author)

FIGURE 23.36 Divriği, plan and longitudinal section (redrawn after A. Gabriel, Monuments turcs II, 1934)

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23.37 Divriği, interior of the mosque, looking southeast (author)

FIGURE

23.38 Divriği, variations in vault forms from the mosque: (A) fan vault; (B) pumpkin dome on squinches; (C) folded plate vault; (D) ribbed vault (author) FIGURE

586

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FIGURE 23.39 Haghpat, monastery, general view looking east, with the Virgin’s Chapel at the center (author)

with the unique north entrance to the mosque the most elaborate; by contrast, the smaller east portal would not have been out of place in Konya. Vault forms are similarly elaborated: ribbed vaults, a pumpkin dome, fan vaults, and others of decorative complexity. The name of a mason from Ahlat (eastern Anatolia) is recorded, as well as a carpenter (?) from Tbilisi (Georgia), suggesting a mobile and heterogeneous workforce. Armenia. The thirteenth-century Caucasus also saw a great deal of construction. Although architecture in Georgian territories remained relatively conservative, new and complex forms emerged in Armenia.30 Curiously, the architecture of the church proper remained relatively conservative as well—usually domed and cruciform with corner compartments on two levels, the dome rising above pendentives, with the surfaces of the vaults unarticulated to allow for painted decoration. The exteriors are similarly formulaic. Within monastic complexes, however, many were now surrounded by clusters of subsidiary buildings, loosely organized and distinct, the whole often fortified, as at 30

S. Mnats’akanyan, Architektura armjanskich pritvorov (Erevan, 1952).

the monasteries of Sanahin and Haghbat in the mountainous north (Figs. 23.39 and 23.40) or Geghard in a gorge near Garni (Figs. 23.41–23.43). All grew around older foundations. Geghard is primarily from the thirteenth century, at the site of an older cave hermitage and spring, expanded with both rock-cut and masonry architecture. Some of the additions were small chapels, the result of private benefaction, but there are also belfries, refectories, and libraries. Most impressive and original of the thirteenthcentury additions is the monumental entry vestibule, usually set on the western side of the church and called either a gavit or a zhamatun.31 These were multipurpose spaces that could serve as meeting halls, burial places, overflow from the church, or even the setting for services when the main church was not used. Although they originated earlier, they proliferate in the thirteenth century. Occasionally these had a three-naved plan (as in the north gavit at Sanahin), but more commonly they were nine bayed with the central vault opening into an oculus, with a bravura 31

Vardanyan, Hoṙomos Monastery.

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23.40 Haghpat, monastery, plan (after A. Alpago Novello, 1970) FIGURE

display of vaulting forms. In all, variety seems the key concern, with several different vaulting types employed simultaneously or alternating with panels of stone ceiling. They sometimes included muqarnas and other forms derived from contemporaneous Seljuk architecture—and reflected the close working relationship of the masons with their Muslim counterparts. The gavit at Geghard, added before 1225, shortly after the completion of the main church in 1215, is particularly impressive, with perhaps twice the floor space as the church proper. The vaults rise above four cylindrical piers, with the central bay covered by a cascade of

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muqarnas, with an oculus at the crown (Fig. 23.42). Dramatically contrasting with the austerity of the katholikon, the rock-cut spaces added subsequently were lavishly detailed and could easily be mistaken for ashlar construction. These include two rock-cut chapels and two gavits. The first of the rock-cut churches has intersecting arches framing the central conical muqarnas vault (Fig. 23.43); the second is covered by a hemispherical dome rising on a tall drum, with muqarnas in the pendentives, all surfaces lavishly detailed. For most constructions, the exterior surfaces remain relatively plain, with carved doors and window

FIGURE 23.41 Geghard Monastery, plan (after A. Alpago Novello, 1973)

FIGURE 23.42 Geghard Monastery, interior of gavit, looking north (author)

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23.43 Geghard Monastery, interior of the rock-cut chapel, looking north (author) FIGURE

frames and sparsely applied relief sculpture. At Haghpat, a great gavit was added to the tenthcentury katholikon at the end of the twelfth century and expanded ca. 1209 (Fig. 23.44). Its vaults rise above intersecting arches that extend from wall to wall, rising above engaged piers, with two freestanding piers to the west. Within the cupola, a second set of intersecting arches rises to the oculus. The gavit added to the Church of the Holy Apostles at Ani is similarly innovative. Elongated and attached to the south side of the church, the central muqarnas vault is set on the diagonal, raised above two pairs of intersecting arches. The other areas of the ceiling are filled with geometric patterning in two colors of stone (Fig. 23.45; and see Fig. 19.15). Innovative vaulting forms appear in other types of monastic buildings as well. The libraries at Haghpat (one of the earliest examples, 1158–62), Saghmosavank (1255), and Goshavank (1241–91) eliminate the interior columns, supporting the vaults with intersecting arches that extend from wall to wall, rising above engaged piers. The refectories at Haghpat and Haghartsin

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employ the same system of vaulting, repeated twice to span the elongated interiors. At the library at Sanahin, the arches form a rotated square with squinches at the corners. What is fascinating is the interchangeability of forms, both within different building types and across confessional boundaries.

, The political complexities of the thirteenth century are reflected in its architecture. While quite diverse across the map, for all, the watchword may be complexity, with new forms developed from heterogeneous sources: Crusader elbow capitals appeared in Konya, by way of Damascus; muqarnas vaults became popular in Armenia through interaction with the Seljuks; in turn, a variety of innovative vaulting forms appearing in Seljuk and Mengujekid may have depended on the architecture of the Cacausus. In Greece, Gothic-style vaults and architectural details arrived from France; bacini came from Italy. The architecture of Trebizond betrays inspiration from both Georgia

FIGURE 23.44 Haghpat Monastery, great gavit, view into the vault (author)

FIGURE 23.45 Ani, Holy Apostles, gavit, detail of the vaulting (author)

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and Constantinople, as well as details from the Seljuks. Even in Constantinople, Western-style buttresses and belfries are introduced into the architectural vocabulary. Complexity is not simply the result of cultural interchange or hybridity, however; rather, it seems to have been an aesthetic choice—one that resonated locally and regionally.

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The decorative complexities of Epirote architecture or the seemingly endless variety in Armenian vaulting forms are particularly indicative of this trend: a wall is not simply a built surface; a vault is never simply structural. While betraying larger concerns and associations of the period, they had a special meaning to a regional audience.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

,

PALAIOLOGAN CONSTANTINOPLE AND A NEW ARCHITECTURAL IDIOM

O

n August 15, 1261, Michael VIII Palaiologos made his triumphal entry into Constantinople, after Byzantine forces had retaken the city from the Franks. He could not have been particularly happy with his first view of his new capital: all too visible was the evidence of looting, destruction, abandonment, and neglect. After fifty-seven years of occupation, the population of the city had been reduced to perhaps forty thousand, one tenth its twelfth-century maximum, while its legendary wealth had disappeared into the coffers and church treasuries of Western Europe. The extensive damage caused by the fires of the 1190s and 1203, the Crusaders’ siege of 1203–4, and the looting thereafter had remained unaddressed through the long decades of Latin control. Nor could the Byzantines have been particularly happy with their savior: Michael was a rebel, an upstart, and a usurper. At the death of Theodore II Laskaris in 1258 at Nicaea, Michael had seized the guardianship of the rightful heir, eight-year-old Michael IV, whom he subsequently blinded and dispatched to a monastery. Regarded as a heretic for promoting a union between the Roman and Greek churches and recognizing the authority of the pope, Michael was refused Orthodox burial at his death in 1282. His position was tenuous from the very

beginning and remained so until the end. Nevertheless, he was able to found a dynasty that endured until the fall of the city to the Ottoman Turks on May 29, 1453. Thus, the Late Byzantine period is often termed the Palaiologan era (see Map 6).1 Under Michael (r. 1261–82) and his son Andronikos II (r. 1282–1328), Constantinople experienced a brief cultural revival, marked by significant works of restoration and new construction to reconnect the city to its past glory, despite continuing economic and political setbacks. Unfortunately, the palace coup of 1328, which unseated the elderly Andronikos, was followed by several decades of civil war, from which the empire never recovered. Nevertheless, the internal policies of Michael and Andronikos promoted the restoration of the city with a profound mixture of old and new that set the course for Late Byzantine architecture.2 They discouraged new ecclesiastical foundations while encouraging the aristocracy to devote themselves to older For background, see D. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453 (Cambridge, 1993).

1

2 A.-M.  Talbot, “The Restoration of Constantinople under Michael VIII,” DOP 47 (1993): 243–61.

Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), parekklesion, looking east, with Theodore Metochites’s tomb to the left (author) 595

[Map 6]

The Byzantine Empire and surrounding territories in the second half of the fourteenth century (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 264)

monastic establishments, which were restored and expanded, often adding large chapels for privileged burials. Building activity in the capital was for the most part rebuilding, rather than new construction; Palaiologan architecture thus looked both to the Byzantine past and to the new complex designs of the thirteenth century for the creation of a new architectural idiom. With the fragmentation of the Byzantine Empire, however, other competing political and architectural centers emerged, as will be discussed in the next chapters.

, The Restoration of Michael VIII. Restoration works under Michael were both practical and symbolic in nature, addressing the infrastructure and defenses of the city, as well as its major monuments, although they have left few visible remains. The court poet Manuel Holobolos lauded Michael in rather vague terms for the “beautification of public buildings, hippodromes . . . a teeming marketplace, law courts, streets, stoas, a multitude of baths and old age homes everywhere.”3 He also built orphanages, schools, and hospices. The Land and Sea Walls of the city required strengthening; the harbors needed to be refurbished. Hagia Sophia demanded to be “cleansed,” shorn up, and redecorated, as it was reconverted to Orthodox usage after serving as the Latin cathedral. Michael also concerned himself with the restoration of two monasteries associated with his family, St. Demetrius on the Golden Horn and St. Michael (formerly Sts. Peter and Paul) at Mt. Auxentius on the Asian shore; he encouraged the aristocracy to follow suit. Michael also built a mosque, perhaps to replace that destroyed by the Crusaders and perhaps as a part of his political negotiations with the Mamluks. More significantly, the Church of St. Euphemia at the Hippodrome was also restored and redecorated sometime in the 1260s; a local saint, Euphemia was a famed upholder of Orthodoxy; her bones (still present) could reaffirm the imperially vested sanctity of the city.4 Indeed, in many ways, the religious and

political identity of Constantinople still revolved around the old core of monuments and cults, as if there had been no interruption. Toward the end of his reign, Michael commissioned a new and unique monument to celebrate his restoration of the city. In front of the Church of the Holy Apostles, he erected a column bearing a statue of his patron and protector, St. Michael the Archangel, at the feet of whom knelt the emperor offering a model of the city. As a renovator of the city, Michael could present himself as a “new Constantine” with a monument before the church where Constantine himself was buried—and perhaps where Michael envisioned his own burial.5 Unfortunately known only from description, the column revived a type of triumphal monument virtually unknown since Late Antiquity. As he attempted to combine symbolism with practicality, Michael needed a place to live and from which to govern, to represent his imperial authority. Both the Great Palace and the Blachernae Palace were in perilous states. Of these, he chose the Blachernae to be his official residence, perhaps because it had been the preferred dwelling of the Komnenian emperors, whose fame still loomed large: Michael was distantly related to the family, an association he promoted to bolster his claim to the throne, adding “Komnenos” to his patronymic or signing himself simply “Michael Komnenos.”6 The project took ten years, during which time he resided in the ruins of the Great Palace. Fortified from within and without, the Blachernae Palace took on the character of a citadel within the city. While the palace has all but disappeared, the surviving building known as the Tekfursaray was likely an extension to it. It is labeled palatium imperatoris on late medieval Italian views of the city and may have been the last standing element of the Blachernae Palace (Figs. 24.1–24.3). Probably to be identified as the “House of the Porphyrogennetos” mentioned in 1328, it was constructed ca. 1261–91 and associated with the unfortunate third son of Michael VIII, the porphyrogennetos Constantine, who was held there 5

3

Talbot, “Restoration,” 253.

4

Naumann and Belting, Die Euphemia-Kirche, 113–17.

Talbot, “Restoration,” 258–60.

D. Geanakoplos, Emperor Michael Palaeologus and the West, 1258– 1282 (Cambridge, MA, 1959).

6

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FIGURE 24.1 Constantinople, Tekfursaray, north façade of the main palace block, before restoration (author)

under house arrest after 1293.7 The building finds no parallels in earlier Byzantine architecture: set between two lines of the Land Walls, it rises over 25 meters tall, through three stories, facing north to a courtyard in the intervallum. The lowest level is opened by an arcade, its interior covered by domical vaults supported on columns. The upper two floors had windows overlooking the courtyard and were covered by wooden roofs. The second 7

C. Mango, “Constantinopolitana,” JDAI 80 (1965): 335–36.

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level had niches or cupboards flanking the windows and may have been subdivided into apartments (see Fig. 24.3). The upper level seems to have been a single large room, with windows on  all sides, as well as a balcony on the southeast corner (facing into the city) and a tiny chapel projecting out on the south façade, supported on corbels. The three-story elevation has often been compared with the design of medieval and Renaissance Italian palaces, with its three levels serving utilitarian, public, and private functions. The comparison

FIGURE 24.2 Constantinople, Tekfursaray, view from the northwest, showing the ruins of the western wing of the palace (left) and an older tower incorporated as a donjon (right) (author)

may be valid, but here the functions of the upper two levels were switched, with an open audience hall at the top and private apartments at midlevel. The Genoese town hall in Pera (now destroyed) may have provided an Italianate model for it close at hand.8 Like many of the early Venetian palaces, the arcades are not vertically aligned through the three levels of the façade but treated as horizontal zones. But similarities with Byzantine tower residences, the Laskarid Palace at Nymphaion, and Seljuk kiosks are also worth considering. And although it is dated somewhat later, a comparison with the Palace of the Despots at Mystras (discussed in the next chapter) may be useful as well. Still, the three-storied block did not exist in isolation: an archway originally connected it to an adjoining tower of the Land Wall, which may have served as a sort of donjon. Further to the north are remains of a second Late Byzantine façade, although with only a single wall rising above the fortifications, facing west, its plan is impossible to reconstruct (see Fig. 24.2). 8

FIGURE 24.3 Constantinople, Tekfursaray, interior of the main palace block, before restoration (author)

Ćurčić, Architecture of the Balkans, 528–31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: PALAIOLOGAN CONSTANTINOPLE

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Construction and decorative details of the Tekfursaray are also unique and correspond only in general terms to contemporary ecclesiastical or defensive architecture. The exterior façade is of alternating bands of brick and stone of great regularity, set with very thin mortar joints. Decoration abounds, with much executed in tilework, laid in a variety of geometric patterns, filling the spandrels of the arcades and with an interlace band between the upper stories—closer to Seljuk or Persian decoration than to Byzantine. The arches have banded voussoirs, outlined with green-glazed ceramic rosettes, another novelty for the capital. Early visitors noted animal protomes on the balcony, as well as emblems associated with the Palaiologan family.9 Perhaps it is best to view the palace as designed to speak an international lingua franca of power and authority. Frustratingly, while other imperial or aristocratic residences in the capital are mentioned or described in the texts, almost none survives. The so-called Mermerkule (Marble Tower), on the Marmara Sea Wall, was expanded somewhat later as a fortified residence, associated with a certain Theodoros Palaiologos Kantakouzenos in the early fifteenth century (Fig. 24.4). It rose through several stories, with a central courtyard, similarly incorporating an older tower as a donjon.10 The Restoration of Andronikos II. Much of the construction associated with the reign of Michael VIII was either secular or directed toward the urban infrastructure, while the major projects of the reign of his successor Andronikos II were ecclesiastical, devoted to city’s churches and monasteries. Of these, the first important undertaking was the expansion of the Lips Monastery (Mone tou Libos, or Fenari İsa Camii), for which the Typikon survives, undertaken by Theodora Palaiologina, the widow of Michael VIII, after his death. In two closely related phases, ca. 1282–1303, the old tenthcentury Church of the Theotokos was expanded by the addition of an ambulatory-plan church to  the south, like that at the twelfth-century Pammakaristos, dedicated to John the Baptist, 9

Mango, “Constantinopolitana.”

U.  Peschlow, “Mermerkule—Ein spätbyzantinischer Palast in Konstantinopel,” in Studien zur byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte. Festschrift  H.  Hallensleben zum 65. Geburstag (Amsterdam, 1995), 93–97. 10

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FIGURE 24.4 Constantinople, Mermerkule, seen from the west, 1905 (Photo Steglitz; author’s collection)

enveloped by an outer ambulatory (Figs.  24.5 and 24.6; and compare Fig. 15.35).11 The connection of the two churches is not straightforward: the south annexed chapel of the older church was transformed into the prothesis of the new church, and the preservation of the older stair tower required the new narthex to be asymmetrical, with an off-axis dome. Most striking in the additions is the accommodation for burial throughout the complex. The inner walls of St. John’s are lined with arcosolia, with additional cyst tombs beneath its floor; these accommodated the burials of the founder and her immediate family (but not her heretical husband). Two additional arcosolia appear in the narthex, with another seven in

11 Th. Macridy et al., “The Monastery of Lips and the Burials of the Palaeologi,” DOP 18 (1964): 253–77; V. Marinis, “The Monastery tou Libos: Architecture, Sculpture and Liturgical Planning in Middle and Late Byzantine Constantinople,” PhD diss., University of Illinois, 2004; for the Typikon, A.-M. Talbot, trans., “Lips: Typikon of Theodora Palaiologina for the Convent of Lips in Constantinople,” in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, ed. J. P. Thomas and A. Hero, 3rd vol. (Washington, DC, 2000), 1265–82.

FIGURE 24.5 Constantinople, Monastery of Lips (Fenari İsa Camii), seen from the southeast, with St. John to the left and Theotokos to the right (author)

FIGURE 24.6 Constantinople, Monastery of Lips (Fenari İsa Camii), plan (after V. Marinis, 2012)

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the ambulatory. Clearly, privileged burial was of prime concern.12 In both its function and its organization, the complex begins to resemble the twelfth-century Pantokrator (compare Figs. 15.26–15.29): although on a considerably smaller scale, it was similarly a  monastic-family mausoleum church cluster. Complexity becomes the watchword of its design, with disparate apses aligned along the east façade and the roofline featuring multiple domes. There is little attempt at integration: the parts read individually, without rigid conformity, and speak to the inherent significance (and multiple functions) of the whole. The similarities with the Pantokrator also emphasized the familial association of the Palaiologoi and the Komnenoi, and it is probably also significant that the ambulatory plan replicates that of another Komnenian foundation, the Pammakaristos. The outer ambulatory seems to be an afterthought: the exterior façades of St. John’s are detailed with stepped pilasters with recessed niches—a common exterior feature in this period; the joint is evident in the masonry on the east façade, although the northwest termination of the ambulatory (and its connection to the Theotokos Church) is unclear. Nevertheless, the masonry is identical, as is the detailing of the facades, with stepped pilasters and niches. Damage and alterations through the Ottoman period have destroyed much of the beauty of the complex and leave much to speculation: on the interior, all the columns have been removed, replaced by broad arcades; mosaics and marbles have vanished. On the exterior, all the original domes have been destroyed, with the major two clumsily replaced; the scalloped roofline of the ambulatory has been leveled, and the ground level has risen by perhaps 2 meters. Nevertheless, the east façade provides an impression of its original elegance: the careful ordering, stark simplicity, and symmetry of the tenth-century apses contrast with the asymmetry, complexity, and decorative profusion of the thirteenth-century apses, an object lesson in the differences between Constantinopolitan architecture of the Middle and Late Byzantine periods. 12

V. Marinis, “Tombs and Burials.”

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Following the models of the imperial Pantokrator and the Lips monasteries, several of the aristocratically supported monasteries of the era adopted the church-cluster plan, similarly providing accommodation for privileged burials. At the Theotokos Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii), the twelfth-century ambulatory-plan church was expanded in several stages, although unraveling the chronology is complicated by the drastic changes effected during the Ottoman period (Figs. 24.7 and 24.8; and see Fig. 15.35).13 The narthex may be an addition, although of uncertain date, with niched pilasters on the façade, like those of St. John of Lips. Under the patronage of Michael Glabas Tarchaniotes, during the late thirteenth century, a small domed chapel was added at the northeast corner, probably with the lateral aisle connecting to it. A single bay, projecting west from the narthex, seems to have been a belfry, its upper portion now removed, with a spiral stairway in one of the piers. A new feature of the period, the use of belfries and bells seems to have been popularized from Western Europe during the thirteenth century. Most important of the additions is the south parekklesion, a miniature but ornate cross-in-square chapel, built ca. 1310 by Michael’s widow Martha to house his tomb. It included an arcosolium in its north wall, as well as additional arcosolia in the narthex, the latter surmounted by a twin-domed gallery. In the second quarter of the fourteenth century, probably associated with Andronikos III, an ambulatory extended around the western portions of the building.14 Thus, the twelfth-century core was gradually enveloped by later additions, in a minimum of three phases. The “jewelry-box” of the parekklesion exemplifies Palaiologan architecture at its finest: smallscale, intricate, rich in ornament (Fig. 24.9). The vertically attenuated interior is decorated with marble revetments and mosaics—a Deesis in the bema and choirs of monastic saints in the corner bays emphasize the funerary function of the H.  Belting, C.  Mango, and D.  Mouriki, eds., The Mosaics and Frescoes of St. Mary Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii) at Istanbul (Washington, DC, 1978); H. Hallensleben, “Untersuchungen zur Baugeschichte der ehemaligen Pammakaristoskirche, der heutigen Fethiye Camii in Istanbul,” IstMitt 13–14 (1963–64): 128–93; summarized by Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 87–8. 13

14

Hallensleben, “Untersuchungen,” 137–39.

FIGURE 24.7 Constantinople, Monastery of the Theotokos Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii), parekklesion, seen from the south (author)

FIGURE 24.8 Constantinople, Monastery of the Theotokos Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii), plan (author, modified from C. Mango, 1978)

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FIGURE 24.9 Constantinople, Monastery of the Theotokos Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii), parekklesion, interior, looking southeast (author)

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chapel. An elaborate series of epigrams extends around the building, inside and out—painted on the interior cornices and carved on the exterior string course.15 The south façade is a master work, whose complexity belies the simplicity of the building behind it. Organized around two unrelated axes, one defines the naos, rising from a door on the ground floor through two three-light windows to align with the dome. A second axis defines the narthex, rising through two levels of windows to align with the narthex domes. Decorative niches or roundels are placed symmetrically to either side of each axis, although the intersection between the two axes is left unresolved: at the center of the façade, three niches of different sizes and shapes appear side by side on the ground level, with a window flanked by niches of different sizes at mid-level, surmounted by a round-headed niche, an ogival arch, and a roundel on the upper level. The design favors small-scale relationships, in which the parts relate to each other but not to the whole composition. Decorative aspects dominate, and a clear expression of the structural system is subverted. Based on the clarity of Middle Byzantine design, one would expect to find pilasters or buttresses to visually emphasize the structural organization; instead, there are niches cut into the wall surface—that is, where one would expect presence, one finds instead absence. It comes as a shock to realize that the plan of the parekklesion is identical to that of the Panagia ton Chalkeon in Thessalonike (compare Figs. 17.3 and 17.4). The building now known as the Vefa Kilise Camii was similarly expanded in several phases, from a Middle Byzantine core, with the addition of a two-storied annex, a belfry, and a threedomed, porticoed exonarthex with burial vaults beneath its floor (Fig. 24.10; and see Fig. 15.6).16 Its original dedication and patrons are unknown, as is its date, although the additions most likely belong to the first part of the fourteenth century. Incompletely studied, it had at least three phases of additions, all unified—or rather, the awkward connections were masked—by the broad outer I.  Drpić, Epigram, Art, and Devotion in Late Byzantium (Cambridge, 2016), 202–14.

15

16 H. Hallensleben, “Zu Anexbauten der Kilise Camii in Istanbul,” IstMitt 15 (1965): 208–17; Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 204–05.

narthex. The portico façade is particularly noteworthy, a characteristic feature of Palaiologan architecture, with triple porticoes on the lower level flanking the entrance, with columns and parapets, framed by niches. Above are five arches framing windows of several different forms, probably originally topped by a scalloped roofline, now leveled. Above this rise the three domes, all originally with scalloped cornices. As at the Tekfursaray, these elements are not aligned vertically. On the interior, the central dome is a pumpkin dome, the lateral two ribbed, all decorated with mosaic. Like the Pammakaristos, the design favors variety and small-scale relationships. Construction is of narrow bands of brick and stone, similar to Lips. The Chora Monastery. Of the surviving Palaiologan monuments of Constantinople, undoubtedly the most important is the Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), which was restored and lavishly decorated by the statesman and scholar Theodore Metochites, ca. 1316–21. The twelfth-century naos was refurbished and stabilized, its dome replaced, and it was enveloped by additions. Unlike the other complexes just discussed, the additions to the Chora represent a single phase of construction (Figs. 24.11–24.13; and see Figs 15.13 and 16.9).17 These included the rebuilding of the pastophoria, with the southern one isolated from the bema to serve as a private chapel. A two-storied annex flanked the naos to the north, the upper level functioning as the founder’s study, accessible by a vaulted staircase set into the northern wall. Two broad narthexes fronted the building to the west—the inner was topped by two asymmetrical domes; the outer opened by a portico façade (now blocked). To the south, a large, domed funeral chapel or parekklesion was added to provide spaces for the privileged burials of Metochites, his family, and compatriots. A belfry rose at the southwest corner (now replaced by a minaret), while the twelfth-century apse was stabilized by the addition of a flying buttress. At first glance, the design may appear an incoherent jumble, but, like the Pammakaristos, it is For what follows, see Ousterhout, Architecture of the Kariye Camii; R. G. Ousterhout, The Art of the Kariye Camii (London–Istanbul, 2002); H. Klein, R. G. Ousterhout, and B. Pitarakis, Kariye Camii, Yeniden/The Kariye Camii Reconsidered (Istanbul, 2011).

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FIGURE 24.10 Constantinople, Vefa Kilise Camii, west façade (author)

governed by a series of unrelated axes—in terms of both its major facades and its plan. From the west façade, one axis leads to the naos and the other to the parekklesion, although neither is 606

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framed symmetrically. From the south, one axis aligns a portal with the inner narthex and its dome, while the other aligns the parekklesion dome with the naos dome. The large size and

FIGURE 24.11 Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), exterior, seen from the southeast, with the base of the belfry to the left and the flying buttress to the right (author)

FIGURE 24.12 Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), transverse section and plan, with the reused portions of the older naos highlighted in pink (author)

position of the south inner narthex bay are reflected in the detailing of the south and west façades. The Deesis mosaic fills its eastern wall (Fig. 24.14). In spite of the lack of clear relationships among the architectural elements and the odd juxtapositions of spaces, the fourteenth-century additions were nevertheless high in quality and the result of a single phase of construction—that is, its puzzling design was the result of intention, rather than happenstance. No attempt was made at symmetry, and the numerous functional units received individual expression. The formal organization might be described as manneristic (or even postmodern), consciously breaking fixed patterns, creating surprising juxtapositions in the relationship of parts to the whole. When considered individually, all are part of the established architectural vocabulary, but the way they are put together is new. On the south façade of the parekklesion, for example, stepped pilasters with half-columns appear beneath the two large arches, but the rhythm is quickened, and identical features appear below the windows as well, as if supporting them (see Fig. 24.11). A column implies structure, but here it is taken out of its structural role and used as CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: PALAIOLOGAN CONSTANTINOPLE

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FIGURE 24.13 Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), west façade, hypothetical reconstruction (Tayfun Öner, with the author’s modifications)

decorative appliqué. The illogic is intentional, adding an element of intellectual tension to a visually attractive façade. Similarly, in the inner narthex, the order and arrangement of the marble revetments seem to have complete disregard for the structural divisions (compare Figs. 15.13 and 24.15). The verde antico frames of the repeat patterns seem to purposely avoid the pilasters and to create a counterpoint to the rhythm of the architecture—and stand very much in contrast to the naos revetments. The west façade appears particularly awkward in its present state, less so perhaps with its original undulating roofs and scalloped cornices, as appear in pre-1870 photographs and drawings, and considerably less so with the open arcade, belfry, and undulating roofs and eaves restored (Fig. 24.13). But there is still an odd lack of symmetry, combined with small-scale relationships and irregularities that defy easy explanation. More importantly, the intricacies of the decorative program seemed to fit exactly with the elaborations of its architectural setting, as if the two had been carefully coordinated—either by a single master, perhaps

FIGURE 24.14 Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), view from the main entrance into the inner narthex, looking southeast to the Deesis mosaic (author)

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FIGURE 24.15 Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), inner narthex, interior looking south (author)

guided by the patron, or by the close cooperation of master mason and painter. In the narthexes, a curious system of domical vaults was introduced (Figs. 24.15 and 24.16).

Normally, groin vaults with triangular segments were used in narthexes, but the extensive narrative cycles of the lives of Christ and the Virgin required larger flattish surfaces. In order to fit the

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FIGURE 24.16 Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), outer narthex, interior looking southeast toward the dedicatory image of Christ, identified in the inscription as “the Land (Chora) of the Living” (author)

FIGURE 24.17 Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), inner narthex, south bay, pumpkin dome with mosaic decoration (author)

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FIGURE 24.18 Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), parekklesion, looking east, with Theodore Metochites’s tomb to the left (author)

domical vaults into the rectangular bays, extra arches were added, springing from the larger arches. While the solution seems a little odd, the extra arches provide surfaces for individual figures of saints. The domes in the building also show a sensitivity to the decorative media. Those in the naos and narthex were scalloped, so-called pumpkin domes, creating a vibrant surface for mosaic

(Fig. 24.17). In the parekklesion, a funeral chapel decorated with fresco, the dome is articulated with flat ribs instead: the flatter surface is better suited to the fresco medium (Fig. 24.18). Throughout the building, the relationship between architecture and decoration is noteworthy. For example, the domed space at the south end of the narthex was apparently used as a place to honor the previous

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founders of the monastery, two of whom are pictured at the feet of Christ and the Virgin in a huge wall mosaic. The holy figures are over 10 feet tall, and there is no way to get a good frontal view in the narrow space. But the view was directed toward the entrance of the narthex, and the figures are optically corrected for this view (see Fig. 24.14). The parekklesion is one of the finest examples of late Byzantine architecture, demonstrating the beauty of small-scale planning (Fig. 24.18). The elongated chapel is topped by a dome, a domical vault, and the conch of the apse, the last decorated with a scene of the Anastasis; the walls are lined with arcosolia for burial. The vaults form a cascading display, and below the dome, where the light is concentrated, the largest of the tombs is that of its proud founder. The domical vault is uniquely decorated with a scene of the Last Judgment. Christ as judge calls forth the dead from their tombs—both those painted in the vault and those buried in the arcosolia below. The architectural setting helps to give the scene an immediacy and a sense of drama unique among Byzantine representations of the Last Judgment. It is not so much a fresco program set into an architectural space as an architectural space that has become an integral part of its decoration. It is also possible to read the architecture and decoration of the Chora as part of a discourse with the Byzantine past and its urban identity. In the building program, we find new architectural additions artfully set against older elements, which were left exposed. With his wealth, Metochites could have easily afforded to start from scratch, but he chose not to—instead, he preserved and built around the older core of the complex. The juxtaposition of old and new was intentional. The new portions may be understood as a response to history, an attempt to establish a symbolic relationship with the past. The domes of the naos and the funeral chapel are aligned, for example, and the detailing of the older apse is reflected in that of the newer apse (Fig. 24.19). Moreover, the builders seem to have been inspired by the difficulties of adding to an older building, to design around, but to maintain the integrity of, the historical core of the monastery. The masons would appear to be addressing not just new functional considerations, but also the symbolic significance of the historical setting. 612

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The mosaic program places the Chora Monastery under the protection of the Virgin Mary, while reinforcing her role as the guardian of the city. The monastery was dedicated to the Virgin, and in his poetry, Theodore Metochites referred to both monastery and Virgin as his protection and refuge. These ideas are expressed visually in the image of the Virgin positioned above the main entrance to the church, where she is depicted with Christ in her womb (Fig. 24.20). The image repeats the significant features of a miraculous protective icon of the Virgin that was kept at the nearby imperial Church of the Blachernae, where the sacred relic of the Virgin’s robe was also kept. Traditionally regarded as the sacred palladia of the city, both the robe and the icon were paraded around the walls when the city was under siege— that is, the Virgin, represented by the robe and icon, provided spiritual protection and was capable of turning back invading armies.18 In the Chora image, the Virgin’s cascading robes frame the view looking westward into the monastery courtyard. Normally a dedicatory image like this one would be placed leading into the church. That role is taken by a pendant image of Christ, for the main church was dedicated to him (see Fig. 24.16). But the monastery proper was dedicated to the Virgin, and that explains her odd positioning. Moreover, the view westward was toward the Land Walls, which would have been visible in the fourteenth century, and the image of the Virgin could be read in association with them. The Virgin was thus the protector of both Theodore Metochites and his monastery—and she was also the protector of the city and its walls. Like the Blachernae Church, the Chora offered a spiritual outpost for the defense of the city. In spite of Constantinople’s transformation and decline, the image of the Virgin of the Chora testifies to the city’s enduring urban identity and civic consciousness into its final period. Smaller foundations. The smaller foundations of the period are incompletely known. The church known as the İsa Kapı Mescidi is somewhat similar in its construction to the Chora and the Pammakaristos, a wooden-roofed basilica with a See B. Pentcheva, Icons of Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (University Park, 2006), 145–63. 18

FIGURE 24.19 Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), detail of the east façade with the fourteenth-century parekklesion apse to the left and the twelfth-century naos apse to the right (author)

FIGURE 24.20 Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), outer narthex, interior of the arch above the entrance, looking west, with the image of the Theotokos Blachernitissa, identified in the inscription as “the Container (Chora) of the Uncontainable” (Dumbarton Oaks Image Collection and Fieldwork Archive)

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tion collapsed following the earthquake of 1346 (Fig. 24.24; and compare Fig. 9.6). A project of this magnitude required an international intervention—involving a Byzantine mason named Georgios Synadenos Astras and a Catalan or Italian, Giovanni Peralta, with funding from the Grand Duke of Moscow.20 The uneven quality of execution is sorely evident in both the masonry and the mosaics—notably in the unsightly bulge in the northeast pendentive, where the fourteenthcentury repair is joined to the sixth-century masonry. St.-Benoit in Galata, which may be dated ca. 1427, preserves a Byzantine-style domed chapel and a belfry, which indicate the continued architectural production in Constantinople well into its final century. The best documented architectural projects for this period, however, are the repairs to the Land Walls, which were in a constant state of maintenance through the period (see Fig. 7.13). A thorough restoration of both the inner and the outer wall was ordered in 1343, the most comprehensive undertaking since their initial construction. Late repairs are documented by John V, John VI, John VII, and John VIII, with inscriptions surviving from the last two.21 Most repairs are in stone, with banded voussoirs in the arches.

FIGURE 24.21 Constantinople, İsa Kapı Mescidi, south façade, detail (author)

tripartite sanctuary (Figs. 24.21 and 24.22). The so-called Bogdan Saray is also similar in its construction, single aisled and domed, probably a private chapel, attached to a residence that no longer survives. Both have all but disappeared in the past century, and neither is securely identified or dated. Twilight of Byzantium. By 1330, the shortlived “Palaiologan renaissance” had ended in the capital, at least in terms of major church construction. The masons responsible for the Chora may have worked subsequently at the Church of St. John at Selymbria (Silivri) in nearby Thrace, built by Alexios Apokaukos, ca. 1328 (Fig. 24.23). The construction and elegant decorative details are similar—at least in the nineteenth-century photographs of the now-lost building.19 Of the later projects, the restoration of the dome of Hagia Sophia is most important: the eastern porR.  G.  Ousterhout, “Two Byzantine Churches of Silivri/ Selymbria,” in Approaches to Architecture and Its Decoration: Festschrift for Slobodan Ćurčić, eds. M.  Johnson, R.  Ousterhout, and A. Papalexandrou (Burlington, 2012), 239–57.

19

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, The emphasis on the restoration of older buildings had a direct impact on the development of a new style of Palaiologan Constantinople. But it is difficult to envision the city around these monuments in the final centuries of Byzantine rule. Foreign accounts often overemphasize the negative, while Byzantine ekphraseis and other patriographic writings seem not to recognize change. Occasionally, we find a more transparent view, notably in the oration in praise of Constantinople, Byzantios, composed by Theodore Metochites, ca.  1303–16, in which he emphasizes the city’s past greatness while recognizing its diminished

20 R.  G.  Ousterhout, “Constantinople, Bithynia, and Regional Developments in Later Byzantine Architecture,” in The Twilight of Byzantium, eds. S. Ćurčić and D. Mouriki (Princeton, 1991), 75–91. 21 Foss and Winfield, Byzantine Fortifications, 44–77; B.  MeyerPlath and A. M. Schnieder, Die Landmauer von Konstantinopel, 2nd vol. (Berlin, 1943).

FIGURE 24.22 Constantinople, İsa Kapı Mescidi, plan, hypothetical reconstruction (V. Marinis, 2012)

FIGURE 24.23 Selymbria (Silivri), Church of St. John, view of the ruins from the southeast, ca. 1912–13 (Stéfane Tchaprachinkov, Bulgarian National Archive, Sofia)

state.22 Still, Metochites gives it a positive spin: the city is constantly regenerating herself. As birds molt, new feathers appear amid the older plumage; in an evergreen plant, losses are not fatal but P.  Magdalino, “Theodore Metochites, the Chora, and Constantinople,” in Kariye Camii, Yeniden/The Kariye Camii Reconsidered, eds. H. A. Klein, R. G. Ousterhout, and B. Pitarakis, (Istanbul, 2011), 169–87.

22

are replaced by new growth. In a like manner, Constantinople renews herself, he argues, so that ancient ruins are woven into the city’s fabric to assert their ancient nobility amid the new constructions. Similarly, he notes how the ruins of the city are recycled in new constructions both within the city itself and—as evidence of the city’s generosity—in other cities. The intended message of Metochites’s encomium is of unchanging great-

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FIGURE 24.24 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, plan of the dome showing area of repairs (author, redrawn after R. Van Nice, 1965)

ness, implying that the new creations replicate the pattern of their predecessors, while glossing over the tawdrier realities of ruin and spoliation. For Metochites, Constantinople could be simultaneously eternal and a city in transition. Another view of the Byzantine city in its final days is provided graphically by the picture-maps that accompany various versions of the Florentine Christopher Buondelmonti’s travel account, Liber Insularum Archipelagi, originally written ca. 1418–20, but frequently recopied through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Fig. 24.25).23 The Byzantines did not have their own tradition of urban representation; the few views of I. Manners, “Constructing the Image of a City: The Representation of Constantinople in Christopher Buondelmonti’s Liber Insularum Archipelagi,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 87 (1997): 72–102.

23

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Constantinople that survive are simplified, showing just the walls of the city with the dome of Hagia Sophia rising above them, augmented by a few gratuitous rooftops, as in the mosaic image in the southwest vestibule of Hagia Sophia. The Buondelmonti views, however, show the sprawl of the city, triangular in plan and enveloped by walls and waterways, with the major monuments spread out across its territory, many identified by name. Both lines of the Land Walls are represented, as is the moat; the fortifications of Pera are also shown in detail. Hagia Sophia, the Hippodrome, the Blachernae/Tekfursaray, the harbor, and a few churches and monumental columns stand out, separated by a loose network of streets. Reflecting the author’s text, there is little evidence of the city’s greatness; the emphasis is on the defenses, while much of the city is empty, with ruins and few inhabitants.

FIGURE 24.25 Constantinople, plan after Cristoforo Buondelmonti, from a copy of the Liber insularum archipelagi, ca. 1450 (Private Collection Photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images)

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In fact, by the time of the Ottoman Conquest in 1453, Constantinople was little more than a collection of villages within the walls, with a diminished population and much dereliction. Following his victory, Fatih Mehmed II (“the Conqueror”) despaired over the state of the city and is said to have considered building a wall around Hagia Sophia and destroying everything

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else.24 He didn’t, of course, and his subsequent engagement with the long history of Constantinople charts the course for the next phase in the transformation of an eternal city. Ç. Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul: Cultural Encounter, Imperial Vision, and the Construction of an Ottoman Capital (University Park, 2009).

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OLD AND NEW Greek Cities and Landscapes

A

lthough the Byzantines regained control of Constantinople in 1261, the situation across the Eastern Mediterranean was far from stable. A centralized Byzantine rule was never re-established.1 Once the court had left Nicaea, western Anatolia rapidly succumbed to the advances of the Ottoman Turks, who had been settled there by the Seljuks. By the 1320s, the Ottomans had taken control of Bithynia, with Bursa (Byzantine Prousa) as their capital. By the 1330s, the Ottomans were clearly in control, and within a few decades they had crossed into Europe and established a new capital in Edirne (Byzantine Adrianople). Within the Balkans, the northern border of Byzantium was threatened by the Bulgarians and Serbs, with the latter taking control of vast areas of Byzantine territory in the 1350s, while further south in mainland Greece and the islands, territories were contested by Western European powers. Despite the insecurities of the age, there is a remarkable vitality to the architecture of the Late Byzantine period, with a great deal surviving. On S. Ćurčić, “Architecture in an Age of Insecurity: An Introduction to Secular Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500,” in Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500, ed. S. Ćurčić and E. Hadjitryphonos (Thessalonike, 1997), 19–51. 1

Mount Athos and elsewhere, older monasteries were restored and their fortifications strengthened, while new monasteries were founded, although more secure locations were often sought. The same holds true for urban developments: older cities with well-established fortification systems continued, most notably Constantinople and Thessalonike, while new cities and settlements were founded at more easily defensible locations, taking advantage of the topography, with concomitant changes in urban planning. The countryside also experienced changes, as transportation routes and the hinterlands of cities were fortified. In many ways, the quality and quantity of architectural investment stand in stark contrast to the more unpleasant realities of the period—warfare, destruction, plundering, economic chaos, shifting frontiers, and the inexorable advance of the Ottoman Turks.

, Mount Athos. The most important undertaking of the early fourteenth century was the renovation of the Hilandar Monastery. Through its history, Hilandar (Chilandari) has always been associated with Serbia (Fig. 25.1). Initially founded by Stefan Nemanja, who retired there in 1196 after his

Mount Athos, Hilandar Monastery, view from the southwest (author) 621

FIGURE 25.1 Mount Athos, Hilandar Monastery, view from the southwest (author)

abdication, it was destroyed a century later and was subsequently rebuilt with the support of king Uroš Milutin (about whom, more in Chap. 26).2 Although probably constructed by masons from Constantinople, the katholikon, built 1300–1303 or slightly later, is regular and conservative by comparison to the contemporary churches in the capital (Figs. 25.2 and 25.3). The monastery itself follows a plan similar to the Great Lavra: fortified, inward turning, with residential buildings facing the central courtyard. The katholikon is freestanding toward the south of the courtyard, with a phiale (dated 1784/1821) to its north. The trapeza (refectory), immediately to the west, was built at the same time as the katholikon but renovated in later centuries. Towers to the south and east of the church are also from Byzantine times, with construction and renovation continuing through the nineteenth century—and revived in the twenty-first century, following a fire in 2004, which destroyed much of the northern portion of the monastery. Unlike most of the Athonite

monasteries, Hilandar is inland, tucked away in the mountains, with a guard tower to protect the path from the shore and a small fortress (the Arsenal) at the harbor, both from the period of Milutin (Fig. 25.4). The church follows the model of its tenthcentury predecessors: a cross-in-square, fourcolumn naos with lateral apses or choroi, carefully constructed and elegantly articulated on the exterior, 13 by 30 meters overall, with a dome of 5.3 meters in diameter. Rather than the cluster of spaces around the narthex, however, Milutin’s church had instead a six-bayed lite—an expanded narthex, with domes above the western corners. Creating a lively, three-domed silhouette, the lite may represent a synthesis of earlier developments— that is, formally and functionally merging narthex and annexed chapels.3 The domes are all pumpkin domes, raised on tall drums, with the scalloped forms expressed both on the interior and on the exterior. The walls and vaults were decorated with painting, while the floor was covered

2 Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 652–55; D. Bogdanović et al., Chilandar (Belgrade, 1978).

3 S.  Ćurčić, “The Twin-Domed Narthex in Paleologan Architecture,” ZRVI 13 (1971): 333–44.

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FIGURE 25.2 Mount Athos, Hilandar Monastery, view from the northwest (author)

FIGURE 25.3 Mount Athos, Hilandar Monastery, plan and longitudinal section (after Hilandar, 1978)

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FIGURE 25.4 Mount Athos, Hilandar Monastery (near), Tower of King Milutin (author)

with marble and opus sectile. Toward the middle of the century, the Serbian ruler Stefan Dušan added the outer narthex, repeating the ground plan of the lite, but with a greater degree of openness and a single axial dome above the entrance. In addition to the lively masonry detailing, it included sculptural decoration and painted plaster, similar to what will characterize Serbian architecture later in the century (see Chap. 26). The defensive measures instituted at Hilandar are indicative of the increasing insecurity in the region, as the monasteries came under attack by pirates and raiders from the Turkish beyliks on the coast of Anatolia.4 As Byzantine power declined in the region, the monasteries collectively sought the protection of the Ottoman sultan, thus guaranteeing their stability in subsequent centuries. Numerous new monasteries were founded in the latter part of the fourteenth century—including Pantokrator, Konstamonitou, Gregoriou, Simonopetra, Dionysiou, St. Paul, and Koutloumousiou, and construction continued into the centuries of 4 For background, see the introductory essays in A. A. Karakatsanis, ed., Treasures of Mount Athos (Thessalonike, 1997).

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Ottoman control. The monastic communities continued to receive significant endowments, and because they were under the protection of the sultan, they were used as treasuries by the wealthy. Architecturally they followed the established model: fortified, inward turning, with a freestanding katholikon, triconch in plan.5 Indeed, one might argue that Byzantine architecture (and a Byzantine monastic lifestyle) continued on Athos almost until the present. New monastic foundations. The disruptions of the fourteenth century led to some movement of monks. Andronikos II had encouraged the Athonite communities to take advantage of the greater security offered by the walls of Thessalonike, and this may account for the prominence of monasticism in the Late Byzantine city (as discussed below). The monasteries of Meteora in Thessaly had a similar start: fleeing from a Turkish raid on Mount Athos in 1340, St. Athanasios of Meteora settled atop a rock pinnacle—the name Meteora means “floating in the air”—and founded an isolated community (Fig. 25.5).6 The katholikon of the Metamorphosis Monastery was constructed in 1387–88 as a simple cross-in-square church, shortly after the saint’s death, expanded in 1544–45 to take on an Athonite plan, with the old church serving as the bema to a large triconch naos with a lite. Construction at other Meteora monasteries occurred during the early Ottoman period, with much dating from the 1540s. Like St. Symeon Stylites on his column, the monks sought isolation by situating themselves between heaven and earth. Before the twentieth century, access was only possible by a rope ladder or a windlass. Elsewhere, monks sought protection in isolated settings, as hermits had throughout the Middle Ages. Caves had always had an appeal. Along the shore of the Great Prespa Lake, numerous hermitages date from the period, such as Panagia Eleousa hermitage of the beginning of the fifteenth century, its tiny church tucked away

Of the twenty monasteries documented by P.  L.  Mylonas, nineteen adhere to the elaborated triconch plan; see Mylonas, Pictorial Dictionary of the Holy Mountain; and Mylonas, “Le plan initial,” 98–112, esp. fig. 18.

5

6 D.  Nicol, Meteora: The Rock Monasteries of Thessaly (London, 1963); Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 597–98, 790–92.

FIGURE 25.5 Meteora, Metamorphosis Monastery, distant view from the west (Michalis Kappas)

within the cavern (Fig. 25.6).7 In Lakonia, a variety of hermitages and monasteries are situated within

caves as well, as, for example, the Grand Hermitage of the Zoodochos Pege, near Mystras.8 Unlike the L.  Bender, “Ermitages et monastères rupestres de la Laconie byzantine (XIe–XVe siècle),” PhD diss., Université de Fribourg, 2016.

8 7

Evyenidou, Kanonidis, and Papazotos, Monuments of Prespa, 54–57.

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FIGURE 25.6 Great Prespa Lake, hermitage of the Panagia Eleousa (Stavros Mamaloukos)

rock-carved architecture of Cappadocia, there is very little attempt to control the landscape; forms remain rough with little external articulation. Thessalonike. After the Fourth Crusade, Thessalonike was briefly occupied by the Latins, subsequently contested by the armies of Epiros and Nicaea. Following the reconquest of Constantinople, the city became an alternate location for the Byzantine court, often with the empress in residence, and was a bone of contention in the civil wars of the 1320s. As the second city of the empire, the city maintained a population of approximately forty thousand, occupying a strategic position in the commercial and transportation networks of the Balkans. Thessalonike fell to the Ottomans in 1387, after which control alternated between Byzantine, Ottoman, and Venetian, before succumbing to the Ottomans once and for all in 1430. There is little evidence for architectural investment after ca. 1380.9

A.  E.  Vakalopoulos, A History of Thessaloniki (Thessalonike, 1972); with update and bibliography in Ch. Bakirtzis, “The Urban Continuity and Size of Late Byzantine Thessalonike,” DOP 57 (2003): 35–64.

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Thessalonike witnessed much construction in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, adapted to the lines of a city plan laid out primarily in the Roman period. Unlike many Byzantine cities, Thessalonike did not shrink after Late Antiquity but continued to maintain the line of its fifthcentury walls, with a fortified acropolis added to  its north, extending from the upper city. Archaeology indicates its grid system was also maintained—indeed, evidence of the Byzantine streets lies below many of the present streets (see Figs. 7.22 and 7.23). Although the Agora had long since fallen out of use as a public space, urban life continued in the lower city, with densely inhabited neighborhoods, as well as areas of ruin and abandonment. The area around the old Constantinian harbor maintained its commercial aspect. The upper city was less densely inhabited, with large areas taken over by gardens, monasteries, and cemeteries. The administrative center seems to have been in the acropolis; the Heptapyrgion fortress, at the northern extreme of the acropolis, however, is Ottoman, dating ca. 1430–31, built on the site of a Late Antique fortress. Unfortunately, virtually nothing is preserved of palatial, residential, or administrative buildings. Throughout

FIGURE 25.7 Thessalonike, plans of churches: (A) St. Panteleimon; (B) St. Catherine; (C) Holy Apostles; (D) Vlatadon; (E) St. Nicholas Orphanos (after S. Ćurčić, 2012; and A. Xyngopoulos, 1952)

the city, older basilicas were maintained; Hagia Sophia continued to function as the cathedral, as well as St. Demetrius as a pilgrimage center. In addition to the churches and monasteries, there is also evidence of the water system, as well as a Byzantine bath and a series of water mills just outside the city.10 While following the complexities of the contemporary architecture of Constantinople, the new construction in Thessalonike was primarily monastic rather than aristocratic in its patronage. Monasteries controlled large areas of the city and must have played a significant role it its daily life. Today the Vlatadon Monastery still covers an area of 13,000 square meters; in the Late Byzantine period, it controlled the city’s water supply, which

came from Mount Chortiates and was distributed from the monastery’s cisterns. Thessalonike also saw the construction of numerous monastic churches in the Late Byzantine period. At the churches of St. Panteleimon, St. Catherine, and the Holy Apostles, all late thirteenth or early fourteenth century in date, a vertically attenuated cross-in-square core was enveloped by a pi-shaped ambulatory (Fig. 25.7). Topped by multiple domes and opened by porticoes, the auxiliary spaces included subsidiary chapels. Planning and construction bear similarities with the churches of Epiros and Nicaea, and considering the political associations, it is not unlikely that masons from these areas found employment in Thessalonike as the city grew in prominence.11

Tripsiani-Ominou, “Byzantine Baths,” 314–17; Ch. Siaxabani, “Watermills, Area of Thessaloniki, Greece,” in Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500, and Its Preservation, ed. S. Ćurčić and E. Hadjitryphonos (Thessalonike, 1997), 338–41.

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 445–59; for the churches see also A. Mentzos, ed., Impressions: Byzantine Thessalonike through the Photographs and Drawings of the British School at Athens (1888–1910) (Thessalonike, 2102).

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FIGURE 25.8 Thessalonike, St. Panteleimon, view from the southeast, ca. 1890 (British School of Archaeology, Athens)

FIGURE 25.9 Thessalonike, St. Catherine, view from the southwest (author)

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The oldest of the group is probably St. Panteleimon, which may be associated with the monastery of Kyr-Isaak, ca. 1295–1314, and was the largest, with a relatively broad dome—close to 5 meters in diameter—preceded by a domed narthex (Figs. 25.7A and 25.8). Of the ambulatory, only the eastern chapels survive, although its full extent had been ascertained archaeologically, and older photographs show an axial dome rising above arcades. A vertical joint separates the ambulatory from the naos, although they appear to have been constructed simultaneously. Proportions are tall, with stilted windows. Construction is of brick with a rough mixture of stone, laid with a very weak mortar, which led to significant damage requiring a protracted restoration following the 1978 earthquake. The Church of St. Catherine (Hagia Aikaterine) is similar, also probably monastic in origin, although smaller and simpler, eliminating an independent narthex, with four domes set at the corners of the ambulatory, which is opened by porticoes (Figs. 25.7B and 25.9). Most important of the group is the church now known as the Holy Apostles, probably originally dedicated to the Virgin as the katholikon of

FIGURE 25.10 Thessalonike, Holy Apostles, view from the southeast (author)

a large monastery, still unidentified, by the western wall of the city. Numerous inscriptions provide the name and title of Niphon I, patriarch of Constantinople, who is identified as the ktetor, rendering a date of 1310–14 and suggesting possible Constantinopolitan associations (Figs. 25.7C, 25.10, and 25.11).12 Both the proportions of the plan and the construction technique are more regular than that of St. Panteleimon or St. Catherine and the decoration is more lavish, with mosaics in the naos, although perhaps left unfinished when Niphon was expelled from office in 1314. The lower walls were subsequently painted, although marble revetments may have been intended. Domes appear above the chapels at the east ends of the ambulatory, with a second pair of domes (scalloped on the interior) flanking the narthex, which could be entered laterally through a triple arcade. Although the construction details are elegant, they are distinct from those of 12 But see Kuniholm and Striker, “Dendrochronology,” for a slightly later date. See also M. Rautman, “The Church of the Holy Apostles in Thessaloniki: A Study in Early Palaeologan Architecture,” PhD diss., Indiana University, 1984; M. Rautman, “Patrons and Buildings in Late Byzantine Thessaloniki,” JÖB 39 (1989): 295–315.

Constantinople. Cloisonné masonry—virtually unknown in Constantinople—appears regularly, and the lively brick decoration of the east façade, with areas of surface patterning, as well as brick patterning set into arcades, all would appear more at home in Arta than in Constantinople. Because of the lack of formal integration between the core and the ambulatory at the east end, it was once thought that the Holy Apostles was built in two closely related phases, but it is now clear that the construction was simultaneous. Here, and in St. Catherine’s as well, doors open directly from the east ambulatory chapels into the pastophoria, and construction appears to be bonded. Most likely, in all three examples, the building was conceived as two distinct elements, with the separate functional components clearly expressed and visually distinct on the exterior.13 The combination of naos enveloped by subsidiary spaces is clearly similar to the Palaiologan churches of the capital, but those of Thessalonike appear to For the debate, see S. Ćurčić, Gračanica: King Milutin’s Church and Its Place in Late Byzantine Architecture (University Park, 1979), 71–74; Kuniholm and Striker, “Dendrochronology”; Ousterhout, Master Builders, 114. 13

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FIGURE 25.11 Thessalonike, Holy Apostles, interior of the naos, view into the dome (author)

be of one build, rather than the expansion of older foundations. Moreover, a sense of symmetry is maintained, although in St. Catherine’s and the Holy Apostles, the northern aisle is more enclosed than the southern—perhaps a response to climatic conditions. Another critical distinction is scale— the churches of Thessalonike are considerably smaller than their counterparts in Constantinople. The entire area of the Holy Apostles, for example, would barely cover that of the Chora’s naos. And yet, the vertical attenuation of the core, with the minor domes framing the tall naos, gives the Thessalonian churches a sense of monumentality. Finally, although their counterparts in Constantinople clearly served for privileged burials, the functions of the ambulatory in Thessalonike are less evident; there are no arcosolia, no indications of important tombs. Several smaller churches survive for the same period, and some of them preserve evidence of burials. The katholikon of the Vlattadon Monastery, built ca. 1351–71, is a smaller, simpler version of the above type, with the domed naos enveloped by an ambulatory (Fig. 25.7D). The  katholikon of the monastery of Nikolaos Orphanos, built in 630

EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

the first decades of the century, is a small, timberroofed basilica, enveloped by lateral chapels and a narthex, the floors of the subsidiary spaces honeycombed with tombs (Fig. 25.7E). The Church of the Taxiarchs (Archangels), also fourteenth century, was similarly a basilica, but raised above a three-aisled crypt, lined with arcosolia for monastic burials (Figs. 25.12 and 25.13).14 Most impressive of the later churches is that now known as Profitis Elias (Prophet Elijah), dated ca. 1360, and the katholikon of an otherwise unidentified monastery. Built on an Athonite plan, with a dome 5.5 meters in diameter, the church was the largest of the late Byzantine churches in the city and is impressive even in its heavily restored state (Figs. 25.14 and 25.15). Centrally planned, domed chapels appear at the four corners; the naos is preceded by a four-columned lite, with a gallery above its eastern three bays and domes above the western corner bays, the whole enveloped by

14 A.  Xyngopoulos, Tessares mikroi naoi tes Thessalonikes ek ton chronon ton Palaiologon (Thessalonike, 1952).

FIGURE 25.12 Thessalonike, Taxiarchs, view of the east façade (author)

FIGURE 25.13 Thessalonike, Taxiarchs, plans at the crypt and main levels (after A. Xyngopoulos, 1952)

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FIGURE 25.14 Thessalonike, Prophet Elijah, view from the southeast (author)

FIGURE 25.15 Thessalonike, Prophet Elijah, plan (after Th. Papazotos, 1991)

a pi-shaped portico.15 In its totality, the church reflects several centuries of developments on Mount Athos and demonstrates the enduring vitality of

Th. Papazotos, “The Identification of the Church of ‘Profitis Elias’ in Thessaloniki,” DOP 45 (1991): 121–27.

15

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Thessalonike as an architectural center well into the fourteenth century. Mystras. In contrast to Thessalonike, Mystras (or Mistra) in the Peloponnese was a new city. William II of Villehardouin had built a castle on the summit of the hill in 1249, although after the Battle of Pelagonia in 1259 it passed into Greek control in 1262. Shortly thereafter, the inhabitants of nearby Lacedaimonia (ancient Sparta) abandoned their homes and sought security in a new settlement on the steep, north-facing slope below the castle (Figs. 25.16 and 25.17). Mystras gradually emerged as a major Byzantine political and cultural center. Initially the city and its territories were governed by a general with the title of kephale (head), with a one-year term; in 1348, John VI Kantakouzenos (who settled in Mystras after his abdication) established his son Manuel (r. 1349–80) as despotes of the Morea, with a lifetime term. The city was ruled by members of the imperial family until its conquest in 1460 and thus maintained close connections with Constantinople and, through intermarriage, with the courts of

FIGURE 25.16 Mystras, distant view, from the east (author)

Western Europe. At its height, Mystras had a population estimated at twenty thousand, including the suburbs. Although giving the impression of a ghost town today—and described in tourist brochures as “the Byzantine Pompeii”—Mystras was occupied through the Ottoman period and was a center of the silk industry; the city burned in 1825 during the Greek uprisings.16 In 1834, part of the population was resettled in Sparta, and the last residents departed only in 1955, when Mystras was officially transformed into an archaeological site. The organization of Mystras was completely subject to the challenging topography and the requirement of defense, lacking any evidence of orthogonal planning. Some areas within the walls were too steep to build upon; others were too precipitous even to require fortifications. Divided by an internal wall into an upper and lower city, the road system zigzagged up the slope, too steep for wheeled vehicles (Fig. 25.18). The upper city was dominated by the palace, which occupied a broad terrace at its western extreme. The oldest portion, S.  Runciman, Mistra: Byzantine Capital of the Peloponnese (London, 1980); an excellent overview is provided by KalopissiVerti, “Mistra.”

16

a two-storied block with lancet windows, was likely built by the Franks at the middle of the thirteenth century to be their administrative center (Figs. 25.19 and 25.20). This was expanded through several stages into an L-shaped complex, framing the open courtyard, which may have been reserved for ceremonial use. The large southwest wing, the so-called Palaiologos wing, probably added in the early fifteenth century when Manuel II was in residence, is distinctive and offers some comparisons to the Tekfursaray in Constantinople, although Venetian comparisons are also suggested. The wing rose through three levels, with substructures of utilitarian function at the bottom, with a modular series of vaulted apartments above, either for servants or for guards (Fig. 25.21). Each was equipped with a fireplace. Both levels were fronted by arcades facing toward the courtyard, supporting a large terrace on the uppermost level. Behind the terrace lay the audience hall, an enormous interior space measuring 10.5 by 36.3 meters internally, covered by a wooden roof. A niche at the center of the long wall seems to have been the setting from the despot’s throne. Unfortunately, none of the interior decoration survives, although the carved traceries CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: OLD AND NEW

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25.17 Mystras, plan (after S. KalopissiVerti, 2013)

FIGURE

on the façade reflect late Gothic style. Like the three-storied elevation, the lack of vertical alignment is also similar to the Tekfursaray. The upper row of ocular windows is not aligned with those immediately below them, even though they open into the same space. The evidence of domestic architecture at Mystras is plentiful but remarkably understudied.17 Most were two storied with a utilitarian lower level, usually vaulted, which could serve for storage, stables, or workshops, with one large room on the upper level, usually called the triclinium, in which all Orlandos, “Ta palatia kai ta spitia tou Mustra”; A. K. Orlandos, “Quelques notes complémentaires sur les maisons paléologuiennes de Mistra,” in Art et Société à Byzance sur les Paléologues (Venice, 1971), 73–89. 17

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family activities would have taken place. The earlier houses were relatively closed in form, perhaps reflecting the insecurities of the age, but by the mid-fourteenth century, a distinctive type of house had been developed, adjusted to the slope and oriented to the view. The so-called House of the Frangopoulos is a good example: set perpendicular to the slope with a vaulted lower level above a cistern, the upper level is a single room, covered by a wooden roof (Figs. 25.22 and 25.23). Lined with niches, it opened to a balcony facing the street (and the distant view), with a fireplace built into the opposite wall. The so-called Laskaris House is a more elaborate version, similar in its orientation, but formed by joining several buildings together, beginning with a cluster of single-story workshops on the ground floor

FIGURE 25.18 Mystras, Monemvasia Gate and street view (author)

FIGURE

25.19

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FIGURE 25.20 Mystras, palace complex, plan showing major phases of construction (after S. Sinos, 2013)

FIGURE 25.21 Mystras, palace complex, Palaiologos Wing, hypothetical reconstruction of the elevation (after A. K. Orlandos, 1937)

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FIGURE 25.22 Mystras, so-called Frangopoulos House, view looking south (author)

FIGURE 25.23 Mystras, so-called Frangopoulos House, plan at two levels and section (after A. K. Orlandos)

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FIGURE 25.24 Mystras, so-called Laskaris House, looking southwest, with the Pantanassa monastery and the Frankish castle in the background (author)

638

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FIGURE 25.26 Mystras, St. Demetrius (Metropolis), view from the east (author)

FIGURE 25.25 Mystras, so-called Laskaris House, plan at two levels (after A. Kalligas and H. Kalliga, “House of Laskaris,” 1997)

(Figs. 25.24 and 25.25). In its final form, it was three storied, with three interconnected rooms on the upper level, with a large balcony facing the street; the house was continuously occupied until 1955.18 Both houses must date from the early fifteenth century. The earliest churches followed regionally established types and construction standards. A.  G.  Kalligas and H.  Kalligas, “House of Laskaris, Mistras, Greece,” in Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500, and Its Preservation, eds. S.  Ćurčić and E.  Hadjitryphonos (Thessalonike, 1997), 244–45. 18

The Metropolis was built as a timber-roofed, threeaisled basilica, set near the walls in the lower city (Fig. 25.26).19 This may follow the model of the Basilica of St. Nikon in Sparta, from where the metropolitan see was transferred. Construction may have begun as early as 1262, finished ca. 1273–83, when it was painted. Although the church was later substantially remodeled, the lower east façade is from this period, with cloisonné masonry and dogtooth framing the windows. A similar Helladic style appears in a second early church, dedicated to the two Sts. Theodores, the first katholikon of the Brontochion Monastery, which is similar in its construction details (Fig. 25.27). Built before ca. 1296, it adopted a domed-octagon church type, probably after the model of the Church of St. Sophia in Monemvasia: this may follow the transfer of the seat of the Byzantine governor from Monemvasia to Mystras (ca. 1270–89). The subsidiary chapels were G. Marinou, Hagios Demetrios he metropole tou Mustra (Athens, 2002).

19

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25.27 Mystras, Sts. Theodores in the Brontochion Monastery, view from the east (author) FIGURE

used for aristocratic burials, including two members of the Palaiologos family. Monastic patronage at Mystras was aristocratic, following the model of Constantinople, with which there were strong architectural connections. The second katholikon of the monastery, the Hodegetria (or Aphentiko) Church, built ca. 1309–22, introduced a new church type and stands in stark contrast to the earlier churches (Figs. 25.28–25.30). In many ways, it reflects the close association of Mystras with Constantinople. A curious juxtaposition of a basilica on the lower level and a five-domed cross-in-square unit surmounting it, the Hodegetria introduced a new church type that came to be associated with Mystras.20 In fact, it came into existence only gradually, with at least three major phases of construction. Sutures mark the connection between the naos and the north portico, the narthex, and flanking chapels; the naos and narthex were not bonded on the lower level but are on the gallery level. These details indicate a change of design after the construction of the lower naos walls. The H. Hallensleben, “Untersuchungen zur Genesis und Typologie des ‘Mistratypus,’” MarbJb 18 (1969): 105–18.

20

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lateral doors, centrally positioned in each wall, now open directly on axis with a column. All these details suggest that the church was begun as a simple cross-in-square church and was subsequently elaborated to include the unusual arrangement of galleries, for which the extra columns were inserted. Change may have come under the influence of Constantinopolitan ritual, in which members of the court and other officers take part in the services from the gallery. Constantinopolitan elements appear in the architectural detailing as well, notably the structural articulation of the lateral walls, the apses detailed with niches, and the undulating forms of the roofing. An elegant belfry was attached to the western portico. In the painted decoration, there are references to the major Marian shrines of Constantinople as well: the Zoodochos Pege, the Blachernae and the Chalkoprateia, while the dedication reflects another, the Hodegon Monastery, as well as a distinctly Constantinopolitan style.21 One chapel T.  Papamastorakis, “Reflections of Constantinople: The Iconographic Program of the South Portico of the Hodegetria Church, Mystras,” in Viewing the Morea: Land and People in the Late Medieval Peloponnese, ed. S. Gerstel (Washington, DC, 2013), 371– 21

FIGURE

25.28

Mystras, Hodegetria (Afentiko) in the Brontochion Monastery, distant view from the west (author)

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FIGURE 25.30 Mystras, Hodegitria (Afentiko) in the Brontochion Monastery, interior, looking southeast (author)

FIGURE 25.29 Mystras, Hodegitria (Afentiko) in the Brontochion Monastery, plan at two levels and elevation (after H. Hallensleben, 1969)

includes painted copies of four imperial chrysobulls granting privileges and properties to the 95; also R. Etzioglou, Ho naos tes Hodegetrias tou Brontochiou ston Mustra: hoi toichographies tou nartheka kai e leitourgike chrese tou chorou (Athens, 2013). 642

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monastery. The naos also featured marble revetments along the lower walls—unique to Mystras. The masonry is of rough fieldstone alternating with courses of brick, although the outer façades were probably regularized with plaster and paint. The monastery also preserves its refectory, to the south of the Hodegetria and parallel to it, as well the remains of monastic cells and other buildings, clustered around the church. Others survive around Sts. Theodores. In many ways, the unusual design of the socalled Mystras type, developed at the Hodegetria, reflects the complexities seen elsewhere in the church design of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In other locales, the churches sprawl, expanded horizontally, but the steep topography of Mystras would not allow this; instead, the church expanded as it grew vertically, with notable differences between the upper and lower levels. The significance accorded the Mystras type is evident in the remodeling of the Metropolitan Church of St. Demetrius in the early fifteenth

FIGURE 25.31 Mystras, Pantanassa, view from the east (author)

FIGURE 25.32 Mystras, Pantanassa, interior looking southeast (author)

century. At that time, galleries and vaulting were added to the old basilica, replicating the upper level of the Hodegetria, with a five-domed crossin-square unit. The katholikon of the Pantanassa, completed in 1428 under the patronage of John Phrangopoulos, an important state official, follows the same model, completed in a single phase (Figs. 25.31 and 25.32). Stylistically, however, it reflects the changing tastes of Mystras, replete with Gothic details: stone appliqués with lancet arches and fleurs-de-lis on the apses and similar details on the belfry. The introduction of Western stylistic elements may have come with intermarriage within the upper classes of Mystras. Most notable was the Despot Manuel Kantakouzenos’s marriage to Isabelle de Lusignan, who built the katholikon of the Perivleptos Monastery in 1365–74, attached to a cave with sacred associations (Fig. 25.33). The cloisonné masonry and the two-columned plan of the church continue in the Helladic tradition, while Gothic details appear throughout the monastery, including a variety of heraldic devices. Several smaller churches follow a two-column plan as well, as at the St. Sophia and the Evangelistria, both insecurely dated. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: OLD AND NEW

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25.33 Mystras, Perivleptos Monastery, general view from the southeast (author)

FIGURE

Geraki. Located between Monemvasia and Sparta, the town of Geraki has a history similar to that of Mystras in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Fig. 25.34). The Frankish hilltop fortress was ceded to the Byzantines in 1263, and a town developed on the southwest slopes below it, with a number of small churches. The houses tend to be detached, one or two storied, blocky and set parallel to the slope, in contrast to the more distinctive later houses of Mystras. The Countryside. Moving away from the cosmopolitan centers, we may observe changes in the countryside as well, often reflecting the insecurities of the age. Fortresses were built to protect the hinterland of the cities as well as major overland routes. To the east of Thessalonike, the fortified hilltop settlement at Rendina guarded a critical pass that connected inland Macedonia to the sea. Although an older settlement, its fortifications were strengthened, and a vaulted passage was added to connect to a cistern fed by a stream.22 To the 22 N.  K.  Moutsopoulos, “Rendina, Greece,” in Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500, and Its Preservation, ed. S. Ćurčić and E. Hadjitryphonos (Thessalonike, 1997), 82–85.

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northwest of Thessalonike, Gynaikokastro was built by Andronikos III ca. 1330 as part of a program to strengthen the empire at vulnerable points, controlling the plain of the Axios/Vardar River and access to western Macedonia. Its walls enclosed an area of 2.5 hectares with a citadel and donjon on the crest of the hill.23 John VI Kantakouzenos built a similar fortress at Pythion, in the upper Evros River valley, which served as his personal treasury (Figs. 25.35 and 25.36).24 The fortress consisted of an outer enclosure and an inner enclosure, separated by a gateway framed by two towers. The larger of the two, which served as the donjon, rose through four vaulted stories on a unique four-bayed plan, with machicolations projecting from the upper level. By the fourteenth century, fortified towers were constructed as individual, freestanding entities,

23 A.  Tourta, “Fortifications of Gynaikokastro, Greece,” in Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500, and Its Preservation, ed. S. Ćurčić and E. Hadjitryphonos (Thessalonike, 1997), 110–11. 24

Ousterhout and Bakirtzis, The Byzantine Monuments, 144–54.

FIGURE 25.34 Geraki, general view from the west (author)

FIGURE 25.35 Pythion, fortress seen from the south (author)

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25.36 Pythion, hypothetical reconstruction and section of the donjon (after E. Korres, “Architecture of Pythion,” 1989) FIGURE

refuge or as residences in their own right. At Karytaina, several residential tower-houses are preserved on the slope below the Frankish– Byzantine citadel.25 The tower-house of Matzouranogiannis, built ca. 1400 for a local lord, is two storied, with the triclinium measuring ca. 4.8 meters square, expanded by niches. A vaulted cistern formed the substructure, with an internal staircase leading to the roof. Elegant brickwork (similar to that of Mystras) framed the original entrance, on the upper level. Near ancient Olynthos, the Tower of Mariana was built ca. 1373 when the village became the property of Docheiariou Monastery on Mount Athos (Figs. 25.37 and 25.38).26 Originally six stories tall with a chapel in the uppermost story, the tower’s entrance was on the second level, with an internal spiral staircase connecting to the upper levels. Brick decoration on the façade includes the monogram of the monastery: ΔΧΑΡ. The tower

FIGURE

25.37 Mariana, tower, distant view (author)

like Milutin’s Tower, guarding the route to Hilandar Monastery (see Fig. 25.4). Originally rising through seven stories (the upper level, apparently a chapel, is now missing) accessed by an internal spiral staircase, the tower was braced by buttresses on the exterior. They could also serve as places of 646

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25 N. K. Moutsopoulos, “Tower of Karytaina, Greece,” in Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500, and Its Preservation, ed. S. Ćurčić and E. Hadjitryphonos (Thessalonike, 1997), 214–15 (but with corrections).

P. Theocharides, “Tower of Mariana, Greece,” in Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500, and Its Preservation, ed. S.  Ćurčić and E.  Hadjitryphonos (Thessalonike, 1997), 220–21; J. Bogdanović, “Life in a Late Byzantine Tower: Examples from Northern Greece,” in Approaches to Byzantine Architecture and Its Decoration: Studies in Honor of Slobodan Ćurčić, ed. M. J. Johnson, R.  G.  Ousterhout, and A.  Papalexandrou (Aldershot, 2012) 187–202.

26

often little more than a modest church is preserved today; rarely are village sites excavated.27 An exception is Panakton, a mountaintop site between Athens and Thebes, where a village developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on the ruins of an ancient garrison post.28 The plan is irregular, dictated by the rough terrain, often reusing older walls, with an estimated thirty houses. All appear to have been single storied, consisting of a few irregular rectangular rooms of rough stone construction, with evidence of a harsh, agriculturally based existence. The archaeologists suggest the village was the result of a hasty relocation of a small population, seeking a more secure location at an isolated site, dominated by the remains of the ancient fortress and a medieval tower. The village church was small, single aisled, and centrally located, in scale and quality not very different from the houses around it.

,

FIGURE 25.38 Mariana, tower, plan and section (after P. Theocharides)

served to guard the monastic estates and could have served as a place of refuge. Villages. Despite the prominence of urban centers during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, much of the population remained rural, with life centered in small villages. For these,

Despite the turbulent times, which have left their imprint on the architecture of the period, we have a rich and varied selection of architectural types surviving. Indeed, it is much easier to gain a picture of the Late Byzantine period from the evidence surviving in Greece than perhaps anywhere else. In addition to a wide assortment of churches and monasteries, a variety of domestic structures survive, representing all levels of Byzantine society. Compared to earlier centuries, however, the scale of almost all building projects is reduced, in both religious and domestic architecture. In church architecture, the decorated surface dominates, both interior and exterior, testifying to the continued vibrancy of the period.

S.  Gerstel, Rural Lives and Landscapes in Late Byzantium: Art, Archaeology, and Ethnography (Cambridge, 2015), esp. 10–43. 27

S.  Gerstel et al., “A Late Medieval Settlement at Panakton,” Hesperia 72 (2003): 147–234.

28

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

,

REGIONAL DIVERSITY Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania

W

ith the weakening of central authority, a variety of regional idioms emerged in the architecture of the Balkan states. To a certain degree, the distinctiveness of the various architectural styles depended on distance—both geographical and political—from Byzantium. As in earlier centuries, Bulgarian architecture maintained close ties to Constantinople, but with a greater emphasis on the decorative features of the exterior. Serbia relied heavily on Byzantine styles and Byzantine craftsmen in the early fourteenth century, when political connections were strongest, but by the end of the century had developed a characteristic “national” style, often called the Morava School. Romania—Wallachia and Moldavia, latecomers on the scene—found initial architectural inspiration in Serbia, while the region of Moldavia developed a distinctive church architecture with its exterior walls decorated with fresco. For all, the inexorable advance of the Ottoman army into the Balkans played a critical role in political and cultural developments. Introduced into Europe by John VI Kantakouzenos in 1346 during the civil war with John V Palaiologos, the Ottomans quickly began to conquer territory in their own right, and by 1363 they had established

Edirne (Byzantine Adrianople) as their capital (discussed further in Chap.  27). Bulgaria fell to the Ottomans in 1393. Serbia put up a notable resistance, but after the losses suffered in the Battles of Marica (1371) and Kosovo (1389), the Serbian army was decimated and within a few years reduced to vassalage, although remaining semi -independent until 1459. Wallachia had a difficult history after 1453, although Moldavia managed to maintain independence, until 1538; by the sixteenth century, both had become vassal states. Despite the complex and often destructive political situation, there is notable architectural production during this period—indeed, church architecture continued in all these areas to serve the Christian communities long after the Ottoman Conquest. To a certain extent, religious architecture was employed as a part of the construction of identity among the minority populations through the Ottoman centuries. Bulgaria. After the foundation of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1186, with its capital at Turnovo, Bulgaria benefitted from the disarray in neighboring Byzantium to briefly expand its control into Thrace and Macedonia, but for much of its later history, it suffered from a lack of economic

Gračanica, Church of the Dormition of the Virgin, view from the southeast (N. Zarras)

649

26.1 Turnovo, panorama of the Tsarevets Hill, from the northwest (infobvg, Wikimedia Commons) FIGURE

stability.1 After the death of Ivan Asen II in 1241, the Bulgarian state entered a long period of decline, with allegiances shifting between neighboring Serbia and Byzantium. There was a short period of stability under Ivan Alexander (r. 1331–71), but within a few years of his death, Bulgaria had become a virtual Ottoman vassal; by 1393 it had been absorbed into the Ottoman Empire. Although a center of trade, industry, and scholarship in the fourteenth century, Turnovo has left few standing remains beyond the fortifications on two adjacent plateaus, isolated by the serpentine Yantra River (Fig. 26.1). The fortified complexes of the Palace of the Tsars and the Patriarchate have been excavated, as well as several churches, although none is in a good state of preservation.2 Of these, the most important is the monastic Church of the Forty Martyrs, initially built under Ivan Asen II, ca. 1230, as a simple basilica. This became the royal mausoleum church, expanded in the fourteenth century with a monumental outer narthex and external porticoes. The lower portion of the outer narthex survives, constructed of alternating bands of brick and stone, articulated by blind arcades, outlined with glazed ceramic decoration—details that correspond to the churches of Nesebar, discussed below. A number of churches have been excavated in Cherven, the

second city of Bulgaria, including several crossin-square churches with articulated façades, although their original dedications are unknown. The one known as Church 2, probably from the early fourteenth century, has an atrophied cross plan, its apses detailed with niches and its façades decorated with half-columns.3 Similar concerns for security may be noted across Bulgaria, comparable to those discussed in the previous chapter. At Turnovo, the river and the steep plateaus helped to protect the city, which was also provided with fortification walls. At Rila Monastery, the spiritual center of Bulgaria, a fortified tower was constructed almost identical to that built by Milutin near Hilandar. Dated to 1335, as identified by a brick inscription, it was built by the protosevastos Khrelio (or Hrelja in Serbian), an official in the court of Stefan Dušan of Serbia (Fig. 26.2). Like Milutin’s tower, it was buttressed on the exterior, vaulted on the lowest level, with wooden floors above and a chapel at its top.4 Unfortunately, this is the only medieval element left at the monastery, which was destroyed with the advance of the Ottomans and then rebuilt in the late fifteenth century and again in the nineteenth. As the limited data from Turnovo and Cherven suggest, throughout the fourteenth century,

R. Browning, Byzantium and Bulgaria: A Comparative Study across the Early Medieval Frontier (Berkeley, 1975); Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans.

3 Mijatev, Mittelalterliche Baukunst, 164–66; Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 618–19.

1

Mijatev, Mittelalterliche Baukunst, 124–34; Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 472–81. 2

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4 A.  Kirin, “Contemplating the Vistas of Piety at the Rila Monastery Pyrgos,” DOP 59 (2005): 95–138; Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 522–23.

FIGURE 26.2 Rila Monastery, Khrelio’s Tower, seen from the west, with the new katholikon to the right (Alexander Kouyoumdzhiev)

Bulgaria remained close to Constantinople in its architectural developments. The numerous surviving churches from Nesebar (Mesembria) are perhaps our best indication of this. Located on the Black Sea coast, the town passed repeatedly between Byzantine and Bulgarian control—six times alone during the fourteenth century— leading to the question of whether the surviving monuments should be understood as Bulgarian or Byzantine.5 None of the five late churches with standing remains is securely dated, although they are usually ascribed to the period of Ivan Alexander (1331–71). Although more robust in terms of their surface decoration, the late churches have the solid wall construction of banded masonry, with the blind arcades and façade ornamentation of Constantinople. All are relatively small and would appear to be private foundations. Plans vary: St. Paraskeva and St. Theodore are singleaisled basilicas, while the Church of the Archangels 5 Rachénov, Églises de Mésemvria; Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 619–24; Ousterhout, “Constantinople, Bithynia,” 83–84.

follows the domed cruciform plan of Cherven 2. Almost all had an upper level of uncertain purpose above the narthex, although heavy restorations complicate the analysis. Two buildings may be singled out because of their close resemblance to the architecture of Constantinople. The churches of the Pantokrator and St. John Aleitourgetos must date to the midfourteenth century and are most distinctive for their colorful exteriors, combining brick and stone decoration with glazed ceramic disks and rosettes. Both were laid out on cross-in-square plans. The plan of the Pantokrator is elongated, measuring 6.7 by 16 meters, with barrel-vaulted corner compartments and a pumpkin dome (partially reconstructed), with a large barrel-vaulted narthex surmounted by a tower with a chamber overlooking the naos (Figs. 26.3–26.5). Covered by a blind dome on squinches, the upper room is accessed by an internal staircase. Its function is unclear—either a katechoumenion or possibly a belfry—but formally it serves to accentuate the tall proportions of the building. The dome is

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FIGURE 26.3 Nesebar, Pantokrator Church, view from the east (author)

FIGURE

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26.4

Nesebar, Pantokrator Church, south façade (author)

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crowned by multiple bands of glazed ceramic rosettes. On the apsidal façades, two zones of corbel tables—one alternating ogival and trilobed stone arches, the other with banded voussoirs—project the upper levels of the building outward. The lateral façades are treated as three superimposed zones of arcades, with no coherent vertical relationships; purely decorative, they provide no indication of the internal organization. Arches are outlined with rows of glazed ceramic rosettes and discs. The lack of vertical relationships in the arcades recalls the north façade of the Tekfursaray in Constantinople, which also features glazed ceramic decoration, while the lack of correspondence between the interior and exterior is similar to that of the Chora parekklesion. St. John Aleitourgetos is more regular in its proportions, measuring 10.25 by 18.5 meters overall, and is the largest and most carefully constructed of the Nesebar churches (Figs. 26.6–26.8). Only the lower walls survive, but these are lavishly decorated with brick patterning and architectural sculpture, all carefully carved. The east façade is

particularly elaborate, with blind arcades on the lower level, surmounted by a band of patterned brickwork—a different pattern on each facet, above which rise two zones of corbel table friezes. The north façade (which faces toward the city) is also quite lavish. Piers support five arches of equal dimensions, and the surviving brackets indicate this was surmounted by a corbel table frieze. Like the Pantokrator, then, the façade was divided into superimposed arcades, and similarly, the arcading does not correspond with the interior. The pilasters are pierced by niches, like those of the Pammakaristos parekklesion, while decoration is concentrated in the lunettes and spandrels of the arcade. Coupled arches were added within each spandrel, transforming the field into a heart shape, filled with brick or sculpted decoration. While more elaborate than anything in the capital, there are enough distinctively Constantinopolitan stylistic and constructional features to suggest a direct workshop connection—perhaps filling the gap after the brief flourishing in Constantinople under Andronikos II. Serbia. While the fortunes of Bulgaria waned, Serbia was on the rise in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, led by a series of powerful rulers, who intersected with the Byzantine state in a variety of ways.6 Under Stefan Uroš II Milutin (r. 1282–1321), Serbia became a major political and economic power. Milutin aggressively expanded Serbian control into Byzantine territories but relations were stabilized in 1299, when Andronikos II offered his young daughter Simonis to Milutin (as his fourth wife), as well as Byzantine court titles. After this was a period of peaceful coexistence. Milutin’s son Stefan Dečanski (Stefan Uroš III; r. 1322–31) spent the years 1314–20 in Constantinople as a political prisoner (his father had intended for him to be blinded), but as king continued his father’s aggressive political policies. In 1330, he had a major victory against the Bulgarians, who had sided with the Byzantines. His son (and murderer) Stefan Dušan (Stefan Uroš IV; r. 1331–55), who had spent part of his childhood with his exiled father in Constantinople, expanded Serbian territory to its greatest extent, incorporating much of mainland Greece, with his sights set on Constantinople. In 1346, he was For medieval Serbia, Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, is fundamental; for what follows, esp. pp. 624–85.

6

FIGURE 26.5 Nesebar, Pantokrator Church, plan and longitudinal section, partially restored (after A. Rachénov, 1932)

proclaimed emperor of the Serbs and Greeks. His successor, Stefan Uroš V (r. 1355–71), was unable to maintain his father’s empire, however, particularly when faced with the advances of the Ottomans. Confronting the aggression of the Serbs, the Byzantines sought the assistance of the Ottoman army, who defeated the Serbs in the Battle of Maritsa in 1371. More disastrous was the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, which ended more or less in a draw. The Ottoman sultan Murat was killed, but both sides suffered devastating losses; the Ottomans had additional troops to replenish their army; the Serbs did not. Within two years Serbia had become a vassal of the Ottoman state. In spite of continued infighting, the period of Stefan Lazarević, who ruled as prince (knez), 1389–1402, and subsequently as despot, 1402–27, was a productive time. Medieval Serbian architecture drew on both the Byzantine style and the Romanesque of the Dalmatian coast, with masons probably imported from both areas during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (as at Studenica, after 1183; and Sopoćani, ca. 1265; see Chap. 22), but as close ties and political rivalry with Byzantium developed in the fourteenth century, Serbian architecture generally followed Byzantine developments, importing both ideas and masons. Milutin, in particular, was sympathetic to the Byzantines; moreover, he

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FIGURE

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26.6

Nesebar, Church of St. John Aleitourgetos, view of the east façade (author)

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FIGURE 26.7 Nesebar, Church of St. John Aleitourgetos, detail of the north façade (Ivan Vanev)

understood the propaganda value of architecture, supporting ecclesiastical construction across Serbia, but also in Thessalonike (St. Nicholas Orphanos), Mt. Athos (Hilandar), Constantinople, and Jerusalem—that is, he presented himself as an ecumenical patron of the arts. With his marriage and political alliance established in 1299, Milutin was given the lands he had conquered as a dowry, extending his territories southward almost to Ohrid. The biggest gap in our knowledge of this period is Milutin’s capital city of Skopje. The city had been passed back and forth during the thirteenth century, and with its position on the Vardar/Axios River, it was an important connector into the Balkans. In 1282, Milutin took Skopje from the Byzantines once and for all. From Skopje itself, unfortunately, there is virtually nothing medieval remaining apart from sections of its fortifications, although a few small churches survive in the outskirts. St. Niketas at Čučer-Banjani (shortly after 1299), for example, a cross-in-square church of modest dimensions, gives some idea of CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: REGIONAL DIVERSITY

FIGURE 26.8 Nesebar, Church of St. John Aleitourgetos, plan and longitudinal section, hypothetical restoration (after A. Rachénov, 1932)

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FIGURE 26.9 Čučer-Banjani, Church of St. Niketas, view from the southwest (Ilievski Vladimir, Wikimedia Commons)

the import of Byzantine masons to support new Serbian construction (Fig. 26.9). Within Serbia, Milutin was responsible for several major projects during the latter two decades of his reign. He supported the construction of the Church of the Virgin (Bogorodica) Ljeviška at Prizren 1306–7, utilizing the core of an older basilica, which was transformed into an elongated cross-in-square naos, with tiny domes positioned at the four corners, enveloped by lateral ambulatories and an exonarthex, with a prominent, axial belfry over the latter—one of the finest surviving examples from the period (Figs. 26.10 and 26.11). As with contemporary Byzantine churches, there is an evident lack of relationship between the aisles and the core of the building. The Church of St.  George at Staro Nagoričino, dated 1311–12, similarly utilized the standing walls of an older basilica, transforming it into an elongated crossin-square church with corner domes and lateral annexes. In spite of a dedicatory inscription claiming that Milutin built the church “from the foundations,” the older masonry is clearly visible. 656

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In both projects, similarities with the monuments of Epiros and Thessalonike are strong in the cloisonné masonry construction, brick decoration, and ceramic insets, not to mention the five-domed design with minor domes set at the corners. Both monuments employed Byzantine painters for their interior decoration, and they must have been the work of imported Byzantine masons as well. In many ways, King Milutin’s Church of the Dormition at Gračanica, built before 1321, represents the culmination of Late Byzantine architectural design, bringing a new synthesis to the various elements at play in the near-contemporary architecture of Serbia, Greece, and Constantinople (Figs. 26.12–26.14). Integrating a vertically attenuated cross-in-square naos with a pi-shaped ambulatory, the whole is topped by five domes. Those on the east rise above lateral chapels, while those on the west cover the corners of the narthex. A deep sanctuary is covered by a blind dome flanked by barrel vaults, with a simple niche for the prothesis. Arcosolia in the outer walls of the

FIGURE 26.10 Prizren, Church of the Virgin (Bogorodica) Ljeviška, aerial view from the southeast (Photo Balkan, Wikimedia Commons)

chapels and the south aisle suggest the church was intended for privileged burial—perhaps for Milutin himself, although this is uncertain, as he was eventually interred in Banjska Monastery, a church more Romanesque in character (Fig. 26.15).7 The exterior of Gračanica is particularly dramatic, exhibiting a deceptive sense of monumentality. Measuring approximately 13 by 16.5 meters overall, it is barely larger than the Myrelaion in Constantinople. It rises from the bold clarity in the cubic volumes of the lower façades to the exuberant complexity in the pyramidal massing of the high vaults, which step upward to be crowned by five domes. What distinguishes the planning of Gračanica from the Holy Apostles in Thessalonike (see Figs. 25.10 and 25.11)—perhaps its closest comparison—is the greater vertical attenuation combined with the unity of all components: the ambulatory spaces are fully integrated with the naos, without visual distinction, and with space 7

FIGURE 26.11 Prizren, Church of the Virgin (Bogorodica) Ljeviška, plan and longitudinal section (after S. Ćurčić, Gračanica, 1979)

Ćurčić, Gračanica. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: REGIONAL DIVERSITY

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FIGURE 26.12 Gračanica, Church of the Dormition of the Virgin, view from the southeast (N. Zarras)

flowing uninterrupted from one into another. The façades are dramatically simplified, detailed with triple arcades like those of a Middle Byzantine cross-in-square church. On close inspection, however, it is evident that the façade articulation bears no relationship to the interior spaces but appears as a completely separate design concern. The east façade is similarly simplified, and—again, in contrast to the Holy Apostles—the corner domes are almost perfectly symmetrical along both axes. The talented master mason was clearly familiar with architectural developments in Epirus and Thessaloniki, but in the end, he is in a class by himself—nothing surviving from the period approaches the architectural sophistication of Gračanica. The interior is similarly dramatically attenuated, with the central dome rising eight times its diameter, the corner domes fourteen times their diameter. With the small scale of the building, this reduces the domes to “spotlights” in towers, providing more drama than actual illumination.

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What was perhaps not taken into consideration by the designer was the interior decoration. With the narrow volumes and steep ascent, painted cycles rise through zone after zone, virtually illegible in the upper registers. This is problematic in the naos, glaring in the minor spaces. We may speculate that the master mason and painter (probably from the workshop of Michael Astrapas) did not collaborate in the design, with the painter arriving only after the construction was completed. The sort of balance between architectural forms and decoration one finds in contemporary Constantinopolitan monuments is not evident here, despite the individual talents of the mason and the painter. The patriarchate at Peć is more important as a spiritual center than for its architecture, which is of low proportions and rough construction— something of a letdown after the grandeur of Gračanica and probably the work of local masons (Fig. 26.16). The monastery had been the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church since the late

thirteenth century. The original cruciform Church of the Holy Apostles (which incorporated the lateral walls of an older church) was expanded through several phases, beginning when the north lateral chapel was replaced by the single-aisled, domed Church of St. Demetrius (1321–24). The southern chapel was replaced by the Church of the Virgin, a cross-in-square church with a dome on piers (1324–30), to which was added a small chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, as well as a spacious, open narthex (in its present form, reconstructed in 1557, lacking its belfry) extending across the west face of the three major churches— the latter three elements all under patronage of Archbishop Danilo II. The construction reveals a combination of Byzantine and local workmanship, while the church-cluster plan may follow the model of the Pantokrator Monastery or contemporary complexes in Constantinople—that is, a group of churches, asymmetrically disposed, with domes of different forms, joined by a common narthex. After the architectural production of Milutin’s reign, the Church of the Pantokrator at Dečani Monastery (1327–35) appears something of a throwback, closer to the Westernizing monuments of the previous century (Figs. 26.17–26.19)—and to Milutin’s mausoleum church at Banjska. Built by Fra Vita, a Franciscan friar from Kotor on the Adriatic coast, Dečani was the principal architectural undertaking of Milutin’s son and his successor Stefan Dečanski, with whom there was no love lost. Milutin exiled Stefan Dečanski and attempted to have him blinded; his son, Stefan Dušan, had him murdered but completed the architectural project nonetheless. Stefan Dečanski was declared a saint, and his tomb is still revered. Large by Serbian standards, the church measures 22 by 33 meters, and it is constructed of alternating courses of white and yellow marble, similar to contemporary Italian churches. With the exception of the dome, external details appear almost entirely Western, including corbel tables, window forms, portals, and architectural sculpture; ribbed groin vaults are employed throughout the interior. The unique plan incorporates a large narthex and lateral chapels with a centralized, domed naos. While the interior, with its rich painted decoration, conforms to Orthodox standards, the

FIGURE 26.13 Gračanica, Church of the Dormition of the Virgin, plan and longitudinal section (after S. Ćurčić, Gračanica, 1979)

exterior roofline suggests a basilica with side aisles, more in keeping with Romanesque design. Parapets closed off the lateral chapels and the western corners of the naos. The founder and his wife were interred in the southwestern corner of the naos—that is, in a position analogous to their thirteenth-century predecessors. Sainted already in 1343, the founder’s remains were subsequently moved to an elevated wooden reliquary placed just to the north of the sanctuary entrance. While

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FIGURE

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26.14

Gračanica, Church of the Dormition of the Virgin, interior of the naos, view into the dome (N. Zarras)

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FIGURE 26.15 Banjska Monastery, Church of St. Stephen, view from the southeast, showing surviving areas of distinctive polychrome ashlar construction (I. Drpić)

the contrast with the previous generation of building is striking, it is unclear how the choice of style should be interpreted for a royal mausoleum. The dedication to Christ Pantokrator would seem to refer directly to the great Constantinopolitan monastery where Stefan Dečanski had spent his exile. The period of Stefan Dušan also witnessed a great deal of construction, often similar to developments in northern Greece—indeed, as Dušan extended his rule into the Greek mainland, he styled himself “emperor of the Serbs and Greeks.” Nevertheless, Dušan’s mausoleum Church of the Archangels near Prizren, which survives only in its excavated foundations, seems to have been a large, Western-styled church, although built on a cross-in-square plan. The choice of a Romanesque style for Studenica seems to have established a precedent for the royal mausolea of the succeeding centuries. In contrast, the well-preserved Church of the Archangels at Lesnovo Monastery, built 1341–47 by the sevostokrator Jovan (= John) Oliver, one of Dušan’s powerful noblemen, is a CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: REGIONAL DIVERSITY

FIGURE 26.16 Peć, Patriarchate complex, plan of the thirteenthcentury church (above); plan with fourteenth-century additions (below) (after S. Ćurčić, Gračanica, 1979)

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FIGURE 26.17 Dečani Monastery, Church of the Pantokrator, view from southwest (Pudelek, Wikimedia Commons)

grand cross-in-square church with a domed narthex added in a second phase of construction, ca. 1347–49 (Figs. 26.20 and 26.21). In its quality, construction details, and stylistic features, it would not seem out of place in Late Byzantine Thessalonike.8 Among the monastic foundations of the period, St. Demetrius at Markov Monastery (ca. 1365/66– 1371) is one of the finest (Figs. 26.22 and 26.23). A cross-in-square church measuring 10 by 16 meters, with octagonal stone columns supporting the dome, the narthex merges with the naos through a tribelon. The construction of sandstone ashlars and brick is particularly fine, with limited brick decoration, primarily on the niched apse. The Church of the Virgin at Matejič (or Matejče) Monastery (1343–52), founded by Jelena, the wife of Stefan Dušan, is considerably larger, measuring 14 by 24 meters, a cross-in-square church built on a five-domed scheme, with minor domes over the corners of the narthex and eastern 8

S. Gabelić, Manastir Lesnovo: istorija i slikarstvo (Belgrade, 1998).

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chapels (Fig. 26.24). It is, however, considerably rougher in its construction. The richness and variety of these monuments may provide some idea of what medieval Skopje might have looked like. Serbian power disintegrated after the disastrous Battle of the Marica (1371), in which most  Serbian leaders were killed, allowing the Ottomans to advance rapidly into the Balkans. As the Serbian state contracted, with its focus shifting northward, remarkably, architectural production intensified. A group of distinctive monuments, which Gabriel Millet termed “l’École de Morava” or the Morava School, is often taken to represent the national style of Serbia.9 Smaller and more decorative, utilizing the triconch plan, the churches betray a close relationship to Mount Athos, as well as to the G. Millet, L’ancien art serbe (Paris, 1919); for critical assessment, Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 670–73; and J. Trkulja, “Aesthetics and Symbolism of Late Byzantine Church Facades,” PhD diss, Princeton University, 2002. 9

FIGURE 26.18 Dečani Monastery, Church of the Pantokrator, plan (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

FIGURE 26.19 Dečani Monastery, Church of the Pantokrator, interior looking east (N. Zarras)

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FIGURE 26.20 Lesnovo Monastery, Church of the Archangels, view from the southeast (N. Zarras)

construction and stylistic features of Constantinople, probably coming by way of the Holy Mountain. Two variations in the standard plan emerge in the churches constructed by Prince Lazar during the 1370s. At the Church of St. Stephen (also called Lazarica) at Kruševac, a single-aisled naos is expanded with lateral apses, its tall dome rising above pilasters engaged to the lateral walls (Figs. 26.25 and 26.26A). The large narthex is topped by a tower, offering a counterbalance to the dome. The attenuated verticality follows that seen at Gračanica. Both the tower and the dome rise dramatically through several stages above highly articulated, richly decorated façades. The tower houses a katechoumenion overlooking the naos, with bells in the uppermost level. The construction of alternating bands of brick and stone is regularized with plaster and paint; windows have elaborately sculpted frames, ceramic insets, and curious traceried rose windows in the upper walls—perhaps the result of Gothic stylistic contacts from the Adriatic coast.

26.21 Lesnovo Monastery, Church of the Archangels, plan and longitudinal section (after S. Gabelić, Manastir Lesnovo, 1998) FIGURE

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FIGURE 26.22 Markov Monastery, Church of St. Demetrius, north façade (author)

A second type is represented by the Church of the Ascension at Ravanica Monastery, built at about the same time under Lazar’s patronage (Figs. 26.26B-26.27). At a slightly larger scale (11 by 29 m), the cross-in-square naos has four tiny, attenuated domes at the corners; the spacious, nine-bayed narthex was subsequently destroyed. Construction, decorative details, and the attenuated proportions are all quite similar to Kruševac. In the upper lunettes, the checkerboard pattern is painted in imitation of masonry. Within the naos, the dome supports resemble Gothic piliers cantonnés—cylindrical with engaged colonnettes—although the colonnettes are positioned on the diagonal and are completely decorative, colorfully painted and gilded. Tombs, including that of Lazar, were positioned in the western corner bays. The origins of the Morava style continue to be debated, although it is often credited to the reign of Dušan—notably, his destroyed mausoleum Church of the Archangels outside Prizren and the exonarthex added to the katholikon of Hilandar CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: REGIONAL DIVERSITY

FIGURE 26.23 Markov Monastery, Church of St. Demetrius, plan and longitudinal section (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

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FIGURE 26.24 Matejić Monastery, Church of the Virgin, south façade (author)

Monastery (see Fig. 25.2).10 The Hilandar exonarthex is particularly noteworthy; dated to the 1350s, it preceded Prince Lazar’s construction projects by perhaps two decades, yet it includes virtually all the same details: a high degree of plasticity to the façades, painted imitation of masonry, and carved sculptural ornament, including a rosette window. It is tempting to hypothesize many of these same features at the Archangels. The Church of the Presentation of the Virgin at Kalenić Monastery (1413–18) follows the model of Kruševac and is slightly larger in scale, while displaying an increasingly ornamental aesthetic, with a greater verticality, more complex external articulation, more intricate sculptural decoration, and more pronounced polychromy (Figs. 26.28 and 26.29). Actual masonry is regularized with mortar and highlighted with red paint, blending seamlessly into painted imitation in the upper levels. The Church of the Holy Trinity at Manasija (also known as Resava) Monastery (1406–18), the FIGURE 26.25 Kruševac, Lazarica Church, view from the east (N. Zarras)

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10

Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 655, 671–73.

largest undertaking before the Ottoman Conquest, was founded by despot Stefan Lazarević, contemporary with Kalenić but quite different in its outward appearance (Figs. 26.30 and 26.31). While following the design of Ravanica, including tiny, attenuated corner domes and a large narthex (now restored), the construction is of fine ashlar, with no polychromy and simplified external articulation, detailed with a corbel table at the eaves and gothic-style windows, coupling two lancets with a roundel. These Western features suggest that talented but conservative masons from the Adriatic coast were responsible for the construction—perhaps following the lead of the Nemanjić royal foundations. Counterbalancing the delicacy of the church construction are the massive fortifications surrounding the monastery, which testify to the hard realities of the day (Fig. 26.32).11 The monastic organization follows earlier examples, laid out on a roughly oval plan, with the church and refectory (now in ruins) freestanding, with other monastic buildings set against the walls, but the scale of the fortifications visually overpowers all else, with eleven massive towers projecting from the walls, including a twin-towered entrance at the west and the donjon to the north. Rising above a battered base, the donjon extends through seven stories, with machicolations at the upper level. The defensive system also included a much lower outer wall and a dry moat enveloping the complex. Most impressive of the Serbian fortifications are the citadel and fortified town at Smederevo (1428–39). Constructed by Djuradj Branković as a new capital, following the loss of Belgrade to the Hungarians in 1427, Smederevo was the largest and most important work of defensive architecture to be built before the Ottoman conquest, enclosing an area of 10 hectares (Fig. 26.33).12 Triangular in plan, the town was set at the confluence of the Danube and the Jezava Rivers, with a triangular citadel at the point, separated G. Simić, “Donjon, Manasija Monastery, Yugoslavia,” in Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500, and Its Preservation, ed. S. Ćurčić and E. Hadjitryphonos (Thessalonike, 1997), 236–39.

11

N.  Jocović and J.  Nešković, “Fortifications of Smederevo,” in Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500, and Its Preservation, ed. S. Ćurčić and E. Hadjitryphonos (Thessalonike, 1997), 132–35, 208–11.

12

FIGURE 26.26 Plans to the same scale: (A) Kruševac, Lazarica Church; (B) Ravanica Monastery, Church of the Ascension (after S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans, 2010)

from the city proper by a moat and an internal line of fortifications. Enclosing the palatial residence of the despot, the citadel included a low outer wall facing the rivers, with niches and loopholes to accommodate twenty cannons. This may be the first defensive system to take into consideration the changes in military technology brought about by the introduction of gunpowder, although it otherwise follows long-established models. The fortress fell to the Ottomans in 1459, marking the end of the medieval Serbian state. Romania. A latecomer to the scene, Romania entered the Orthodox sphere as Wallachia liberated itself from Hungary in 1330, followed by Moldavia ca. 1352. Leaders of both principalities looked to Byzantium for church structure, requesting bishops to be sent from Constantinople. Culturally, both depended on neighboring Slavic states, however, as church Slavonic became the language of the liturgy. Neither enjoyed a long independence, as the Ottomans extended their conquests into Europe through the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. When the Crusade of Varna of 1444 failed to check Ottoman advances, Wallachia succumbed in 1462; Moldavia held out until 1504 and was briefly independent again ca. 1527–38. Both continued as semi-independent, locally ruled

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FIGURE 26.27 Ravanica Monastery, Church of the Ascension, north façade (author)

FIGURE 26.28 Kalenić Monastery, Church of the Presentation of the Virgin, view from the southwest (author)

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principalities, however, playing an important role supporting Orthodoxy through the Ottoman centuries, providing subsidies for both the patriarchate in Constantinople and the monasteries on Mount Athos, while attracting a population of Greek immigrants. The flourishing of a Byzantine-inflected culture long after the fall of Constantinople has been termed “Byzance après Byzance.”13 The princely Church of St. Nicholas at Curtea de Argeş, the capital of Wallachia, dates ca. 1352 and is credited to Basarab I (reg. ca. 1310–52). A somber cross-in-square church, there is little distinctive in its architecture, although its painted program, by a Byzantine master, reflects that of the Chora in Constantinople. The katholikon of Cozia Monastery, dated to 1388, built by Mircea I (reg. 1386–1418) and housing his tomb, provides a better indication of the association with the Morava architecture of Serbia and was clearly built by Serbian masons (Fig. 26.34). Features such as the trefoil plan, a deep narthex with (originally) a tower above it, elaborate façade articulation, and architectural sculpture are virtually identical to the Serbian monuments, as, for example, at Lazarica or Kalenić. Like the Serbian monasteries, Cozia is fortified and inward oriented, with the church freestanding at its center. After a century of apparent inactivity, there was a flourishing of architecture in sixteenthcentury Wallachia, witnessed by two churches of ashlar construction and elaborate ornamentation at Dealu Monastery (1502) and the episcopal monastery at Curtea de Argeş (completed 1526), although both have been heavily restored. Both repeat the triconch plan, with multiple, vertically attenuated domes. Curtea de Argeş includes an outsized lite with an ambulatory plan, its central dome competing for prominence with the naos dome, while adding two additional domes at the western corners, both spirally fluted with windows on the diagonal (Fig. 26.35). Raised on a platform, the building conveys an odd sense of monumentality despite its small size—the major domes are less than 3 meters in diameter. While retaining some of the details of the Morava monN.  Iorga, Byzance après Byzance (Bucharest, 1935); trans. L. Treptow, Byzantium after Byzantium (Cambridge, MA, 2000); see also Fine, Late Medieval Balkans; for the monuments, Mango, Byzantine Architecture, 340–50. 13

FIGURE 26.29 Kalenić Monastery, Church of the Presentation of the Virgin, detail of windows (author)

uments, much of the detailing, including the muqarnas cornices and the spiral fluting, as well as the ashlar construction, probably depend on contemporary Ottoman architecture. Architecturally, Moldavia shows a greater originality.14 Located further to the north, the region initially had closer links to Hungary, Poland, and Transylvania. Among the earliest surviving churches, St. Nicholas in the Bogdana Monastery near Rădăuţi (1359–65) is a modest, three-aisled basilica, covered by a banded barrel vault, with a steeply pitched, overhanging roof—more Romanesque than Byzantine in character. The near-contemporary Church of the Holy Trinity at Siret (1354–58) adopted a single-aisled triconch plan, which became common thereafter. A distinctive regional idiom emerged during the reign of Stephen III the Great (1457–1504), a prolific 14 G. Balş, Bisericile lui Ștefan cel Mare (Bucharest, 1926); P. Henry, Les églises de Moldavie du nord des origins à la fin de XVIe siècle (Paris, 1930); and most recently, A.  I.  Sullivan, “The Painted Fortified Monastic Churches of Moldavia: Bastions of Orthodoxy in a Post-Byzantine World,” PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2017.

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26.30 Manasija Monastery, Church of the Holy Trinity, view from the north (author) FIGURE

FIGURE 26.31 Manasija Monastery, Church of the Holy Trinity, interior, view into the vaulting (author)

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FIGURE 26.32 Manasija Monastery, Church of the Holy Trinity, view of the monastery, from the southwest (Magyshadow, Wikipedia)

FIGURE 26.33 Smederevo, fortified town, aerial view (S. Ćurčić)

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FIGURE 26.34 Cozia Monastery, Katholikon, south façade (Andrei Stroe, Wikimedia Commons)

FIGURE 26.35 Curtea de Argeş, Church of the Episcopal Monastery, view from the southwest (Alexandru Baboş, Wikimedia Commons)

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builder credited with more than forty foundations, although his principal foundation at Putna was totally rebuilt at a later date. Monastic churches like the Church of St. George at Voroneţ, built ca. 1488 (Figs. 26.36–26.38), adopt an elongated triconch plan, derived ultimately from Serbia, with the apses articulated on the exterior by niches and the walls braced by pilasters. Characteristically, the naos is surmounted by a steeple-like dome, which interrupts the line of the pitched roof. On the interior, the dome rises through several stages, with two sets of pendentives, the upper set rotated 45 degrees, above which the drum rises, dramatically reducing the diameter of the dome—a curious feature, probably a Moldavian invention common to the region. Windows and portals take on Gothic forms. The Church of the Ascension at Neamţ Monastery, the largest surviving of Stephen’s ecclesiastical foundations, was added in 1486–97 to the oldest Moldavian monastery, originally founded in 1210 (Fig. 26.39). Its elongated plan repeats the rotated Moldavian dome (but as blind domes) another four times, above the western extension of the naos (a burial space), as well as the narthex and exonarthex, all covered by a pitched roof. The exterior is detailed with

Gothic windows, buttresses, blind arcades, and ceramic insets. Most distinctive for this group of churches is their external painted decoration—almost as if the churches had been turned inside out, with the sort of iconography one would expect to find on the interior covering the external surfaces as well, protected by the overhanging roofs. While many Byzantine churches must have had external decoration, nowhere else does it survive in such profusion. Most painted programs were added several decades after the initial construction, a process that may have begun during the reign of Stephen’s son, Peter Rareş: the Church of the Annunciation at Moldoviţa was built in 1532 and painted in 1537 (Fig. 26.40). Voroneţ was painted on the exterior ca. 1547, more than half a century after its construction (see fig. 26.36). Suceviţa, the last of the great monastic undertakings in the style established during the reigns of Stephen and Peter, was built ca. 1581–83 and painted 1595–96 (Fig. 26.41). Viewed from a negative perspective, one might argue that within Moldavia, architecture has become subservient to the painted program; on the contrary, we may be witnessing a new level of interaction FIGURE 26.36 Voroneţ Monastery, Church of St. George, view from the southeast (A. I. Sullivan)

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FIGURE 26.37 Voroneţ Monastery, Church of St. George, plan and longitudinal section (after G. Balş, Bisericile, 1926)

26.38 Voroneţ Monastery, Church of St. George, interior of the naos, view into the dome (G. Serrano, Flickr) FIGURE

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FIGURE 26.39 Neanţ Monastery, Church of the Ascension (A. I. Sullivan)

FIGURE 26.40 Moldoviţa Monastery, Church of the Annunciation, view from the southeast (A. I. Sullivan)

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26.41 Suceviţa Monastery, aerial view (Zsolt Deak, Wikimedia Commons) FIGURE

between painter and mason. The distinctively hybrid architecture reflects the diverse cultural interchanges still possible in the late medieval Balkans, as well as the potential for creativity, even in politically challenging times. Still enveloped by a fortified enclosure, Suceviţa provides a sense of both monastic organization and the insecurities of the era. Unlike Byzantine and Serbian foundations, the Moldavian monasteries invariably adopted a rectilinear plan.

, Since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, it has been common to view the architecture discussed in this chapter in terms of “national” styles. The modern nation-states of the Balkans looked deep into their regional histories as part of identity construction, but with an odd ambivalence toward Byzantium.15 While their late medieval predecessors had looked to Byzantine architectural forms for imA. Ignjatović, “Byzantium Evolutionized: Architectural History and National Identity in Turn-of-the-Century Serbia,” in “Regimes of Historicity” in Southeastern and Northern Europe, 1890–1945, eds. D.  Mishkova, R.  Trencsényi, and M.  Jalava (Basingstoke, 2014), 254–74; R.  Detrez, “Pre-National Identities in the Balkans,” in

15

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agery that connoted power, authority, or sanctity, the new nations often sought to distance themselves from Byzantium, to focus on what was truly “theirs.” One wonders if the inhabitants of the late medieval Balkans would have viewed these monuments similarly—that is, as regionally specific political signifiers—or whether religious affiliation outweighed national or ethnic identity, as it did during the centuries of Ottoman rule. In a period of rapid political transformations, what does a building mean? With church architecture, texts rarely pursue symbolism beyond the obvious— heaven on earth, the new Jerusalem, or similar sentiments. Other than the evident grandeur or luxury, how aware of style would a medieval viewer have been? Was there an easily understood political message, for example, in the selection of a Romanesque or Byzantine prototype in Serbia? We shall return to the larger issues of signification at the end of the next chapter. In the final analysis, despite the insecurities of the period, there was also wealth—in Serbia, thanks to mining. The elite of late medieval Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania built in profusion. Entangled Histories of the Balkans. I. National Ideologies and Language Policies, ed. R. Daskalov and T. Marinov (Leiden, 2013), 13–66.

,

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,

RIVAL POWERS The Ottomans and Russia

W

hat happens after 1453? Byzantine architecture doesn’t simply stop, but continues to have a cultural resonance, particularly among the minority Christian populations of the Ottoman Empire. As we saw in the previous chapter, architecture flourished in Moldavia and Wallachia long after the demise of the Byzantine state. Small, domed churches continued to be constructed across the Balkans and the Caucasus, although as “unofficial” architecture there is little innovation in most regions. In contrast, the achievements of Byzantine architecture find an immediate following in the empires of Russia and the Ottomans, although they take very different directions. Following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Moscow ascended as the center of Orthodox Christianity, styling itself the “Third Rome.” While influenced by Italian architects and indigenous developments, Russian architecture reflects the picturesque complexities of the later Byzantine style, as well as the symbolic meanings associated with built forms. The Ottomans settled in Byzantine territory and relied on Byzantine masons to construct their earliest buildings. After the conquest, however, they began a sort of competitive discourse with the Byzantine past, turning to the monumentality of Hagia Sophia as their chief source of inspiration—that is, with a greater

interest in architectural form than in its meaning—or at least the meanings assigned to it by those who built it. While both the Russians and the Ottomans looked to the Byzantines, their architecture and its symbolic vocabulary developed in very different ways. Nevertheless, both might be regarded as Byzantium’s legitimate successors. The Ottomans. The Osmanlı (Ottoman) Turks probably entered Anatolia in the thirteenth century with a second wave of Turkish migrations, as refugees from the Mongol invasions. Osman was leader from ca. 1281 to 1326, and he became the founder of the dynasty that bore his name.1 The tribe had settled in Bithynia along the frontier with the Byzantine Empire toward the end of the century, nominally under the rule of the Seljuk sultan. The population remained largely mixed. Osman proclaimed his independence in 1299, and his state quickly emerged as the most powerful of the beyliks in Anatolia following the demise of the Seljuks. Osman’s son Orhan (r. 1326–62) captured Bursa in 1326, and it subsequently became the capital. Nicaea (İznik) fell in 1331 and Nicomedia (İzmit) in 1337, but parts of the region remained in Byzantine C. Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley, 1995); H. Lowry, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Albany, 2003).

1

Edirne, Selimiye Camii, view from the west (G. Necipoğlu) 679

FIGURE 27.1 Bursa, Orhan Camii, view from the northwest (author)

hands long after the fall of the major centers. With the expansion of control across the Dardanelles into Europe, Orhan’s son and successor Murad became beylerbey of the European territories in 1360, capturing Adrianople (Edirne) in 1369. Under Murad, who ruled as sultan between 1362 and 1389, an Ottoman Empire was formed, and the Byzantine rulers in effect became vassals of the Ottomans. It is much easier to track the political success of the early Ottomans than it is to assess their architectural achievements. In spite of their clear, dramatic rise to power, the origins of Ottoman architecture remain problematic. Prior to their settling in Bithynia, we have no clear evidence for an architecture in permanent materials. The mausolea for Osman and Orhan were reused Byzantine churches in Bursa.2 By the 1330s, the former nomads were actively building, and in a manner technically and stylistically distinct from 2 S.  Çağaptay, “Visualizing the Cultural Transition in Bithynia (ca. 1300–1402): Architecture, Landscape and Urbanism,” PhD diss., University of Illinois, 2007; S.  Çağaptay, “Frontierscape: Reconsidering Bithynian Structures and Their Builders on the Byzantine–Ottoman Cusp,” Muqarnas 28 (2011): 155–91.

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the Muslim architecture that had evolved in other parts of Anatolia, no doubt employing the Byzantine builders of the region in their early projects. Indeed, on the one hand, there are numerous formal similarities that exist between late Byzantine and early Ottoman architecture in the methods of wall construction and decorative detailing.3 On the other hand, the plans and vaulting forms are more closely aligned with the architecture of the Seljuks. Such a mixture of forms would seem to reflect the mixed background of the Ottomans, who were politically and religiously linked with the Seljuks, while occupying Byzantine lands and incorporating Byzantine institutions into their nascent state; the resulting heterogeneous architecture may be emblematic of early Ottoman culture. The early Ottoman monuments speak more of integration than domination. The Orhan Camii in Bursa (1334; repaired 1417), for example, one of the oldest Ottoman buildings to survive (Fig. 27.1), has an inverted T plan, characteristic of the early mosques of Bursa, which seems to have derived 3 R. G. Ousterhout, “Ethnic Identity and Cultural Appropriation in Early Ottoman Architecture,” Muqarnas 13 (1995): 48–62.

FIGURE 27.2 İznik (Nicaea). Hacı Özbek Camii, façade (now destroyed), in a nineteenthcentury photograph, where it is identified as a Byzantine church (G. Berggren, author’s collection)

ultimately from Anatolian Seljuk architecture. The wall construction is of rough brick and stone masonry, close to the traditional Byzantine architecture of Bithynia, as are the numerous decorative details—banded voussoirs, dogtooth friezes, bullseyes, and decorative patterning. Byzantine masons must have participated in the construction. Many of the same features appear in the nearby Church of the Pantobasilissa at Trilye on the Sea of Marmara, which also dates to the 1330s. It is likely that the same workshops were constructing both churches and mosques at the same time. Similar construction details appeared in the Hacı Özbek Camii in İznik, built ca. 1330 with a  single-bayed plan and a colonnaded porch (Fig. 27.2). Here, the use of Byzantine spolia led early visitors to identify the mosque as an “ancienne église byzantine.” The Hüdâvendigâr Camii at Behramkale (ancient Assos, ca. 1380) is built almost entirely of spolia, including an inscribed doorframe from a church dedicated to St. Cornelius, leading to a similar misidentification. In both examples, Byzantine spolia are used for exactly the same purposes they would have served

in a Byzantine context. The Hüdâvendigâr Camii in Çekirge, begun in 1365–66, fits into this picture as well (Fig.  27.3). The two-storied portico façade compares to Late Byzantine façades, such as that of the Tekfursaray in Constantinople, and numerous pieces of architectural sculpture were reemployed. The construction, materials, and some of the decorative details reflect Byzantine architecture, but the unique two-storied plan, which combines elements of a zawiya or a madrasa with a mosque, is best understood in an Islamic context. Early Ottoman architecture is a reflection of the society that produced it. From the beginning, the Ottoman state was multiethnic and religiously heterogeneous, comprising peoples of many different nationalities and backgrounds, based as much on cooperation as on coercion. In short, the architectural picture conforms to the historical one. However, Ottoman domination was more clearly expressed in the standard practice of transforming the cathedral of a conquered city into a mosque, as at the Hagia Sophia in İznik/ Nicaea. The actual appropriation of important Byzantine buildings was symbolically significant CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: RIVAL POWERS

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FIGURE 27.3 Bursa-Çekirge, Hüdâvendigâr Camii, portico façade (author)

and would have been clearly understood by the contemporary viewer, although the continuation of Byzantine forms into Ottoman architecture had a different and subtler message. Attitudes toward Byzantine culture seem to shift as the Ottomans extended their control onto European soil and set their sights on the conquest of Constantinople. This is particularly noteworthy in the architecture of Edirne during the first half of the fifteenth century, with the construction of mosques, baths, and covered markets, often following the model of the architecture of Bursa. All the same, the Üç Șerefeli Cami (literally “three balconies”—a reference to its largest minaret), built under Murad II, ca. 1438–47, marks a significant transition in scale and concept (Fig. 27.4).4 The mosque centers on an enormous dome, approximately 24 meters in diameter, rising 27 meters above hexagonal supports, a grand experiment and major engineering achievement.

The daring scale, originality of the design, and solid ashlar construction reflect the growing confidence of Ottoman builders. The dome as the dominant feature marks the beginning of a competitive discourse, expressed in architectural terms, with Byzantium—although not the weakened, contemporary state, but its illustrious past, as represented by the great Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Indeed, the dome of the Üç Șerefeli is the largest to have been constructed since the sixth century. The conquest of Constantinople in 1453 under Mehmed II continues the dialogue with the Byzantine past. While the city had been rapidly enveloped by Ottoman-controlled territories, its fall was not a foregone conclusion. Its defensive system remained unsurpassed, with the double line of the Land Walls and their moat, the Sea Walls, and the entrance to the Golden Horn guarded by a chain.5 But the resources and population of the city were substantially diminished,

4 S. Blair and J. Bloom, The Art and Architecture of Islam 1250–1800 (New Haven, 1994), 144–45.

5 M. Philippides and W. Hanak, The Siege and Fall of Constantinople in 1453: Historiography, Topography, and Military Studies (Farnham, 2011).

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while the Ottomans had a vastly larger army and new military technology at their disposal. The construction of the fortress known as Rumeli Hisar on the European shore of Bosporus in less than five months (April–August 1452) is indicative of their ability to muster resources and manpower (Fig. 27.5). Set opposite a smaller fortress on the Asian shore of the straits, Rumeli Hisar effectively controlled traffic through the straits, as the Ottomans tightened their grip on the city; its low barbican wall along the waterfront was armed with twenty cannons.6 Surprisingly, the city’s fortifications held through a protracted siege—that is, until the Ottomans brought their cannons to the Land Walls. Although they had protected the city for more than a millennium, the Theodosian Walls succumbed to cannon fire. The fall of the city on 29 May 1453 sent shock waves through Christian Europe, and Byzantine writers present the event in apocalyptic terms. For the Ottomans, Constantinople represented the ultimate victory—they had taken the golden apple. Mehmet’s first official act was the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque (see Fig. 23.1). The conversion involved minimal physical transformation, and even its name remained the same—Ayasofya Camii in Turkish. As appropriated, however, the scale and evocative power of the building cry out for a symbolic reading. Hence, it was necessary to create an Islamic text and an Ottoman legend for Hagia Sophia.7 Borrowing from Byzantine accounts, Ottoman historical texts interwove history and myth to situate Hagia Sophia in an Ottoman present and to justify its conversion into a royal mosque. Thus, according to one version, when the half-dome of the apse collapsed on the night of the Prophet Mohammed’s birth, it could only be repaired with a mortar composed of sand from Mecca, water from the well of Zemzem (a miraculous water source in 6 Z.  Ahunbay, “Fortress of Rumeli Hisar, Turkey,” in Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500, and Its Preservation, ed. S. Ćurčić and E. Hadjitryphonos (Thessalonike, 1997), 166–69. 7 G.  Necipoğlu, “The Life of an Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia after Byzantium,” in Hagia Sophia from the Age of Justinian to the Present, eds. R.  Mark and A.  Çakmak (Cambridge, 1992), 195–225. See also Ç. Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul: Cultural Encounter, Imperial Vision, and the Construction of an Ottoman Capital (University Park, 2009).

FIGURE 27.4 Edirne, Üç Șerefeli Cami, plan and section (after G. Necipoğlu, 2005)

Mecca), and the prophet’s saliva.8 In addition, Muslim and Ottoman symbols were introduced into Hagia Sophia, including the first minaret, the mihrab, and other mosque furnishings, as well as sacred relics and battle trophies.9 The profound influence direct exposure to Hagia Sophia had on Ottoman architecture should not be underestimated. The new Fatih Camii, or Mosque of the Conqueror, begun in 1463 by Atik Sinan (a manumitted slave) to replace the dilapidated Church of the Holy Apostles, was smaller Necipoğlu, “Life of an Imperial Monument,” 200, with further references. 8

9

Ibid., 206–207.

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FIGURE 27.5 Rumeli Hisar, view of the fortress on the Bosporus (İ. D. Kılıçoğlu, Wikimedia Commons)

than Hagia Sophia, but it was larger in scale than any previous Ottoman mosque—or any Byzantine church built since the sixth century (Fig. 27.6). The plan, with a square domed bay (approximately 26 meters in diameter and 44 meters tall) expanded with an axial half-dome, followed the model of Hagia Sophia. The connection was clearly recognized at the time of construction. Mehmet’s biographer, Tursun Bey, wrote that Mehmet had constructed a great mosque on the design of the apprentice work of Ayasofya, which apart from combining all the artifices of Ayasofya, has found, according to the uses of the moderns, a sort of new style and immeasurable beauty, and  in its effulgence its miraculous quality is evident.10 10 J. Raby, “El Gran Turco: Mehmed the Conqueror as a Patron of the Arts of Christendom,” (PhD diss., Oxford University, 1980), 253 and n. 111; see also G. Necipoğlu, “Challenging the Past: Sinan and the Competitive Discourse of Early Modern Islamic Architecture,” Muqarnas 10 (1993): 171; Mehmet’s mosque collapsed in the earthquake of 1766 and was subsequently rebuilt; see Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 405–11.

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The construction of the Fatih Camii with its adjoining mausoleum is recognized as one of Mehmet’s important symbolic acts of refoundation, as it replaced the church of the old Byzantine Holy Apostles and the Mausoleum of Constantine—that is, replacing the martyrium of the founder of the Christian city with that of his Muslim successor.11 The mosque of Mehmed’s successor Beyazid II (1501–6) makes a more explicit reference to Hagia Sophia (Fig. 27.7A). Although smaller than the Fatih Camii, its dome (16.8 meters diameter) is flanked symmetrically by two half-domes. Both set a model for the sultanic mosques to follow: prominently situated for maximum visibility, focused on a dominant dome, the mosques established an imperial image by paraphrasing the superstructure of Hagia Sophia.12 The notion of a competitive discourse with the past, played out in architectural terms, underlies the sultanic mosques constructed by Mimar Sinan, who was court architect from 1538 to 1588. Sinan refers frequently to Hagia Sophia in his 11

Raby, “El Gran Turco,” 253 and n. 111.

G.  Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton, 2005), 71–124. 12

FIGURE 27.6 Istanbul, Fatih Camii, plan of the original complex (after G. Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 2005)

autobiographical writings, and his awareness of the building is evident in his Șehzade Mehmed Camii (1543–48) and Süleymaniye Camii (1550– 57) in Istanbul, as well as the Selimiye Camii (1568–74) in Edirne. The first appears as the evolutionary conclusion of a process of design that began with the Üç Șerefeli, its domed bay expanded by a half-dome at the Fatih Camii and by two half-domes at the Beyazid Camii. The centralized design of the Șehzade has a quatrefoil pattern, its central dome 19 meters in diameter, flanked by four half-domes (Figs. 27.7B and 27.8). While— as is often noted—the design corrects the major structural problem of Hagia Sophia, the lack of

bilaterally symmetrical buttressing to the dome, it also creates a pyramidal massing of forms, rising above the cubic volume of the lower walls, not unlike many later Byzantine churches, but probably equally informed by Italian Renaissance architectural theory. The grand Süleymaniye Camii, constructed 1550–57 for Süleyman the Magnificent, may represent Sinan’s direct response to the challenge of Hagia Sophia (Figs. 27.9–27.11). Here he returned to the design of the Beyazid Camii, with half-domes flanking the main dome on the longitudinal axis. While the central dome measures 26.5 meters in diameter, the overall scale of the CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: RIVAL POWERS

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FIGURE 27.7 Istanbul, plans of the (A) Beyazid Camii and (B) Șehzade Camii (after A. Kuran, Mosque in Early Ottoman Architecture, 1968)

FIGURE 27.8 Istanbul, Șehzade Camii, interior view, looking into the vaulting (author)

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FIGURE 27.9 Istanbul, Süleymaniye Camii complex, aerial view looking north, with the Golden Horn in the background (G. Necipoğlu)

mosque approaches that of Hagia Sophia. There is a greater orderliness to the design, as the central dome is surrounded by smaller domes, with the structural organization clearly visible on the interior. Unlike the disjunction between the nave and secondary spaces at Hagia Sophia, space appears rational and unified, with a greater sense of openness and structural clarity. Similarly, the exterior appears lighter and more elegant than the heavily buttressed Hagia Sophia, and Ottoman commentators recognized it as a significant advancement aesthetically.13 Moreover, its prominent setting on a ridge toward the center of the city provided greater visibility to Sinan’s mosque—particularly from the European quarter of the city in Pera, across the Golden Horn. While the mosque refers to Hagia Sophia, the octagonal tomb, enveloped by a portico, seems to recall the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which Süleyman had recently restored. His mosque could thus become the new Temple of the Second Solomon (Süleyman = Solomon), an association also made by Justinian’s sixth-century church. The eclectic and ambitious allusions draw on a rich and evocative past. Contemporary texts suggest that European architects challenged Sinan to outdo the dome of

Hagia Sophia at the Selimiye Camii in Edirne (1658–75), built for Süleyman’s successor, Selim (Figs. 27.12 and 27.13). Sinan himself states, “I demonstrated my power by making the height of this dome 6 cubits [4.5 meters] and its circumference 4 cubits [3.0 meters] larger.”14 In fact, its diameter is more or less the same: 31.22 meters, compared to Hagia Sophia’s, which varies between 30.9 and 31.8 meters, but its overall height is considerably less. Here Sinan seems to have been measuring the dome from its springing, and with its greater roundness, the Selimiye dome is indeed taller. The great dome seems to have been the generative concept behind the design, with eight great piers supporting it, with flanking spaces reduced to a minimum, except for an extra semidomed bay at the qibla. With the ubiquity of great domed mosques dominating the skyline, uninitiated visitors to modern Istanbul may be forgiven for seeing Hagia Sophias everywhere they look. There is, of course, much more to Ottoman architecture than simply a competition with the Byzantine past. The great mosques of Istanbul and Edirne are enveloped by pencil-thin minarets and a külliye—regularized complexes of subsidiary spaces—the latter far removed in scale and orderliness from the irregular

13 Necipoğlu, “Challenging the Past”; Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 207–22.

14 Tezkiretü’l-Bünyan, quoted by Necipoğlu, “Challenging the Past,” 175; Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 238–56.

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FIGURE 27.10 Istanbul, Süleymaniye Camii complex, plan showing the organizations of subsidiary structures (redrawn after Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 1977)

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FIGURE 27.11 Istanbul, Süleymaniye Camii complex, interior, looking south (author)

FIGURE 27.12 Edirne, Selimiye Camii, view from the west (G. Necipoğlu)

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FIGURE 27.13 Edirne, Selimiye Camii, plan and elevation (after A. Kuran, Sinan, 1987; and Burelli, reproduced in A. Kuran, Sinan, 1987.)

neighborhoods that grew up around the great houses and monasteries of the Byzantine city. But in so many ways, architecture responds to architecture, with new additions to a historic city calling out for comparison with their pre-existing neighbors. The geometric complexities of Sinan’s Sokollu Mehmet Paşa Camii (1572), for example, offer a dramatic challenge to the nearby Küçük Ayasofya Camii, the converted Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus (Fig. 27.14; and see Fig. 8.14). Russia. Russian history and Russian architecture take a very different course. Much of Russia was destabilized in the thirteenth century by the invasion of the Mongols, with the notable exceptions of Novgorod and Pskov, where medieval churches survive from the twelfth century onward. In Novgorod, churches like the St. Theodore Stratelates (1360) or the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior on Elijah Street (1374) have simple ninebayed plans, marked by pilasters on the façades, 690

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with steeply pitched roofs rising to a single dome (Fig. 27.15).15 Distinctive is the use of quadrant arches on the corner façade bays, as had been employed earlier at the Piatnitsa Church in Chernigov (see Fig. 22.26). In the Novgorod churches, the quadrant arches are multiplied to decorative effect. As with most of the late buildings in the area, both are roughly built, with plastered exteriors. As Russia recovered from the Mongol invasions, Muscovy developed its own distinctive architecture, first seen perhaps in the cathedrals of Zvenigorod, near Moscow, dedicated to the Dormition (ca. 1396–98, now much altered) and the Nativity of the Virgin in the Storozhevsky Monastery of St. Savva (ca. 1405–8) (Fig. 27.16). [NB: Unlike Byzantium, where a single church per district or city had the rank of cathedral, in Russia, multiple churches within the same area could have this rank.] Both have simple, nine-bayed plans with a central dome—the standard plan throughout Russia, ultimately derived from the Byzantine cross-in-square type. In many ways, the Zvenigorod churches (and, indeed, their now-lost counterparts in Moscow) hark back to the model of Vladimir from before the Mongol Conquest, with tall proportions and construction of white limestone. Façade bays are topped by decorative arches, or zakomary, rising above pilasters or colonnettes. Decorative bands of sculpture enliven the façades, and the portals have stepped jambs and archivolts, with ogival arches. The zakomary of the Dormition Church must have also had ogival arches, as are preserved at the Nativity Church. In addition to those of the façade, there is a second zone set diagonally above the corner bays and a third zone framing the dome drum. The decorative aspects of the zakomary are enhanced by a loosening relationship between interior and exterior, as the pilasters do not always correspond to the structural divisions of the interior. These details appear in the oldest surviving Moscow church, the Cathedral of the Savior in the Andronikov Monastery, built in the 1420s, which increases the complexity of the decorative arcading, as it steps up gradually to the base of the dome. For Russian architecture, see H.  Faensen and V.  Ivanov, Early Russian Architecture (London, 1975); Brumfield, A History of Russian Architecture; augmented by the many insights in Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture.

15

FIGURE 27.14 Istanbul, Sokkolu Mehmet Paşa Camii, view into the dome (G. Necipoğlu)

FIGURE 27.15 Novgorod, Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior on Elijah Street, view from the southeast (author)

FIGURE 27.16 Zvenigorod, Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin in the Storozhevsky Monastery of St. Savva (courtesy of Moscow Architectural Institute Scientific Library)

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27.17 Moscow, historic plan of the Kremlin and Kitay-Gorod (author, after Moscow Institute of Architecture Scientific Collection)

FIGURE

The beginnings of Moscow are usually traced to its first textual reference in 1147, although the settlement must have been older. In 1156, a wooden fortress rose on the high ground at the  confluence of the Moscow and smaller Neglinnaia Rivers, where the Kremlin now stands (Figs. 27.17 and 27.18). The name Kremlin means “citadel,” but like the Acropolis in Athens, it became a site-specific toponym. Moscow’s early history is marked by clashes with the Mongols and with feuding Russian principalities; for much of its early history it was little more than a trading outpost in the vast forests of Russia. By the fourteenth century, Moscow began to emerge as the central power, notably under Ivan  I, who took control in 1325. In the same year, the patriarch Peter made Moscow his unofficial residence, thus marking the beginnings of the consolidation of church and state. The first stone church was built shortly thereafter, the Cathedral of the Dormition (subsequently rebuilt), significantly adopting the dedication of the Cathedral of Vladimir, the spiritual center of Russia. Facing continued 692

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confrontations with the Mongols, the fortifications were rebuilt in limestone in 1367, more or less along the lines of the current triangular enclosure, extending approximately 2 kilometers in length. Because traditional Russian architecture was ephemeral, built of wood and prone to fires, the appearance of the Kremlin and the city around it is difficult to envision before the fifteenth century. By the late fifteenth century, a new architectural impetus arrived from Italy, in the form of imported Italian architects. The period of Ivan III (r. 1462– 1505) is particularly important, followed by that of his son, Vasili III (r. 1505–33). In 1472, Ivan married Zoe (renamed Sophia) Palaiologina, niece of the last Byzantine emperor and claimant to the Byzantine throne.16 With the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, she had fled to the papal court in Rome, where she came under the protection of Cardinal Bessarion, who subsequently arranged her marriage to Ivan. Through Bessarion, Sophia A.-M.  Talbot, “Sophia Palaiologina,” Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 3rd vol. (Oxford, 1991), 1928.

16

was associated with the Greek and Italian intellectual circles of northern Italy and thus arrived in Moscow with both Italian Renaissance and Byzantine imperial baggage. Shortly thereafter, Italian architects appear prominently in the historical record.17 The first major project was the rebuilding of the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Kremlin, 1475–79, under the direction of Rodolfo Fioravanti, nicknamed Aristotele (Figs. 27.19–27.21). A reconstruction of the original church had been undertaken by Muscovite builders in 1472, but it collapsed two years later as it neared completion. Masons from Pskov were consulted, but they declined to take on the project, leading Ivan to seek outside expertise. The Bolognese architect Fioravanti was well known in Italy for his engineering skills, and he was a friend of the theorist Filarete. Once he arrived in Russia, he was taken to Vladimir to examine the Cathedral of the Dormition, which his project was intended to imitate and to surpass (see Figs. 22.22 and 22.23). He thus combined Romanesque details derived from Vladimir with a simplified twelve-bayed plan, topped by five domes. Fioravanti introduced a modular plan, so that all bays are the same dimensions, with groin vaults set at the same height covering the undomed bays, rising above cylindrical piers. To maintain the modular scheme, coupled chapels flanking the sanctuary were covered by a single dome, and to give it prominence, the central dome was increased in scale, with a diameter larger than the width of the bay it covers. Rather than a separate narthex, the western three bays, all groin vaulted, are fully integrated into the modular design. On the façades, details are simplified; arcades are identical, the bays marked by pilasters, while the Romanesque forms of the portals and the corbel table frieze recall Vladimir. Fioravanti used a carefully cut limestone ashlar, the stones set with a strong mortar, while the vaulting was constructed of lightweight brick, reinforced with iron ties. The lofty interior has the feel of a spacious hall, easily adaptable for imperial ceremony, as it became the coronation church. The gradual raising of the iconostasis in subsequent centuries now blocks the 17

Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture, 73–104.

FIGURE 27.18 Moscow, Kremlin, general view looking east, with the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the foreground and the Cathedral of the Archangels and the Bell Tower of Ivan the Great behind it (courtesy of Moscow Architectural Institute Scientific Library)

view into the eastern vaults, and although it blends seamlessly with the multiple registers of mural painting, the iconostasis alters the spatial configuration, so that the central dome no longer appears centrally but as the termination of the longitudinal axis of the naos, with the sanctuary invisible behind the screen. In short, the cathedral represents a traditional Russo-Byzantine architectural vocabulary reinterpreted by an Italian Renaissance architect. Paralleling the introduction of Renaissance architectural ideas was the introduction of Byzantine court ceremonial and ideology. Both seem to have come with the entourage of Sophia Palaiologina. Ivan selected the offspring of Sophia as his heir, rather than the children of his first wife, thus insuring a Byzantine bloodline. Within a few decades, we begin to find references to Moscow as the “Third Rome” and the “Second Constantinople,” as Russia assumed the role of political and spiritual successor to Byzantium as the bastion of Orthodoxy. With court ceremonial came court titles, and Ivan III began to use the titles of tsar (derived from Caesar) and imperator (emperor). Soon after the completion of the Dormition Cathedral, the nearby Cathedral of the Annunciation was rebuilt, 1484–89, to serve as the palace chapel (Figs. 27.22 and 27.23). Work was done CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: RIVAL POWERS

693

FIGURE 27.19 Moscow, Kremlin, Cathedral of the Assumption, view from the south (author)

by architects from Pskov, who had earlier declined to take on the challenge of rebuilding the Dormition Cathedral after its collapse. Their church was considerably smaller and simpler, essentially a nine-bayed church with pier supports, set atop a vaulted substructure to bring it to the level of the residential chambers in the adjoining palace, to the west. It was originally topped by three domes, with two small domes above the chapels flanking the sanctuary, its silhouette enhanced by superimposed gables (kokoshniki) with ogival arches. Through the next century it was expanded, with a covered terrace forming an ambulatory, surmounted by independent domed chapels on the gallery level (1562–64), with two new domes added above the western corners of the naos. In comparison to the Dormition Church, the interior is relatively cramped, limited by the famed iconostasis (painted by Theophanes the Greek, Prokhor of Gorodets, and Andrei Rublev), which closes off the sanctuary and flanking chapels. Despite its rank as cathedral, the church functioned as a private chapel for the devotions of 694

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members of the royal family. Stylistically quite distinct, the Annunciation Cathedral represents the continuation of traditional architectural forms, which parallel the Renaissance imports. The cathedral of the Archangel Michael at the Kremlin, built ca. 1505–9 by Alevisio Lamberti da Montagnana, a Venetian architect, continues the Renaissance trend begun by Fioravanti (see Fig. 27.18). The five-domed design follows that of the Dormition Cathedral, but smaller in scale. Its elegant exterior is classicizing, with Corinthian capitals to the pilasters and ornamental half-shells in the zakomary. Similarly, the Great Bell Tower of Ivan III was begun by a Milanese architect known as Bon Fryazin (1505–8), its lower portions resembling a Lombard-style, freestanding campanile— although it was subsequently heightened and expanded to house twenty-one bells (see Fig. 27.18). Beginning in 1485, the Kremlin was strengthened with new walls of red brick, following the line of the older stone walls, punctuated with projecting towers (Fig. 27.24). The work is credited to a mixed team of Russian and imported Italian builders, with

the latter directing the construction of the towers. With fortification of the residential neighborhood Kitay-Gorod to the east, 1536–39, the layout of Moscow began to resemble that of Smederevo in Serbia, with the citadel at the strategic point of a large triangular enclosure, separated internally from the residential area by a moat (see Figs. 27.17 and 26.33). At the same time, the towers reflect contemporary developments in Italian Renaissance— specifically Lombard—architecture. If we discount the later decorative extensions, the walls of the Kremlin would not look out of place in Milan. At Kolomenskoe, once an imperial estate overlooking the Moscow River, several churches are preserved, the most important of which is the Church of the Ascension, built after 1528 to commemorate the birth of Ivan IV and dedicated in 1532 (Fig. 27.25). The plan is without precedent: a square naos expanded with cruciform arms, set on an elevated platform. As the church rises, the upper stage is octagonal, covered by a pyramidal tent roof, all constructed in brick. Kokoshniki appear at the transition to octagon, with zakomary at the base of the steeply pitched roof. The tent roof, or chatior, seen for the first time here, became a prominent feature in the architecture of the period of Ivan, but its origins are obscure. One theory is that the chatior developed out of indigenous wooden architecture, although no examples are preserved from this early period (compare Fig. 27.26).18 Following this line of thought, the new architectural forms represented by Kolomenskoe stand in sharp contrast to the Italian-built cathedrals of the Kremlin and could thus mark a conservative, nationalistic backlash against the foreign influences. Recent scholarship has emphasized the Italian Renaissance (and even some Gothic) details of the Church of the Ascension, however, and documentary evidence now indicates that an Italian architect, Pietro Annibale, known in Russian as Petrok Maly, was responsible for its design—the same architect who had directed the construction of the walls of Kitay-Gorod.19 It clearly demanded a skilled engineer to create the 62-meter-tall building, which required foundations 9 meters 18

Faensen and Ivanov, Early Russian Architecture, 437–39.

19

Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture, 111–21.

FIGURE 27.20 Moscow, Kremlin, Cathedral of the Assumption, plan and isometric section (redrawn after D. Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture and the West, 2007)

deep. All the same, the architect was certainly aware of the visual impact of traditional Russian forms, as the application of kokoshniki and zakomary attests. Should the chatior fall into the same category? Whatever the case, it would appear that an Italian architect was responsible for the introduction of the distinctive form in masonry—one that has come to be interpreted as an indigenous Russian form. The most iconic of the Moscow churches is also the most unusual. The Cathedral of St. Basil was built by Ivan IV (the Terrible) to commemorate his 1552 victory at Kazan—a critical event in Russian history; the church was completed in 1561 (Fig. 27.27; and see Fig. 0.4).20 20

Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture, 126–40.

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FIGURE 27.21 Moscow, Kremlin, Cathedral of the Assumption, interior, looking east (courtesy of Moscow Architectural Institute Scientific Library)

FIGURE 27.22 Moscow, Kremlin, Cathedral of the Assumption, east façade, with the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the distance (author)

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FIGURE 27.23 Moscow, Kremlin, Cathedral of the Annunciation, interior, looking southeast toward the iconostasis (Shakko, Wikimedia Commons)

FIGURE 27.24 Moscow, Kremlin, view of the fortifications from the Moscow River (Gerald Carr)

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FIGURE

698

27.25

Kolomenskoe, Church of the Ascension, view from the north (author)

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It was originally dedicated to the Intercession of the Virgin, but it gradually became associated with Basil the Blessed, a holy fool whose burial chapel was added at the end of the sixteenth century. The original church actually consisted of nine adjoining chapels raised on an elevated platform. Eight chapels around the perimeter rise to different heights and are topped by picturesquely distinctive onion domes. The central chapel—that of the Virgin—towers above the rest and is covered by a pyramidal tent roof, crowned by a tiny, gilded onion dome. The interior spaces are tall and tower-like, with maximum visual effect devoted to the exterior. The onion domes are in fact hollow, formed by metal sheathing over an armature; on the interior, the chapels terminate in rather modest cloister vaults. In many ways, St. Basil’s resembles a stage set, and it appropriately became the backdrop for the civic and religious ceremonies through which Moscow symbolically expressed its identity. The main western chapel was dedicated to the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, and this became the focus

FIGURE 27.26 Kondopoga, Church of the Assumption, dated 1774 (Happykg, Wikimedia Commons)

FIGURE 27.27 Moscow, Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed (Virgin of the Intercession), plan and transverse section (after H. Faensen and V. Ivanov, Early Russian Architecture, 1975)

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of a special ceremony on Palm Sunday: conducted by the tzar, the patriarch rode a donkey at the head of a procession that ceremonially recreated Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. Through such ceremonies, the church—and subsequently Moscow— became associated with Jerusalem. One of the lingering questions in the development of Russian architecture is the appearance of the distinctive onion dome: does it have a special meaning or function? Most of the churches just discussed were constructed without them, only to have them added in later remodelings. Those at St Basil’s are obviously integral to its inception. One suggestion is they are functional, diverting snowfall from the roof. Another hypothesis is they reflect the form of the canopy above the Tomb of Christ in the Holy Sepulchre. Perhaps the most compelling suggestion is an indebtedness to Islamic forms, adopted as a triumphalist motif after the Battle of Kazan, which brought significant Mongol territory under Russian

FIGURE 27.28 Moscow, Donskoy Monastery, Old Cathedral, view (author)

FIGURE 27.29 Istra, Monastery of the New Jerusalem, Cathedral of the Resurrection, plan and section (after H. Faensen and V. Ivanov, Early Russian Architecture, 1975)

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FIGURE 27.30 Lake Onega, Kizhi Island, Church of the Transfiguration, view from the south (J. Stubbs, courtesy World Monuments Fund)

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FIGURE 27.31 Lake Onega, Kizhi Island, Church of the Transfiguration, plan and section (after H. Faensen and V. Ivanov, Early Russian Architecture, 1975, with the author’s modifications)

control.21 Whatever their original meaning, they quickly became popular and took on a symbolism of their own, their shape compared to the flame of a candle, as a beacon of Orthodoxy. Not all churches in Moscow resemble St. Basil’s. The Renaissance rethinking of Byzantine forms at the Dormition Cathedral found a notable following, as, for example, at the Cathedral of the Dormition in the monastery of the Trinity and St. Sergius at Zagorsk (1559–85), which copies its namesake almost exactly, including the modular, twelve-bayed plan, with five domes and five apses. Built under Ivan IV, the repetition of forms was intended to represent the power and royal associations of the monastery. Constructed almost simultaneously with St. Basil’s and by the same patron, the church reflects the stylistic diversity possible in Russian architecture. Another stylistic alternative is provided by the Donskoy Monastery, founded in 1591 on the site where the future tzar

Boris Godunov repelled a Tatar attack, aided by the miraculous icon of the Virgin of the Don (Fig. 27.28). The Old Cathedral, constructed in 1591–93, is relatively simple in plan, but its roof is composed of a series of zakomary, organized pyramidally to culminate in an onion dome raised above a tall drum. As in many examples, the dramatic exterior impression contrasts with a relatively conservative interior. Russia’s debt to the Mediterranean past is also evident in the Monastery of the New Jerusalem at Istra, near Moscow, begun in 1656 by Patriarch Nikon (Fig. 27.29).22 A scale copy of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, translated into a picturesque Russian vernacular, it appears considerably more spectacular than its prototype. At the same time, the monastery is painstakingly accurate in following the Jerusalem building, based on plans and models. Built to the same scale in plan as the original, it rose considerably

Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture, 128, with additional notes to works (in Russian) by Brunov, Il’yin, Batalov, Vyachanina, and Bondarenko.

22

21

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Shvidkovsky, Russian Architecture, 169–73; R.  G.  Ousterhout, “Building the New Jerusalem,” in Jerozolima w kulturze europejskiej, eds. P. Paszkiewicza and T. Zadroznego (Warsaw, 1997), 143–54.

taller, with a great conical vault towering above the Rotunda, over 60 meters high. Criticized in his day for his presumption, Nikon’s contemporaries viewed his building more as a hijacking of the sacred than as a conceptualization of it. With the majority of the Russian churches, the exterior was elaborated while the interior remained relatively simple, as necessitated by Orthodox ritual. An extreme example of this tendency may be seen in the Church of the Transfiguration on Kizhi Island (Lake Onega), built in 1714 and one of the oldest surviving wooden churches (Figs. 27.30 and 27.31).23 Here the exterior is 23

Faensen and Ivanov, Early Russian Architecture, 505–11.

dominated by the repetition of domes and kokohsniki, all of wood and roofed with shingles. While indicative of the preoccupation with decorative forms, the connection with the interior has been completely lost: the twenty-two domes are simply attachments to the superstructure. The interior is a simple octagon extended with cross arms, covered by a flat ceiling, barely one third the total height, with the sanctuary visually blocked by an iconostasis that extends to the ceiling. In short, the church represents a complete departure from the original Byzantine concept: at the core is the dome, whose meaning as a signifier of sacred space might be similar, but its formal and architectural significance has been lost.

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EPILOGUE

,

AN ENDURING LEGACY

T

oday we tend to think of Byzantine architecture as church architecture and thus, for better or worse, associated with the Orthodox Christian religious world. In Greece, virtually every village church follows a Byzantine model, small and domed, like the picture-perfect examples from the Greek islands that grace so many postcards and calendars (Fig. 28.1). In the middle of the twentieth century, the prolific Byzantinist Anastasios Orlandos designed a variety of Byzantinizing churches around Greece, setting a standard that other church builders have followed.1 However picturesque, none of these is great architecture and none is particularly original, for traditional religions rarely encourage architectural experimentation. As a bearer of meaning, the conservative form of the building represents the solid tradition of the faith. Thus, architectural deviations might suggest theological error. This may be the reason the Church of St. Fotini near Mantinea in the central Peloponnese, built 1970– 72 by Costas Papatheodorou, upsets many Greeks (Fig. 28.2).2 It is spectacularly original, in an

eclectic postmodern style; the Blue Guide describes it as a “Minoan–Classical–Byzantine folly.”3 Its interior decoration was just as original—so much so that Greek Orthodox officials deemed it a bit too pagan and had it repainted. The church rarely functions for the liturgy and remains more interesting to tourists than useful to locals. In the Balkans, with the establishment and reassertion of national identities, a neo-Byzantine style was developed in the early twentieth century and still persists.4 At Sofia, the Cathedral of Alexander Nevsky was completed in 1912 as Bulgaria sought a national identity. More recently, the completion of the Church of St. Sava in Belgrade (1935–2018) corresponds to the rise of Serbian nationalism. Both are interesting as historical phenomena, distinguished by their scale— St. Sava rises 70 meters tall—although neither constitutes a significant work of architecture.

3 R.  Barber, Blue Guide: Greece, 5th ed. (New York–London, 1987), 322.

B. Pantelić, “L’église de Saint Savas à Belgrade,” Études Balkaniques 12 (2005), 181–86; B. Pantelić, “Designing Identities: Reshaping the Balkans in the First Two Centuries: The Case of Serbia,” Journal of Design History 20 (2007), 131–44. 4

See  A.  Petronotis, “Ho architekton Anastasios Orlandos,” in Anastasios Orlandos: Ho athropos kai to ergo tou (Athens, 1978), 265–392.

1

2

P. Sarantakis, Agia Foteine Archaias Mantineias (Athens, 2010).

Design by Santiago Calatrava for St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at the World Trade Center (courtesy Santiago Calatrava LLC, Zurich) 705

figure 28.1  Oia, Santorini, view of postByzantine churches (author)

28.2 Mantinea, St. Fotini, view from the southeast (author) figure

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FIGURE 28.3 Ronchamps, Notre Dame du Haut, view of the windowed façade (Wladyslav, Wikipedia Creative Commons)

One is left to wonder if a work of architecture could be both neo-Byzantine and original without being heretical. Similarly, the development of a regional Russian Orthodox idiom inspired a variety of exotic constructions—at least exotic in their unusual locations. For example, on Hokkaido Island in Japan, the Hakodate Khristos was constructed in 1916 by Izo Kawamura in a purely Russian style.5 In Chicago, the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, built in 1903 by Louis Sullivan, stands as perhaps the most unusual of the great architect’s designs, based on a Siberian wooden church, which he had seen in a book about the Trans-Siberian Railway.6 As Sullivan’s church suggests, even the modern movement has occasional Byzantine moments: at Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamps (1950–55), 5

B. Bognar, Architectural Guide Japan (Berlin, 2013), 52.

A. Bezkorovainy, A History of the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Chicago: 1892–1992 (Chicago, 1992), esp. 132; A. I. Dmitriev-Mamonov, ed., Guide to the Great Siberian Railway (St. Petersburg, 1900), photograph p. 207: St. Michael at Tatarskaya, built 1897. 6

le Corbusier seems to have been influenced by the outward appearance of the Panagia Chozoviotissa Monastery on the island of Amorgos, which he visited during his eastern travels in 1933 (Figs. 28.3 and 28.4).7 Built into a cliff face and expanded during the post-Byzantine centuries, the whitewashed outer wall is punctured by an irregular array of windows. The façade was imitated at Ronchamps, but with the windows opening into the central space of the nave rather than individual monastic cells, creating a unique lighting effect for the interior. While following a historical model, Ronchamps is definitely not a typical neoByzantine church, but then, the Chozoviotissa is not a typical Byzantine monastery. Unlike the new churches in Greece, designed to foster community, following a Middle or Late Byzantine prototype, in the United States, Greek Americans seem to prefer grand, imperial gestures, with Hagia Sophia as the inevitable model. Even Frank Lloyd Wright seems unable to move beyond what one scholar has termed “the tyranny 7

E. Stoller, The Chapel at Ronchamps (New York, 1999). EPILOGUE: AN ENDURING LEGACY

707

28.4 Amorgos, Chozoviotissa Monastery, view (Giorgio Martino, Wikimedia Commons) FIGURE

of Hagia Sophia.”8 At Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, in the Church of the Annunciation, built in 1956– 61, the interior is spanned by an enormous saucer-shaped dome (Fig. 28.5). Developed according to an “organic” design with modern materials, it is simply antithetical to Orthodox devotional practices, as well as to its meaning, and the congregants continue to grumble that the interior is too open, too exposed, too Unitarian—there is no mystery. The church stands as testament to the creative genius of its architect, who saw the building “not as a copy of Byzantine architecture— but better than a copy.”9 For Wright, the spatial syntax seems to outweigh all else. Another curious example, the Church of Sts. Constantine and Helen on the south side of Chicago, begun in 1946 by Christopher Chamales, also adheres to the tyranny of Hagia Sophia, even to include the monumental but structurally pointless 8 Anthony Cutler, “The Tyranny of Hagia Sophia: Notes on Greek Orthodox Church Design in the United States,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 31 (1972), 38–50. 9 Robert Nelson, Hagia Sophia 1850–1950: Holy Wisdom, Modern Monument (Chicago, 2004), 204–208.

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buttresses at its entrance.10 It functioned only briefly as a Greek Orthodox church. With the changing demographics in Chicago, most of the Greek Americans moved to the north side of the city and were replaced by African Americans. In 1971 the building was sold to the Nation of Islam, a nonorthodox Muslim community, and it now functions as a mosque, known as Mosque Maryam—its cross replaced with a crescent and its frescoes removed. The image of the Pantokrator in the dome, in fact, was replaced with calligraphy of the same verses that appear in the dome of the Ayasofya Camii (Hagia Sophia) in Istanbul. All too often, the Byzantine form and style have taken on a political context. One of the latest additions to the Moscow skyline is the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, originally built to commemorate the Russian victory over the French in the War of 1812 and set prominently on the bank of the Moscow River (Fig. 28.6). Envisioned under Nicholas I and given an importance similar to that of St. Peter’s in Rome, the immense church was constructed by the architect Konstantin Ton in a so-called Byzantino10

Nelson, Hagia Sophia, 197–203.

FIGURE 28.5 Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, Church of the Annunciation, view (Robert Nelson)

Russian style. According to Ton, “Our religious architecture is the result of a Byzantine style acclimated to our national spirit.” Rising 103 meters high, the main dome was 25.5 meters in diameter, and the entire building covered 6,800 square meters, completed only in 1883.11 Strongly associated with the Romanov dynasty, the gigantic and prominent church was a sore point in the Soviet era. It was eventually dynamited on the orders of Stalin in 1931 to make way for an even more immense Palace of the Soviets, a huge skyscraper topped by a colossal statue of Lenin. Plagued by groundwater, financial depression, and World War II, Stalin’s project never progressed beyond the foundations, which were eventually turned into the world’s largest swimming pool. With the demise of the Soviet Union, the reconstruction of Christ the Savior was undertaken at great expense, primarily for ideological purposes. From 1995 through 2000, construction workers labored around the clock, and progress was reported nightly on the television news. Although the building may lack

the subtlety of the earlier monuments, it is clear that Russia still believes in grand architectural gestures. So, too, does the United States, as the many mini Hagia Sophias amply demonstrate. One final example is noteworthy. Virtually unknown and undistinguished before its destruction on 11 September 2001, the Church of St. Nicholas at the World Trade Center in New York City had been repurposed from a modest residence-turned-tavern in 1919. Its replacement (still under construction in 2018) was entrusted to the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, whose domed design is obviously based on Hagia Sophia—perhaps the most iconic design ever produced by the famously iconoclastic architect (Fig. 28.7).12 Now considerably larger than its predecessor and in a more prominent position in the new Liberty Park, the church has been reborn as the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine. Thanks to an unforgettable disaster and the involvement of a signature architect, the once modest St. Nicholas has been catapulted onto the world stage.

11 See, among others, E. V. Haskins, “Russia’s Postcommunist Past: The Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Reimagining of National Identity,” History and Memory 21 (2009): 25–62.

12

A project plagued by bureaucracy and financial shortfall; see S. Otterman, “Work Stops on St. Nicholas Shrine at World Trade Center Site,” New York Times (26 December 2017). EPILOGUE: AN ENDURING LEGACY

709

FIGURE 28.6 Moscow, Cathedral of Christ the Savior, as rebuilt 1994–2000 (author)

Throughout the Ottoman Empire, Sinan and other architects cut their teeth on Byzantine architecture, at least in terms of their formal vocabulary. But rather than a symbolic form, as it had been for the Byzantines or the Russians, the Ottoman dome became a generative element in a new spatial syntax. For many buildings and complexes, the domed bay was a modular unit (much as it had been in the sixth century), repeated seemingly endlessly and at a variety of scales (see Fig. 27.10).13 In some instances, notably the great sultanic mosques, the dome could represent power, prestige, or even some sort of cosmic symbolism, but over time, it gradually lost specificity of meaning. Like the bizarrely oversized Çamlıca Republic Mosque, still under construction in 2018, with its central dome 34 meters in diameter (a reference to the license plate number of Istanbul, but also, significantly, several meters larger than Hagia Sophia’s dome), new Turkish mosques refer to the greatness

As I walk home each day in West Philadelphia, I pass St. Frances de Sales, a Roman Catholic church dedicated to a Savoyard saint, built in 1907 to serve an immigrant Irish community, modeled after Justinian’s Hagia Sophia (Fig. 28.9).14 At that time, the Roman Catholic Church was seeking stylistic alternatives to the Gothic, and some felt that the Byzantine style might better represent the spiritual values of the early

13 D. Kuban, “The Style of Sinan’s Domed Structures,” Muqarnas 4 (1987): 72–97.

14 Henry  D.  Dagit, “Roman Catholic Church: The Church of St. Francis de Sales, Philadelphia, PA,” Architectural Record 29 (1911): 233.

710

EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

of the Ottoman past through bland reproductions of Sinan’s masterpieces, while the connection with the distant past—indeed, the Ottoman competitive discourse with the Byzantine past—seems to have been forgotten (Fig. 28.8). As with the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Byzantine contributions have been sidelined in the service of national and religious identity.

,

figure 28.7  Design by Santiago Calatrava for St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at the World Trade Center (courtesy Santiago Calatrava LLC, Zurich)



EPILOGUE: AN ENDURING LEGACY

711

FIGURE 28.8 Çamlıca (Istanbul), Republic Mosque nearing completion (Sibel Horada)

28.9 Philadelphia, Church of St. Francis de Sales, interior, looking south (author)

FIGURE

712

EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

church than the ubiquitous Gothic. Like Hagia Sophia, it was a grand experiment, using lightweight Guastavino tiles for the large vault construction15—and like Hagia Sophia, it was plagued by structural problems. A one-off for the architect Henry Dagit, whose other churches were in

Romanesque or Gothic styles,16 St. Francis regularly reminds me of the enduring legacy of Eastern medieval architecture, far beyond the bounds of Byzantium and far beyond the confines of Orthodoxy. In the preceding pages, I hope to have convinced the reader of the same.

J. A. Ochsendorf, Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile (New York, 2013).

16

15

Nevertheless, it was singled out in his obituary as the architect’s major achievement: New York Times (26 March 1929).

EPILOGUE: AN ENDURING LEGACY

713

GLOSSARY ,

Acanthus:  Variety of thistle, whose leaves were commonly imitated in architectural ornament, notably in the Corinthian capital Acropolis:  Literally “high city”; a fortified citadel, used as a toponym for the sanctuary of Athena at Athens ad Sanctos:  Burial in close proximity to that of a saint or a holy site Aedicula:  Miniature building or architectural frame; often a niche marked by columns and a pediment Agora:  Marketplace Aisled tetraconch:  Centralized building with a four-lobed plan, with the central space framed by an ambulatory Altar:  Table used as the setting for the Eucharist Ambo:  Pulpit Ambulatory:  Curved aisle Ambulatory-plan church:  Centrally planned church with the central space enveloped by a curved aisle Amphora/ae:  Ceramic vessel used for storage and transportation Ampulla/ae:  Flask, often a container for sacred matter Anaphora:  Eucharistic prayer, accompanying the offering of the bread and wine Anastasis:  Resurrection; toponym for the rotunda at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem 714

Annular:  Curved in plan; used to describe a barrel vault or crypt Antiphon:  Psalm or verse sung responsively as part of the liturgy Apodyterium:  Dressing room in a Roman bath Apologia:  Explanation or justification (not an apology) Apotheosis:  Deification, elevation of a human to divine status Apse:  Semicircular recess, usually terminating the longitudinal axis of a church, containing the altar Apsidiole:  Small apse Arcade:  Row of arches Arch:  Curved vertical structure spanning an opening Architekton:  In Late Antiquity, an architect with a technical (but not theoretical) education Architrave:  Lintel or horizontal element supported by columns of piers; lowest element of the entablature Archivolt:  Molding surrounding an arched opening Archon/archontes:  Magistrate Arcosolium/arcosolia:  Arched niche containing a tomb or sarcophagus Arcuated:  Composed of arches Area/areae:  Above-ground cemetery Arris/arrises:  The sharp edge where two surfaces meet, as on a fluted column shaft

Arrowslit:  Narrow vertical opening in a fortification used by archers Artopolia:  Bakers’ quarters Ascetic:  One who practices severe selfdiscipline characterized by abstinence Ashlar:  Cut-stone masonry “Athonite-type” church:  Domed church with a triconch plan, common on Mount Athos Atrium/atria:  Forecourt of a church, usually enveloped by porticoes Atrophied Greek-cross type:  Centrally planned church with the dome braced by arches or narrow barrel vaults on four sides Aula:  Ceremonial hall Ayvan:  In Islamic architecture, a barrel-vaulted hall or space, open on one side Bacino/bacini:  Glazed ceramic bowl, often used as mural decoration Baldachin, baldacchino:  A canopy raised above an altar, throne, or tomb Banded barrel vault:  Barrel vault reinforced by arches Baptistery:  Building or room containing a font for Christian initiation Barrel vault:  Simple, continuous vault, usually semicircular in section Basilica:  Assembly room; the commonest church type, usually composed of a longitudinal nave flanked by side aisles Bay:  A compartment of space, often repeated, in an interior Belfry:  Tower housing a bell or bells Bema:  The chancel or sanctuary of a church, containing the altar; see also Syrian bema Beylerbey:  Title of a high-ranking official in the Islamic world Beylik:  In Turkish, a polity ruled by a bey (chieftain) Bifore/bifora:  A window with two parallel openings divided by a mullion or colonnette Bishop:  Administrator of a district (or bishopric) within the Christian church Blind arcade:  Arches applied to a wall as decoration Book of the Eparch:  Collection of regulations governing the guilds of Constantinople, probably tenth century in origin Boss:  Ornamental knob on a vault Bouleterion:  Council house; in ancient Greece, where the council of citizens met

Buttress:  Projecting mass of masonry to strengthen a wall; see also Flying buttress Caldarium:  Hot room in a Roman bath Calvary (Golgotha):  The site, enshrined within the church of the Holy Sepulchre, marking the Crucifixion Cami/camii:  Congregational mosque (pronounced jah-mee) Capital:  The uppermost part of a column, marking the transition from round (the shaft beneath it) to square (the lintel above it) Capitolium:  As on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, a temple dedicated to Jupiter, or to the Capitoline triad of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva Caravansaray/caravanserai:  In the Islamic world, a roadside inn, for the protection of travelers, usually along major commercial routes Cardo:  In Roman planning, the north–south street; see Decumanus Castrum/kastron:  Roman military camp, a rectangular fortified enclosure Catacomb:  Underground cemetery Catechumen:  An initiate or convert to Christianity, not yet baptized Cathedra:  Throne of a bishop Cathedral:  The major church of a district, the seat of the bishop Cemetery basilica:  In Late Antiquity, a basilica outside the walls of a city, often part of a larger cemetery, used for burials and communal meals honoring the dead, as well as irregular liturgies Cenotaph:  Empty tomb or a monument to someone buried elsewhere Centering:  Temporary wooden framework to support an arch or vault during construction; also called formwork Chalcedonian Christianity:  Denominations adhering to the Christological definitions established at the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 Chalke Gate:  Bronze Gate, the main entrance to the Great Palace in Constantinople Chamfer:  Sloping surface at an edge or corner Chancel:  See Bema Chancel barrier:  Partition separating the sanctuary from the main body of the church; templon Charakteres:  Illegible, magical symbols

GLOSSARY

715

Chatior/shatior:  In Russian architecture, a tent-shaped roof, common in wooden architecture Chi–Rho monogram:  A Christian symbol composed of the first two letters of Christ’s name in Greek Choros/choroi:  Literally “choir,” the lateral apse of an Athonite church Ciborium:  See Baldachin Circus/Hippodrome:  Course for horse or chariot racing, framed by stepped seating Cistern:  Utilitarian space, either open or enclosed, for the storage of water Citadel:  Fortress on high ground, often protecting a city Clerestory:  Upper wall area, usually where the nave rises above adjacent aisles, opened by windows Cloisonné masonry:  Masonry style in which ashlar blocks are framed by bricks placed horizontally and vertically Cloister:  Courtyard of a monastery Cloister vault:  Vault rising from a square or polygonal base, curved in section, but not in plan Coenobium/cenobium:  Monastery organized for a communal lifestyle Colonnade:  Row of columns Colonnette:  Small column Column:  Cylindrical support, commonly consisting of a base, shaft, and capital Composite capital:  In Roman and Late Antique architecture, a capital composed of the stylized acanthus leaves of the Corinthian Order and the volutes of the Ionic Order Compound pier:  Pier with columns, shafts, or pilasters attached to its faces Conch:  Half-dome or quarter-sphere vault, usually the covering of an apse or exedra Confessio:  Underground chamber sheltering a relic beneath or near the altar of a church Consecratio:  In Rome, the ceremony marking the apotheosis of an emperor Console:  Ornamental bracket Corbel:  Masonry block projecting from a wall to support something above it Corbel table frieze:  A decorative arcade supported on corbels, usually the upper termination of a wall 716 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Corinthian capital:  Capital based on stylized acanthus leaves, with small volutes at the corners Cornice:  Horizontal molding, often marking the springing of vaults or the upper termination of a wall Crocket capital:  In Gothic architecture, ornamental hook-like spurs replace the stylized acanthus leaves of the Corinthian Order Cross arm:  Bay flanking the central, domed bay in a church Cross-domed unit:  Structural unit in which the central domed bay is braced on four sides by vaults Cross-domed church/cross-domed basilica:  A church with a cross-domed unit at its core Crossing:  Bay where the nave and transept of a church intersect Cross-in-square church type:  Church with a nine-bayed nave, the central dome braced by tall, vaulted cross arms, with lower vaults above the corner bays; sometimes confusingly termed a quincunx Crypt:  Vaulted space beneath a church, often housing relics or burials Cubiculum/cubicula:  In the catacombs, a small room for private or family burials, often framed by arcosolia Curtain wall:  Thin, non-load-bearing wall Dado:  Lower part of a wall, decorated differently from the upper Decumanus:  In Roman orthogonal city planning, an east–west street; see Cardo Deesis:  Literally “entreaty”; image of Christ flanked by the Theotokos and John the Baptist in supplication Dendrochronology:  Science of determining dates of wood based on the pattern of treering growth Despotes:  Literally “lord” or “master”; a title applied to the emperor; also to the patriarch or bishops Diakonikon:  Sacristy, often attached to the bema Diaphragm arch:  Transverse arch spanning a nave or aisle, dividing the roof into sections Dies natalis:  Birthday or anniversary Diophysite:  One who maintains the Chalcedonian doctrine that Christ has two natures, divine and human

Dodekaorton:  Twelve major feasts of the Orthodox liturgical calendar:  Annunciation, Nativity, Epiphany, Presentation in the Temple, Transfiguration, Entrance into Jerusalem, Resurrection of Lazarus, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, Dormition of the Theotokos, Pentecost Dogtooth cornice:  Cornice made of brick set at a 45-degree angle to the wall surface Dome:  Hemispherical vault Domed basilica:  Vaulted church type that maintains an elongated nave, covered in part by a dome Domical vault:  Vault with a high center, based on spherical geometry Domus:  House or housing block Domus ecclesiae:  House church Donjon:  Inner tower or keep of a medieval castle Dovecote:  Pigeon house, room(s) lined with niches (pigeonholes) for birds to roost Drum:  Cylindrical structure on which a dome is raised Ecclesia/ekklesia:  In ancient Greece, a political assembly; in Christian terms, the congregation Ekphrasis/ekphraseis:  Evocative writing, often in the form of a description of a work of art or architecture Elbow column:  In Crusader architecture, a truncated column shaft forms a bracket, supporting a capital, beneath the vaulting Enkainia:  Foundation ceremony for a church Entablature:  Superstructure supported by columns, usually with an architrave, frieze, and cornice Epistyle:  See Architrave Ergasterion:  Workshop Ergates:  Untrained worker Ergolabos:  Building supervisor Esplanade:  Large, open platform, often paved Eucharist:  Communion service, in which consecrated bread and wine are consumed Eukterion:  Chapel Exedra:  Colonnaded niche Exonarthex:  See Narthex Exo teichos:  Outer wall in a fortification system Extrados:  Outer (upper) surface of an arch or vault Fastigium:  Colonnaded screen, often gabled

Fenestration:  System of windows Feudalism:  Medieval system of social structuring based on landholding Flying buttress:  Buttress with flyers (arches or half-arches) connecting to the wall it supports Font:  Basin, often that used for baptism Formwork:  See Centering Forum/fora:  In Roman architecture, a public space surrounded by civic buildings and colonnades Four-column church:  See Cross-in-square church type Free-cross plan:  Church with a cruciform naos, whose form is expressed on the exterior Fresco:  Painting on plaster Frieze:  Continuous band of decoration Frigidarium:  Cold room in a Roman bath Frourion:  Fortress Furta sacra:  Holy theft, the stealing of a saint’s relics Gable:  Triangular area immediately below the roof; also called a pediment Gadroon:  Pillow-shaped voussoir Gallery:  Upper level in a church, above the side aisles and narthex; also sometimes called Katechoumena of Gynaikeion Gavit/zamatun:  In Armenian architecture, the multipurpose forehall of a church Gesamtkunstwerk:  Literally a “total work of art,” one that engages many different art forms simultaneously Glacis:  Sloping surface below a fortification wall Greek cross:  Cross with equal arms Groin vault, or cross vault:  Vault formed by the intersection of two barrel vaults Hagiasma:  Spring of holy water Haunch:  Sides of an arch, distinguished from the crown Hegoumenos:  Abbot, head of a monastery Hemicycle:  Annular corridor or portico Hemisphaeron:  Literally “hemisphere,” an enigmatic term used for the apse conch in the basilica at Constantine’s Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem Hermit:  One who lives in solitude, usually for religious reasons Hermitage:  Dwelling of a hermit Heroon/heroa:  Shrine to a hero Hieron:  Sacred place, a sanctuary or temple

GLOSSARY

717

Hippodrome:  See Circus Horreum/horrea:  Warehouse Horseshoe arch:  Arch greater than semicircular in form Hypatos:  Low-level Byzantine court title Hypocaust:  Hollow space below the floor of a Roman bath, through which hot air flows for radiant heating Hypogeum/hypogea:  Underground tomb chamber Icon:  Literally “image,” usually refers to a religious image used for devotional purposes Iconoclasm:  Active rejection of destruction of images for political or religious reasons; those who destroy images are iconoclasts, as opposed iconophiles, who love icons or images Iconostasis.:  Later version of the chancel barrier or templon, a screen covered with icons Impost block:  In Late Antique architecture, the extra block inserted between the capital and the entablature or arcade above it Impost capital:  Capital that takes the shape of an impost block Inhabited scroll:  Decorative frieze of scrolling vegetation, with animals or humans in it Inscribed cross plan:  See Cross-in-square church type Indiction:  Fiscal period of fifteen years Insula:  Roman housing block or apartment building Intervallum:  Area between two walls in a fortification system Intrados:  Lower or inner surface of an arch or vault Ionic capital:  Capital characterized by two prominent volutes Iwan:  See Ayvan Jamb:  Lateral frame of a door or window Katechoumena:  Gallery Kathedra:  See Cathedra Katholikon:  Main church of a monastery Kephale:  Literally, “head”; title of rotating ruler in Late Byzantine Mystras Khachkar:  In Armenian architecture, a stone cross Klimax:  Ladder of scaffold, in Greek Kline/klinae:  Couch used for dining Knez:  Prince, in Serbian 718 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Koine:  Common shared language, a lingua franca; the form of Greek used during the Hellenistic and Roman periods Koinobion/-a, cenobite:  Member of a religious order, following as communal rule Kokoshniki:  In Russian architecture, decorative overlapping gables Kremlin:  Fortress, in Russian; used as the toponym for the religious and administrative center of Moscow Ktetor:  Founder or patron, in Greek Külliye:  In Ottoman architecture, a complex of buildings centered on a mosque Latin cross:  Cross with three equal arms and one long arm Laura or lavra:  Loosely structured monastic cluster of cells (or caves) for hermit monks, sharing a common church and often a refectory Leptourgos:  Carpenter or woodworker, in Greek Lime mortar:  Binding element in construction based on hydrated quicklime combined with aggregate Limes:  Border of frontier; pronounced “lee-mays” Lintel:  Horizontal beam spanning an opening Lite:  Expanded monastic narthex; pronounced “lee-tee” Lithoxoos:  Stone carver, in Greek Liturgy:  Collection of rituals prescribed for public worship Loculus/loculi:  Small cavity, specifically a shelf-like tomb in a catacomb Locus sanctus/loca sancta:  Holy site Lunette:  Semicircular high wall beneath a vault, opened by window(s) Macellum/macella:  Market building Machicolation:  Corbelled parapet on the exterior of a fortification wall, with openings in the floor, through which objects may be dropped on attackers Madrasa/medrese:  College for Islamic instruction Maistor/mastoras:  Literally “master”; usually designates a master builder Majolica:  Painted Italian pottery with an opaque glaze; see also Protomajolica Martyr:  Literally “witness”; used for those who seal their testimony with their blood

Martyrium/martyria:  Tomb of a martyr or site that bears witness to the Christian faith Mausoleum:  Monumental building for burial Meander pattern:  Geometrically intricate, rectilinear decorative motif Mechanikos/mechanikoi or Mechanikopoios/ mechanikopoioi:  Architect-engineer with a broadly based, theoretical education Mega teichos:  Large inner wall in a fortification system Mensa:  Table used for celebrating mass Mese:  Middle Way, the main street of Constantinople Metochion/metochia:  Dependency of a monastery Miaphysite:  One who upholds the united human and divine nature of Christ, in contrast to the Chalcedonian doctrine Mihrab:  Niche in a mosque marking the direction of prayer, toward Mecca Minaret:  Tower of a mosque used for the call to prayer Mithraeum:  Temple for the worship of the god Mithras Monastery:  Cluster of buildings housing a religious community of monks or nuns, who follow a rule of conduct that governs their daily life and worship Mortar:  Binding element in masonry construction; see Lime mortar Mortared rubble:  Irregular construction of rough stone and mortar Mosaic:  Decorative surface composed of tesserae (squared pieces) of stone or glass Mosque:  Building used for Islamic worship Mullion:  Vertical element separating the lights in a window Muqarnas:  Decorative vault form common in Islamic architecture composed of superimposed corbelled niches Myrobletos/myrobletoi:  A saint whose tomb miraculously exudes aromatic oil (myron) Mystery religion:  Popular in Late Antiquity, a religion centered on secret rites by the initiates, promising salvation to a select few Naos:  Church or temple; commonly, the main space of a centrally planned church Narthex:  Transverse entry vestibule preceding the nave or naos; may be doubled to include

inner and other narthexes (esonarthex and exonarthex) Nave:  Central aisle of a basilica Necropolis:  City of the dead; a cemetery Neophyte:  Novice or convert Niche:  Shallow recess Nomisma/nomismata:  Standard gold coin of the Byzantine Empire; also Solidus Nymphaeum/nymphaea:  Fountain enclosure, usually decorated with columns, niches, and statues Octaconch:  Eight-niched structure Octagon-domed church:  Centrally planned church with a dome supported above eight points Ogival arch:  Pointed arch common to Gothic; also a decorative, pointed arch, with double curves on both sides Oikodomos/oikodomoi:  Builder Oikos:  House or household Oikoumene/ecumene:  Inhabited earth Onion dome:  Onion-shaped hood surmounting the dome in Russian church architecture Opus africanum:  Ashlar wall construction common in North Africa, with larger vertical stones alternating with horizontal courses of smaller stones Opus listatum:  Wall construction alternating courses of brick and stone; also incorrectly but commonly called opus mixtum Opus mixtum:  Wall construction of “mixed work,” of opus reticulatum (reticulate stonework) framed by opus latericium (horizonal brick courses) Opus sectile:  Floor or wall covering of inlaid marble work, both figural and geometric Orant:  Figure standing with arms raised in a gesture of prayer (orans) Oratory:  Small, private chapel Ossuary:  Container for bones of the deceased; sometimes a room of the same purpose Palatium:  Palace, in Latin Palisade:  In defensive architecture, a fence of upright wooden stakes Palladion/palladium:  Ancient cult image of Athena, believed to ensure the safety of Troy; taken by Aeneas to Rome, later alleged to be in Constantinople, buried beneath the Column of Constantine

GLOSSARY

719

Pan tiles:  Flat roofing tiles Pantokrator:  Christ as ruler of the world Parapet:  Low, protective wall Pastophoria:  Chambers flanking the bema in Middle and Late Byzantine churches, the prothesis and the diakonikon Paterikon:  Collection of sayings of the “fathers”—saints, martyrs, and church leaders Patriarch:  Male head of a family or tribe; title of the head of the Orthodox Church Patrikios:  High-ranking court title Pendentive:  Technically a spherical triangle, used to make the transition from square to circle beneath a dome Pendentive dome:  Shallow dome in which the curvature is continuous from the pendentives; in contrast to a dome on pendentives, where the two have different curvatures Peristyle:  Colonnaded courtyard, or a colonnade surrounding a building Phiale:  Fountain with a basin, common to monastery courtyards Pier:  Rectangular support Pilaster:  Engaged pier, that is, attached to a wall Pilgrim:  One who travels to visit a sacred site, who goes on a pilgrimage Pilier cantonné:  Compound pier common to the Gothic, with four colonnettes attached to a large central pier Pillow voussoir:  See Gadroon Piscina:  Pool or basin used for baptism; see Font Pithos/pithoi:  Large storage vessel Point support:  Structural system in which the weight of vaulting is adjusted to critical points, rather than relying on solid walls Pointed arch:  See Ogival arch Polis:  City, in Greek Pomerium:  Legal boundary of a Roman city Pope:  Bishop of Rome and titular head of the Catholic Church Porphyrogennetos:  Literally “born to the purple”; refers to an imperial child born in the Porphyra, the porphyry-lined chamber of the imperial palace Porphyry:  Hard, purplish stone, known only from imperial quarries in Upper Egypt, reserved for imperial use Portico:  Colonnade or covered ambulatory 720 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Pozzolana:  Volcanic sand, a critical ingredient in Roman concrete Praetorian prefect:  Important regional, civil functionary, who acted as a sort of vice emperor Presbyterium:  Place for priests and officiants to sit in the apse of a Late Antique church in Western Europe, the equivalent of the Synthronon Prokonnesos/Proconnesus:  Island in the Sea of Marmara, famous for its quarries of Prokonnesian (Proconnesian) marble Propylon/propylaeum:  Entry gate into a sacred precinct or building Proteichisma:  Outer defense wall Prothesis:  Chamber used for the preparation of the Eucharist and the storage of Eucharistic vessels Protomaistor:  See Maistor Protomajolica:  An early form of Majolica, produced in medieval Italy Protome:  Decorative antefix Protosebatos:  High court title Pseudo-Kufic:  Stylized decoration imitating an Arabic script Pumpkin dome:  Dome composed of fluted segments Putlog:  Timber used to attach scaffolding or formwork to a building, often leaving a pattern of holes in the wall surface Pylon temple:  In ancient Egypt, a temple preceded by a monumental gateway Qibla:  In Islam, the direction of prayer, toward Mecca Quadrant arch:  Half-arch, only the quadrant of a circle Quadrant vault:  Half-barrel vault Quadriburgium:  In Crusader architecture, a four-sided fortress Quadrifrons arch:  Four-fronted ceremonial arch Quincunx:  Five-spot pattern on dice; see Cross-in-square church type Rampart:  Defensive wall with a parapet at its upper surface Rebated shelf:  In the construction of a ribbed groin vault, where the ribs connect to the webs of masonry Recessed brick masonry:  System of wall construction in which alternating courses of brick are set back from the surface and covered by mortar; also called the concealedcourse technique

Refectory:  The dining hall of a monastery; see also Trapeza Refrigerium/refrigeria:  In Late Antiquity, a funeral banquet commemorating the deceased Relics:  Mortal remains of holy persons or objects sanctified by contact with them Respond:  Pilaster behind a column Revetment:  Cladding or facing of marble or other luxury stones used to decorate walls and piers Ribbed dome:  Dome articulated by ribs Ribbed vault:  Vault articulated by ribs Romanitas:  Romanness, the qualities that define one as Roman Rotunda:  Round building, usually domed Sail vault:  See Domical vault Sanctuary:  See Bema Sarcophagus/sarcophagi:  Literally “flesh-eater”; stone coffin used for the burial of the dead Scaffolding:  Temporary wooden structure to support workers during construction Schola cantorum:  Enclosure designed for the choir in early Roman churches Sebastokrator:  Highest court rank, conferred on emperors’ sons Semidome:  Half-dome or quarter-sphere Shaft:  Main cylindrical element of a column Shed roof:  Sloping roof Sigma:  C-shaped (following the Byzantine sigma = C) Sigma table:  Table with a rounded end, used for ceremonial dining Skeuophylakion:  Treasury, usually containing the sacred vessels of a church Skeuophylax:  Keeper of the vessels, treasurer Solea:  In early churches, a closed processional pathway extending from the templon into the nave Solidus/solidi:  Standard gold coin of the Byzantine Empire; also Nomisma/nomismata Sol Invictus:  Invincible sun, Helios as protector of the emperor Spandrel:  Space between the haunches of adjoining arches Spolia:  Materials taken for reuse from older buildings, often decorative, often with ideological overtones Squinch:  Corbelled arch or half-conical niche used as a transitional element in vaulting

Stational liturgy:  Worship service incorporating a procession from one church to another Stele/stelae:  Upright stone marker Stilted arch:  Arch whose springing is raised some distance above the impost Stoa:  Covered hall or portico String course:  Continuous projecting horizontal band; a cornice Stucco:  Plasterwork Stylite:  Ascetic monk who stood atop a pillar Stylobate:  Continuous base of stone, raised above floor level, on which columns or piers rest Synagogue:  Building for Jewish worship; a Jewish assembly or congregation Synkellos:  Adviser to the patriarch Synthronon/synthrona:  Benches reserved for the clergy within the apse of the church Syrian bema:  Raised platform at the center of the nave of a Syrian church, with seating for the clergy; distinct from the bema Taberna/tabernae:  Shop, often organized in series along colonnaded streets Technites:  Skilled worker Temenos:  Sacred precinct Templon:  Screen separating the nave or naos from the sanctuary; also called chancel barrier Tepidarium:  Warm room in a Roman bath Tesserae:  Small pieces of squared stone or glass used in the fabrication of mosaic Tetraconch:  Four-lobed building Tetrapylon:  See Quadrifrons arch Tetrarchy:  Late Antique system of government proclaimed by Diocletian with four rulers, two with the title Augustus, two with the title Caesar Tie beams/tie rods:  Wooden or iron reinforcement spanning an arch in masonry construction Titulus/tituli:  In Rome, a Christian community building; see Domus ecclesiae Theophany:  Appearance of the divinity Theotokos:  Literally “God-bearing”; Mother of God, a common epithet of the Virgin Mary, as proclaimed in the Council of Ephesus, 431 Thermal window:  Semicircular window, like those in Roman baths (thermae), filling the lunette and divided by mullions

GLOSSARY

721

Torus molding:  Convex decorative molding Trabeated:  Constructed of horizontal beams; as opposed to arcuated Tracery:  Ornamental stone divisions in windows, common in Gothic architecture Transept:  Transverse spatial unit in a basilican church Transverse arch:  Arch set at 90 degrees to major axis of building Transverse barrel vault:  Barrel vault set at 90 degrees to major axis of building Trapeza:  Literally “table”; a monastic refectory, often featuring a masonry table and benches Tribelon/tribela:  Triple-arched opening, usually between the narthex and the nave Triclia:  Arbor or summer house; term used for open, ceremonial banqueting structures above the catacombs in Rome Triclinium:  Ceremonial dining hall Triconch:  Three-lobed building Triumphal arch:  In Rome, a monumental arch, constructed as permanent commemoration of a military victory; term also used for the transverse arch at the east end of the church framing the sanctuary Trumpet squinch:  Conical squinch Tropaion/tropaia:  Literally “trophy”; monument to a deceased hero or martyr Truss/trussing:  System of triangular wooden rafters to support roofing

722 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Tubi fittili:  Hollow ceramic tubes used in lightweight vaulting Tufa:  Soft, porous limestone Tuff:  Consolidated volcanic ash; often erroneously called tufa Two-column church:  Abbreviated version of a cross-in-square church type Typikon/typika:  Foundation document regulating the organization of a monastery Tzar/tsar:  Title assumed by the Russian emperor in the sixteenth century; also czar, derived from the Byzantine title Caesar Vassal:  Person or country in a subordinate position Vault:  Arched roofing, usually of masonry Verde antico/verde antique:  Green Thessalian breccia (stone), common in revetments Vita:  Literally “life”; the biography of a saint Volute:  Spiral scroll, as in an Ionic capital Votive:  Something offered in fulfillment of a vow Voussoirs:  Wedge-shaped components of a masonry arch Wadi:  Valley Wind-blown capital:  Variation of the acanthus capital, in which the leaves appear to turn over, as if struck by a sudden gust of wind Xenodochia:  Guesthouse Zakomary:  In Russian architecture, a semicircular gable finishing a division of the façade Zawiya:  Islamic religious school; see Madrasa

ABBREVIATIONS (BASED ON DUMBARTON OAKS) , AB ActaIRNorv AH AJA AM AnatSt ArchBME ArchE ArtB BAR BByzI BMGS BSA BTTK BullMon ByzF BZ CahArch CBCR CFHB CorsiRav DChAE DOP ECBA EEPS EtBalk GOTR HTR HUkSt IEJ

Analecta Bollandiana Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia Institutum Romanum Norvegiae Art History American Journal of Archaeology Athenischen Mitteilungen Anatolian Studies Archeion ton byzantinon mnemeion tes ellados Archaiologike ephemeris The Art Bulletin British Archaeological Reports Bulletin of the Byzantine Institute Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies The Annual of the British School at Athens Belleten, Türk tarih kurumu Bulletin monumental Byzantinische Forschungen Byzantinische Zeitschrift Cahiers archéologiques Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae Corpus fontium historiae byzantinae Corsi di cultura sull’arte ravennate e bizantina Deltion tes Christianikes Archaiologikes Hetaireias Dumbarton Oaks Papers Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture Epistimynke Epeteris tes Polytechnikes Scholes Études Balkaniques Greek Orthodox Theological Review Harvard Theological Review Harvard Ukrainian Studies Israel Exploration Journal 723

IRAIK IstForsch IstMitt JbAC JDAI JEChrSt JÖB JRA JRS JSAH JWarb MarbJb MDAIRA ÖJh RACr TAPA WJKg ZKunstg ZRVI

Izvestiia Russkogo arkheologicheskogo instituta v Konstantinopole Istanbuler Forschungen Istanbuler Mitteilungen Jarhbuch für Antike und Christentum Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Journal of Early Christian Studies Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik Journal of Roman Archaeology Journal of Roman Studies Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Instituts in Wien Rivista di archeologia cristiana Transactions [and Proceedings] of the American Philological Association Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta

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FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ,

general studies

Čurčić, S. Architecture in the Balkans from Diocletian to Süleyman the Magnificent (New Haven, 2010) is a thoroughly detailed assessment of the architecture of the Balkans, including Greece, Turkish Thrace, and Constantinople, with thorough documentation. Jeffreys, E., et al., eds. Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (Oxford, 2008) presents an up-to-date overview of Byzantium and its institutions. Krautheimer, R., and S. Ćurčić. Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 4th ed. (New Haven, 1986) has been the standard handbook for generations and is still very useful for the early centuries; it is less so for the later centuries, emphasizing a formal approach, although grounded in archaeology. Lowden, J. Early Christian and Byzantine Art (London, 1997) is an excellent overview of Byzantine art, with limited discussion of architecture. Mango, C. Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, 1972) offers a selection of texts in translation (most are from Greek) that relate to art and architecture; the texts used here are from pp. 140–43, 185–86, and 239–40.



Mango, C. Byzantine Architecture (New York, 1974) presents Byzantine architecture from a historical approach, with buildings as documentary evidence, read in tandem with texts, more concerned with post-sixth-century developments. Marinis, V. Architecture and Ritual in the Churches of Constantinople: Ninth to Fifteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 2014); while focusing on the capital, this is the best recent assessment of the relationship of architecture and liturgy. Ousterhout, R. Master Builders of Byzantium (Princeton, 1999) views architecture from the perspective of the builders, examining aspects of design and technology. research tools

Byzantinische Zeitschrift, a major scholarly journal, includes thematically organized listings of recent books and articles in each issue; published twice a year and very thorough. Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 3 vols. (Oxford 1991) provides good, short introductions to a variety of subjects, with basic bibliography. Kleinbauer, W. E. Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture: An Annotated Bibliography and Historiography (Boston, 1992) includes a

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synthetic overview of scholarship, combined with a thematically arranged annotated bibliography—both still very useful. Kalopissi-Verti, S., and M. Panayotidi-Kesisoglu, eds. Multilingual Illustrated Dictionary of Byzantine Architecture and Sculpture Terminology. Herakleion, 2010. Etlin, R., ed. Cambridge World History of Religious Architecture (in press) has thematic chapters with bibliography. Research Guide for Byzantine Art and Archaeology: https://ica.princeton.edu/ reference/brown.htm; provides a very thorough listing of available hard-copy and online resources.

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Oxford Bibliographies on Byzantine Art and Architecture: http://www. oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/ obo-9780199920105/obo-97801999201050042.xml; updated annually. Guide for Research in Islamic Architecture: http://guides.hcl.harvard.edu/content. php?pid=201953&search_terms=islamic Archnet: https://archnet.org/; open-access scholarly resource that focuses on the architecture of the Muslim world. Dumbarton Oaks Resources for Byzantinists: http://www.doaks.org/research/byzantine/ resources

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Xenaki, M. “Recherches sur les églises byzantines de Cappadoce et leur décor peint (VIe–IXe siècles).” PhD diss., University of Paris, 2011. Xyngopoulos, A. “Byzantinos loutron en Thessalonike.” Epeteris Philosophikes Skoles Panepistemiou Thessalonikes 5 (1940): 83–97. Xyngopoulos, A. Tessares mikroi naoi tes Thessalonikes ek ton chronon ton Palaiologon. Thessalonike, 1952. Yasin, A. M. Saints and Church Spaces in the Late Antique Mediterranean: Architecture, Cult, and Community. Cambridge, 2009. Yasin, A. M. “Reassessing Salona’s Churches: Martyrium Evolution in Question.” JEChrSt 20, no. 1 (2012): 59–112. Yegül, F. Bathing in the Roman World. New York, 2010. Zanini, E. “Technology and Ideas: Architects and Master-Builders in the Early Byzantine World.” In Technology in Transition A.D. 300–650, edited by L. Lavan, E. Zanini, and A. Sarantis, 381–405. Leiden, 2007. Zenkovsky, S. Z., ed. Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, and Tales. New York, 1963.

INDEX ,

Bold Page Numbers indicate illustration. Italicized entries indicate glossary terms Abas I, King of Armenia, 466 Abbasids, 160 Abdera (Polystylon, Greece), 334 Ablgharib, Armenian general, 465 Abu Gosh, Crusader complex at, 486, 489, 490 Abu Mena (Egypt), Pilgrimage and monastic complex, 68–70, 71, 72, 75, 132, 133, 134 Acanthus, 714 Achilleios, St., 536 Açıksaray (Cappadocia, Turkey), courtyard complex, 342, 448 Acre (Palestine), 479, 493, 499, 500 Hospitaller Complex, 493, 495, 497, 498, 498 Acropolis, 714 Adrianople (Thrace, Turkey), Battle of, 21 ad Sanctos, 714 Adulis (Ethiopia), 296 Aedicula, 714 Aelia Capitolina (see Jerusalem) Aeneas, 25, 27 Afentrika (Cyprus), Asomatos, Church, 282 Chrysiotissa, Panagia, Church of the, 282, 289 Aght’amar (Armenia, now eastern Turkey), Holy Cross, Church of the, 366, 414, 456, 457, 458

Agora, 714 Agrò (near Casalvecchio Siculo, Sicily), Pietro e Paolo, Church of, 524, 526, 526, 527 Aigues Mortes (France), new town, 572 Aisled tetraconch, 714 Aesop’s Fables, 344 Akhisar (Cappadocia, Turkey), Çanlı Kilise (“Bell Church”), 342, 368, 369, 384, 395, 435, 441, 441–43, 442 Aksaray (Asia Minor, Turkey), Sultan Han, 583, 584 Aksum (Ethiopia), 296 Alaeddin Keykubad, Seljuk Sultan of Rûm, 579, 583 Alahan Manastır (Asia Minor, Turkey), Pilgrimage complex of, 68, 178, 180, 181, 182 East Church, 174, 178, 180, 181, 182 South Church, 178 Alaverdi (Armenia), 473 Alanya (Asia Minor, Turkey), Citadel Church, 437, 438 Alexandria (Egypt), 24, 54, 101, 132, 514 Mark, Martyrium of St., 132 Patriarch of, 293, 295, 296 Ali Hasan Dağı (Asia Minor, Turkey), Ala Kilise, 443, 443 Alphabet, Glagolitic, 531 Alphabet, Cyrillic, 531 757

Altar, 714 Amasra (Asia Minor, Turkey), Büyükada, 256, 259, 261 Fatih Camii, 259–60, 265 Kilise Mescidi, 260 Ambo, 714 Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 42, 43, 44, 102, 116 Ambulatory, 714 Ambulatory-plan church, 714 Amorgos (Greece), Panagia Chozoviotissa Monastery, 707, 708 Amorion (Asia Minor, Turkey), 389, 432 Basilica of, 250, 432, 433 Amphipolis (Macedonia, Greece), 109, 175 Church of, 114 Amphissa (Central Greece), Transfiguration, Church of the, 312, 314 Amphora/ae, 714 Ampulla/ae, 714 Andronikos I Gidon, Ruler of Trebizond, 576 Anaphora, 714 Anastasis, 714 Anastasius I, Emperor, 147, 165, 279 Persian Wars, 165 Anastasius II, Emperor, 345 Andravida (Peloponnese, Greece), 571 Sophia, Church of St., 572, 573, 573 Andreville (see Andravida) Andrew the Apostle, St., 34, 49, 405 Angelos Dynasty, 562 Angelos-Komnenos, Alexios, Prince, 373, 410 Angevin Empire, 572 Ani (Armenia, now eastern Turkey), 385, 455, 456, 459, 460 Apostles, Church of the Holy, 465–66, 466, 467, 590, 591 Cathedral of, 459–60, 461, 462, 462, 463 Citadel Chapel, 464 City walls, 393, 456, 461 Gregory of Gagik, Church of St. (Gagkašen), 385, 460, 464 Gregory of Grigor Pahlavuni, Church of St., 464, 465, 465 Redeemer, Church of the, 465, 464, 466 Anicia, Juliana, Byzantine noblewoman, 86, 86, 182, 184, 186 Ankara (Asia Minor, Turkey), 333, 500 Clement, Church of St., 255, 258, 261 Anna (sister of Emperor Basil II), Princess of Kiev, 541 758 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Annibale, Pietro (Petrok Maly), Italian architect, 695 Antalya (Asia Minor, Turkey), 192, 250, 327 Cumanin Camii, 192, 193, 250 Anthemius of Tralles, architect-engineer, 82, 194, 201, 206, 209, 212 Antinoopolis (Egypt), South Church at, 131, 133 Antioch (Asia Minor, Turkey), 64, 65, 101, 480, 500 Cathedral of, 65 Golden Octagon, 78 Antioch, Principality of (Crusader State), 480 Antioch-Kaoussié (Asia Minor, Turkey), 64 Babylas, Church of St., 64, 65 Antiphon, 714 Annular, 714 Apamea (Syria), Cathedral of, 177, 178, 274 Aparan (Armenia), Kazakh basilica of, 269 Aphrodisias (Asia Minor, Turkey), 170 Bouleterion, 170 North Agora, 170 Triconch House, 170, 172 Apodyterium, 714 Apokaukos, Alexios, Byzantine court official, 614 Apollo, Greco-Roman god, 11, 27 Apollodorus, Roman architect, 383 Apollonia (Libya), Palace of the Dux, 172, 172 Apologia, 714 Apotheosis, 714 Apse, 714 Apsidiole, 714 Apulia (Italy), 507, 509 Aqueducts, Middle Byzantine, 338 Aquileia (Italy), Basilica of, 14 Arcade, 714 Arcadius, Emperor, 139, 277 Archimedes, Greek mathematician, 81 Architect/builder/engineer, education of, 82 Areia (near Nauplion, Greece), Hagia Mone, 420, 422, 423, 423, 574 Argentarius, Julianus, banker, 222, 230 Arch, 714 Architekton, 714 Architrave, 714 Archivolt, 714 Archon/archontes, 714 Arcosolium, 714 Arcuated, 714 Area/areae, 714 Arius of Alexandria, theologian, 102

Armatova (Elis, Greece), Byzantine house, 341, 341 Arris/arrises, 714 Arrowslit, 715 Arslan, Alp, Seljuk Sultan, 432, 455, 480 Arta (Epirus, Greece), 313, 562, 564, 629 Basil, Church of St., 567 Basil at the Bridge, Church of St., 313, 315 Kato Panagia Church, 565 Panagia Paregoretissa Church, 567–69, 568, 569, 570 Panagia Vlacherna (Blacherna) Church, 564–65, 566, 567 Theodora, Church of St., 565, 567, 567 Artsruni, Gagik, King of Vaspurakan (Armenia), 456, 459, 460, 462 Artopolia, 715 Aruch (Armenia), Church at, 269, 271, 275 Ascetic, 715 Asen, Ivan II, Tsar of Bulgaria, 650 Asenova Krepost (Bulgaria), Bogoroditsa Petrichka (Mother of God Petrichka), Church of the, 540, 540 Ashlar, 715 Ashot III, King of Armenia, 456 Astrapas, Michael, painter, 658 Astvansankal (Armenia), Church at, 385, 386, 387 Attaliates, Michael, 347 Ateni (Georgia), Sioni Church, 273 Athens (Attica, Greece), 104, 147, 148, 333, 335, 339, 341, 344, 647 Academy of, 104 Acropolis, 147, 692 Agora, Apostles, Church of the Holy, 414, 415, 419 Baths of, 339 Byzantine houses of, 339, 341, 342 Cathedral of, 147, 177, 85 Daphne Monastery, 314, 419, 419, 420, 420 Hadrian, Library of, 177, 85 Little Metropolis (Theotokos Gorgoepikoos, Mother of God Quick-to-Hear), 420, 421 Kapnikarea, Church of, 419, 421, 423 Parthenon, Church of the, 147, 149, 420 Petrake, Mone, 413 Soteira Panagia Lykodemou, 314, 413, 418, 418 Athena, Greek goddess, Palladion of, 27

Athonite-type church, 715 Athos (Chalkidike, Greece), Mount, Monasteries of, 317, 321, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 355, 366, 412, 552, 621–24, 662, 669 Dionysiou Monastery, 624 Docheiariou Monastery, 646 Gregoriou Monastery, 624 Hilandar (Chilandari) Monastery, 326, 621–24, 622, 623, 624, 646, 650, 655, 665–66 Milutin, Tower of King, 622, 624, 646, 650 Iviron Monastery, 321, 384, 412 Konstamonitou Monastery, 624 Lavra, Great, 317–18, 319, 320, 321, 327, 328, 395, 412, 622 Pantokrator Monastery, 624 Paul, Monastery of St., 624 Simonopetra Monastery, 624 Stavronikita Monastery, 325 Vatopedi Monastery, 318, 320, 321, 384–85, 412 Zygos (Frankokastro) Monastery, 326, 326, 327, 373, 412 Atrium, 715 Atrophied Greek-cross type, 715 Attica (Greece), Meletios, Monastery of Hosios, 324, 324, 325 Augustine, St., Bishop of Hippo, 102, 104, 124 Augustinian Order, Jerusalem, 483 Augustus, Emperor, 24, 25 Mausoleum of, 24 Ara Pacis of, 24 Aula, 715 Aulis (Boeotia, Greece), Nicholas, Church of St., 312, 313 Avars, 145, 245, 531 Axios (Vardar) River (Macedonia and Greece), 153, 644, 655 Ayazin (Phrygia, Asia Minor, Turkey), rock-cut churches of, 453 Ayvan, 715 Ayyubid Dynasty, 479, 561 Babić, Gordana, 318 Bachkovo (Bulgaria), Petritzos Monastery (Theotokos Petritzonitissa), 538 Ossuary (funerary chapel), 538, 539 Bacino/bacini, 715 Bagavan (Armenia), Basilica of, 270

Index

759

Bagawat, Kargha Oasis (Egypt), tomb chapels of, 51, 53, 53, 54 Baghdad (Iraq), 160, 365, 479 Bagrat IV, King of Georgia, 473 Bagratid Dynasty (Armenia), 455, 456, 458, 466 Bagratuni, Yovhannes-Smbat, King of Armenia, 455 Baldachin, baldacchino, 715 Baldwin of Flanders, Latin Emperor of Constantinople, 561 Baldwin I, Crusader King of Jerusalem, 486 Baldwin II, Crusader King of Jerusalem, 486 Balkan Wars, 431 Banded barrel vault, 715 Banjska (Serbia, now Kosovo), Monastery at, 657, 659 Stephen, Church of St. (Mausoleum of Stefan Uroš Milutin), 657, 659, 661 Baptism, ritual of, 42–44 Baptistery, 4–5, 37, 42–44, 65, 68, 715 Abu Mena (Egypt), 68 Alahan Monastery (Asia Minor, Turkey), 68, 178 Butrint (Albania), 46 Canosa (Italy), 46 Caričin Grad (Iustiniana Prima, Serbia), 157, 158 Djémila (Cuicul, Algeria), 125 Dura Europos (Syria), 5, 6 Ephesus (Asia Minor, Turkey), 110 Kébilia (Tunisia), 46 Kos, Mastichari (Greece), 108 Milan (Italy), 43–44 Philippi (Greece), 109 Poreč (Croatia), 223 Qal’at Sem’an (Syria), 68 Ravenna (Italy), 44–46, 45, 46 Rome (Italy), 42, 43 Samandağ (Asia Minor, Turkey), 68, 68 Speitla (Tunisia), 46, 47 Baqirha (Syria), East Church at, 239, 240 Bardo Museum (Tunisia), 46 Bari (Puglia, Italy), 77, 251 Bar Kochba rebellion, 34 Baroque, German, 540 Barrel vault, 715 Barskii, Vasilii, 327 Basarab I, Ruler of Wallachia, 669 Basil, St., of Caesarea, 102, 104, 322 Basil, Monastic rule of St., 507 760 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Basil I, Emperor, 247, 250, 345, 357, 387, 407, 434, 534 Basil II, Emperor, 412, 444, 456, 536, 541, 550 Menologion of, 60, 62 Basilica, 715 Christian, development of, 12–14 Roman, 13–14 Division of men and women, 38, 41 Basilicata (Italy), 507 Bassus, Junius, Audience hall of (Rome), 13 Bay, 715 Baybars, Mamluk Sultan, 504 Beauvais (France), Peter, Cathedral of St., xxii Behramkale (ancient Assos, Asia Minor, Turkey), Hüdâvendigâr Camii, 681 Beirut (Lebanon), John, Cathedral of St. (Great Mosque), 484, 486 Belfry, 715 Belisırma (Peristrema) Valley (Asia Minor, Turkey), 439 Ala Kilise, 449 Karagedik Kilisesi (“Church of the Dark Pass”), 439, 440, 441 Belgrade (Serbia), 667, 705 Sava, Church of St., 705 Bell, Gertrude, 192, 431, 441, 443 Belvoir (Palestine), Crusader fortress, 501, 503, 504 Bema, 715 Benedict, Monastic Rule of St., 321 Berat (Albania), Trinity, Church of the Holy, 569 Bessarion, Catholic Cardinal, 692–93 Beth Alpha (Palestine), Synagogue of, 130, 131 Bethlehem (Palestine), 29, 63, 64, 65, 175 Nativity, Church of the, 29–30, 29, 30, 32, 63, 64, 70, 486 Bet She’an (see Scythopolis) Beyazit II, Ottoman Sultan, 684 Beylerbey, 715 Beylik, 715 Beyşehir Occupation Phase (Asia Minor, Turkey), 431 Bishop, 715 Bishop of Rome (see Pope) Binbirkilise (Lycaonia, Asia Minor, Turkey), 237, 239, 434 Church 1, 237, 238, 239 Church 8, 238, 239, 239 Church 32, 238, 239

Bithynia (Asia Minor, Turkey), 254, 317, 432, 434, 631, 679, 680, 681 Lake Apolyont, Constantine, Monastery of St., 256, 260 Bivongi (Calabria, Italy), Giovanni, Church of San, 524, 525 Bizye (see Vize) Black Sea, 147, 437, 575, 578, 651 Blind arcade, 715 Bogdana Monastery (near Rădăut ̧i, Moldavia, Romania), Nicholas, Church of St., 669 Bogolyubsky, Andrei (Prince of VladimirSuzdal), 545 Bonn (Germany), heroon at, 8 Book of Ceremonies, 170, 214 Book of the Eparch, 715 Boris I, Ruler of Bulgaria, 532 Bosphorus (Asia Minor, Turkey), Yuşa Tepesi, 359 Bosra (Syria), 239–40, 274 Sergius, Bacchus, and Leontius, Sts., Church of, 239–40, 240 Boss, 715 Bouleterion, 715 Branković, Djuradj, Despot of Serbia, 667 Brick, manufacture of, 90–91, 91, 395 Building materials and techniques Early Byzantine, 88–99 Middle Byzantine, 391–403 Bulgaria, buildings in, 531–40, 649–653 Bulgarian Empire, First, 531, 532, 536, 538, 550 Bulgarian Empire, Second, 538, 649 Buondelmonti, Christopher, author of Liber Insularum Achipelagi, 616, 617 Burgazada (Princes’ Islands, Sea of Marmara, Turkey), Monastery of the Transfiguration, 396 Burials (see Catacombs and Mausoleum) Bursa (Asia Minor, Turkey), 338, 621, 679, 680–82 Orhan Camii, 680–81, 681 Bursa-Çekirge (Asia Minor, Turkey), Hüdâvendigâr Camii, 681, 682 Buttress, 715 Byblos (Giblet, Lebanon), Castle of Giblet, 501 John, Church of St., 484 Byzantine Empire, xix, xxii, 88, 245, 247, 267, 274, 284, 286, 296, 297, 322, 333, 336, 360, 391, 407, 431, 450, 507, 508, 532,

540, 541, 550, 554, 561, 562, 575, 597 679, 692 Byzantine-Persian War, 283 Byzantion (see Constantinople) Byzantium (see Constantinople) Byzas, founder of Byzantion, 23 Cairo (Egypt), 480, 523 Sultan al-Malik an-Nasir Muhammad, Mausoleum-Madrasa complex of, 500, 500 Calatrava, Santiago, architect, 709 Cambazlı (Asia Minor, Turkey), Basilica of, 111, 116 Canosa (Apulia, Italy), 46 Sabino, Cathedral of San, 509, 510, 511, 511, 523 Bohemond of Antioch, Mausoleum of, 511 Calabria (Italy), 507–09 Caldarium, 715 Calvary (Golgotha), 715 Cami/camii, 715 Capernaum (Palestine), 70 Peter, House of St., 70, 73, 128 Synagogue, 131 Capitolium, 715 Cappadocia (Asia Minor, Turkey), Region of, 248, 334, 338, 431 Churches of (see by location) Houses of, 342 Masonry buildings of, 438–444 Rock-carved monuments of, 431–32, 444–453, 626 Caracalla, Emperor, 21 Caravansaray/caravanserai, 715 Cardo, 715 Caričin Grad (Iustiniana Prima, Serbia), Cathedral complex at, 157, 158, 241, 245, 261 City plan of, 157 Carolingians, 508 Carthage (Tunisia), 124 Basilica Majorum, 124, 124 Cypriani (St. Monica), Basilica, 124, 124 Damous el-Karita, Cemetery basilica and pilgrimage center of, 124, 125 Carthage-Bir Ftouha (Tunisia), Complex of, 231, 235 Cassiodorus of Ravenna, Roman statesman in service of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, 81, 83, 84

Index

761

Castelvetrano (Sicily), Trinità di Delia, Church of Santa, 518, 519, 519, 520, 524 Castrum/kastron, 715 Castrum Regis (Mi‘iliya, Palestine), 501, 501 Castrum Rubrum (Burl al-Ahmar, Syria), 501, 501 Catacomb, 7, 8, 8–10, 715 Catechumen, 715 Cathedra, 715 Cathedral, 14, 42, 715 Catholic Christianity, 572, 575, 710 Çat Valley (Cappadocia, Turkey), chapel in, 449 Caucasus, monuments in, 268–277, 313 Cefalù (Sicily), Cathedral of, 521, 523 Cella trichora, 8 Cemetery basilica, 14–16, 48, 145, 715 Cemil (Cappadocia, Turkey), Archangelos Monastery, 450 Centering, 715 Cenotaph, 715 Ceramic bowls, architectural decoration, 413, 423, 426, 574, 600 Ceremony, Liturgical, 37–38, 41, 101, 213 Imperial, 213–15 Cherven (Bulgaria), 650 Church 2, 650, 651 Chalcedon (Asia Minor, Turkey), 347 Chalcedon, Council of, 102, 277 Chalcedonian Christianity, 715 Chalke Gate, 715 Chamales, Christopher, architect, 708 Chamfer, 715 Champlitte, William of, Prince of Achaea, 571 Chancel (see Bema) Chancel barrier, 715 Charakteres, 715 Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor, 267 Chatior/shatior, 716 Chernigov (Russia, now Ukraine), 395, 543 Piatnitsa Church, 547, 550, 550, 690 Transfiguration Cathedral, 544–45, 547 Chi-Rho monogram, 11, 716 Chios (Greece), Nea Mone Church and Monastery, 313, 314, 315, 316, 390–91, 569 Panagia Krina Church, 314, 391, 397, 398 Sikelia, Panagia Church, 564 Chlemoutsi (Peloponnese, Greece), Castle at, 571–72, 572 762 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Christianoupolis (Peloponnese, Greece), Domed octagon church of, 413 Christology, debates on, 102–04 Chronicon Sanctae Sophiae, 83, 84 Chrysopolis (Asian shore of Constantinople), 21 Chrysostom, St. John, 41, 42, 102 Chicago (Illinois, United States), Constantine and Helena, Church of Sts. (now Mosque Maryam), 708 Trinity, Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy, 707 Choniates, Michael, Archbishop of Athens, 420 Chonika (Peloponnese, Greece), Church of the Dormition, 423 Chorikios of Gaza, Greek rhetorician, 85 Choros/choroi, 716 Ciborium (see Baldachin) Cilicia (Asia Minor, Turkey), 178–79 Circus/hippodrome, 716 Cistern, 716 Cistercian Monasticism, 572 Citadel, 716 Classe (near Ravenna, Italy), 121, 123 Apollinare, Sant’, in, 105, 230, 234, 241 Clerestory, 716 Cloisonné masonry, 392, 413–14, 716 Cloister, 716 Cloister vault, 716 Coenobium/cenobium, 716 Colonnade, 716 Colonette, 716 Column, 716 Composite capital, 716 Compostela, Santiago de, Cathedral, 490 Compound pier, 716 Conch, 716 Confessio, 716 Concrete, 88, 181 Consecratio, 716 Console, 716 Constantine I, Emperor, 9, 10, 11–14, 16–19, 21–29, 33, 34, 38, 39, 42, 64, 90, 101, 111, 137, 139, 141, 184, 597 Baptism of, 42 Christian conversion of, 12 Chi-rho monogram, and, 11 Colossal statue of, 11 Column of, 26, 26–28 Constantinople, Mausoleum of, 24, 64, 684 Helios/Sol Invictus, and, 11, 12, 27, 49

Milvian Bridge, Battle of, 11 Rome, Mausoleum of, 16 Constantine V, Emperor, 251, 333, 345, 347 Constantine IX Monomachos, Emperor, 313, 388, 390–91, 483 Constantinople (Istanbul), 3, 21, 22, 23, 23–28, 34, 37, 39–41, 64, 65, 78, 82, 84, 85, 90, 92, 95, 101, 107, 132, 137–147, 138, 175, 179–189, 193, 195, 219, 221, 222, 223, 227, 229, 245, 247, 248, 250, 253, 267, 268, 282, 336, 353–378, 431, 480, 500, 507, 508, 511, 514, 523, 524, 531, 532, 534–5, 541, 542, 543, 550, 551, 561, 562, 572, 576, 595–618, 617, 621, 622, 626, 629, 640, 649, 651, 653, 656, 664, 667, 669, 682–83, 687 Akakios, Martyrium of, 24 Alexandrina, Horrea, 144 Anastasia, St., Church of, 250 Anastasius, Long Walls of, 147 Antiochos, Palace of, 95, 170, 181–182, 183, 184, 347 Apostles, Church of the Holy, 24, 34, 49, 51, 61, 62, 65, 78, 102, 117, 145, 193–94, 194, 283, 298, 309, 357, 374, 405, 508, 511, 514, 516, 597, 683, 684 Michael the Archangel, Column of St., 597 Arcadius, Forum and Column of, 139, 139 Artopolia, District of (Breadmakers’ Quarter), 138 Atik Mustafa Paşa Camii, 249, 255–56, 260, 261, 312 Augustaion, 23, 139, 144 Auxentius, Mt., Michael, Monastery of St., 597 Basilica Cistern, 93, 142, 144 Benoit in Galata, Church of St.-, 614 Beyazid Camii, 685, 686 Beyazit, District of, 145 Blachernae, Theotokos, Church of the, 107, 145, 230, 565, 612, 640 Blachernae Palace, 346, 350, 597, 616 Tekfursaray (House of the Porphyrogennetos), 597–99, 598, 599, 600, 605, 616, 633–34, 652, 681 Bryas Palace (Asian shore), 365 Bogdan Saray, 614 Botaniates, Palace of, 347 Boukoleon Palace, 349, 350 Capitoline Jupiter, Temple of, 23–24

Cemeteries of, 145 Chalkoprateia, Church of the Theotokos, 106, 145, 640 Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), 317, 349, 359, 361, 362, 375–76, 377, 385, 389–90, 390, 391, 396, 397, 401, 403, 551, 605–12, 607, 608, 609, 610, 611, 613, 614, 630, 652, 669 Cisterns of, 92–93, 141–144 Constantine I, Column of (Çemberlitaş), 23, 26–28, 26, 27 Constantine I, Forum of, 23, 26–28, 27, 138, 145, 345 Constantine I, Land walls of, 23, 88, 137, 139, 140, 141 Golden Gate of, 139, 542 ̇ Constantine Lips (tou Libos, Fenari Isa Camii), Monastery of, 259, 261, 600, 601, 602, 605 John the Baptist (South Church), Church of St., 600, 601, 602 Theotokos tou Libos (North Church), Church of the, 319, 321, 354–55, 355, 356, 357, 373, 401, 435, 535, 600, 601 Cybele, Temple of, 24 Demetrius, Monastery of St., 597 Domninos, Portico of, 138, 388 Eirene, Hagia, 24, 88, 97, 190, 190, 191, 249, 250, 251–52, 253, 254, 261, 435 Eleutherios Harbor (Langa Bostan), 144 Eski Imaret Camii (Theotokos Pantepoptes), 354, 358, 390 Euphemia, Church of St. (at the Hippodrome), 95, 170, 347, 597 Fall of (see Ottoman Conquest of ) Hodegon Monastery, 640 Ottoman Conquest of, 3, 618, 669, 679, 682–83 Fatih Camii (Mosque of the Conqueror), 193, 683–84, 685, 685 Mausoleum of Mehmed II, 684 Fildamı Cistern, 142, 143 Fortuna, Temple of, 24 Founding of, 21, 23 Golden Horn, 138, 141, 144, 145, 147, 346, 682 Golden Horn wall, 345 Granaries of, 144 Great Palace, 140, 141, 169–70, 171, 181, 349–50, 356–57, 365, 523, 542, 597 Chalke (Bronze) Gate, 140, 349, 542

Index

763

Constantinople (Istanbul) (continued ) Chalkites, Church of Christ, 365–66, 366 Chrysotriklinos (Golden audience hall), 170, 523 Dekaenneakoubita (Hall of the nineteen couches), 170 Elijah, Church of St., 534 Magnaura, 349 Mouchroutas, 349 Nea Ekklesia (New Church), 356–57, 407 Pharos Church, xxv, 349 Gül Camii (Hagia Theodosia), 247, 317, 359, 361 Hadrian, Aqueduct of, 141 Harbors of, 144–45 Hebdomon (Bakırköy), region of, 88, 142, 395 Hippodrome, 23, 24, 25, 26, 140, 141, 170, 181, 185, 200, 346, 347, 616 Theodosius, Obelisk of, 140, 141 Honoratai, District of, 86, 87 Holy Peace (see Eirene, Hagia) Holy Wisdom (see Sophia, Hagia) Hormisdas Palace, 185 ̇ Kapı Mescidi, 612, 614, 614, 615 Isa John, St., Monastery tou Libos, 377 John in Troullo, Church of St., 358, 360, 373 John at the Diipion, Church of St., 534 Julian, Harbor of, 138, 144, 345 Kalenderhane Camii (Theotokos Kyriotissa, Church of the), 144, 247, 317, 348, 348, 359, 361, 362, 364, 385, 387 Kosmidion, Monastery of the, 388 Latin Occupation (1204 Conquest) of, 334, 347, 432, 437, 516, 561–62, 595, 626 Lausus, Palace of, 170, 181–82 Lykos River, 141, 144 Makros Embolos (street), 138 Mangana, George, Monastery of St., 366, 367, 368, 388, 402, 516, 536 Marmara, Sea of, 144, 145, 147, 185, 257, 258 Mermerkule (Marble Tower), 600, 600 Mese (main street), 138–140 Mokisos, Church of St., 24, 145 Myrelaion (Bodrum Camii), 249, 250, 261, 306–310, 308, 309, 319, 348–49, 354, 384, 385, 445, 657 Neorion Harbor, 144 764 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Nika Rebellion (Riots), 140, 199, 200, 206 Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii), Theotokos, Monastery of the, 317, 361, 376–77, 377, 378, 396, 600, 602, 603, 604, 605, 612, 653 Pantokrator Monastery (Zeyrek Camii), 313, 361, 370, 370–73, 371, 372, 374, 375, 395, 565, 602, 659, 661 Funeral chapel (St. Michael), 371–72, 372, 375, 375 North Church (Theotokos Eleousa), 370–71, 371 South Church (Katholikon of Christ), 371–2, 371, 372, 374 Pera, 599, 616, 687 Fortifications at, 616 Genoese town hall, 599 Peribleptos Monastery, Church of the Theotokos, 388 Peter and Paul, Basilica of Sts., 185 Philoxenos Cistern (Binbirderek Sarnıcı), 142, 144 Photeine, St., 400 Polyeuktos, Church of St., 182–84, 185, 186, 186, 189 Prosphorion Harbor, 144 Psamatia, District of, 39 Resurrection, Church of, 250, 388 Rumeli Hisar Fortress (Asian shore), 683, 684 Sea Wall, 345, 346, 597 Sehzade Mehmed Camii, 685, 686 Sekbanbaşı Mescidi, 358, 360 Senate House, 24 Sergius and Bacchus, Church of Sts., 87, 88, 95, 106, 106, 184–90, 187, 188, 196, 221, 222, 228, 231, 690 Septimius Severus, Basilica of, 23 Șeyh Murat Mescidi, 354, 356 Sigma, plaza on the Mese, 140 Sokollu Mehmet Paşa Camii, 690, 691 Sophia, Hagia, xxi, xxi, 24, 41, 42, 82, 83, 88, 91, 95, 96, 106, 106, 107, 107, 145, 165, 175, 182, 183, 184, 186, 189, 190, 194, 195, 199–216, 200, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 219, 225, 249, 250, 274, 310, 346, 348, 349, 354, 366, 370, 385, 389, 400, 400, 407, 418, 459, 462, 534, 541, 562, 563, 597, 614, 616, 616, 618, 679, 682, 683, 684, 685, 687, 707, 708, 709, 710

Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, architects, 82, 194, 201, 206, 209, 212 Bricks of, 92 Collapse of first dome, 92, 210 Geometry of plan, 203, 205–06 Lime mortar of, 91–92 Medieval repairs of, 210, 616 Original relics of, 216 Ottoman conversion of, 683 Structural issues of, 207–210 Stoudios, John, Church and Monastery of St., 39, 40, 41, 106, 108, 178, 201, 230 Strategion, 139 Süleymaniye Camii, 685, 687, 687, 688, 689 Tekfursaray, see Blachernae Palace Theodosian Harbor, 141 Theodosianum, Horreum, 144 Theodosius I, Forum of (Forum Tauri), 139, 139, 345 Theodosius I, Column of, 139 Valens, Nymphaea, 142 Theodosius II, Land Walls of, 137, 145, 146, 163, 345, 458, 563, 597, 614, 616, 682, 683 Belgrade Gate (Second Military Gate), 140 Golden Gate of, 139, 140 Theotokos, relics of, 145 Theotokos Panagiotissa (or Mouchliotissa), 359, 360 Toklu Dede Mescidi, 358, 359 Topkapı Palace, 92, 144 Water management of, 141–144, 338 Valens, Aqueduct of, 142, 142, 345, 348 Vefa Kilise Camii, 314, 354, 356, 357, 361, 373, 605, 606 Xerolophos, District of, 139 Zeuxippos, Baths of, 23, 141, 142, 144 Zoodochos Pege, 640 Constantius II, Emperor, 49, 193 Contarini, Domenico, Doge of Venice, 514 Corbel, 716 Corbel table frieze, 716 Corbusier, le, architect, 707 Corfu (see Kerkyra) Corinth (Greece), 333, 335, 338, 339, 341, 426, 574 Lechaion, Basilica of, 106, 107, 108 Panagia Field, Bath, 339, 340 Corinthian capital, 716 Cornice, 716

Cozia Monastery (Wallachia, Romania), 669, 672 Crac des Chevaliers (Syria), Crusader fortress of, 497–98, 499, 503, 504, 504–05 Creed, Nicene, 41 Crete (Greece), 248, 259, 391 Crimea (Black Sea), 541 Crocket capital, 716 Cross arm, 716 Cross-domed church/cross-domed basilica, 249, 252–59, 716 Cross-domed unit, 716 Crossing, 716 Cross-in-square church type, 716 Crusade, First, 480, 486 Crusade, Fourth, 516, 561–62, 595, 626 Crusader architecture, 434, 479–505, 580 Crusader States, 479 Crypt, 716 Ctesiphon (Iraq), Taq-i-Kisra, 274 Cubiculum, 716 Č učer-Banjani (near Skopje, North Macedonia), Niketas, Church of St., 655–656, 656 Cult of saints, 8, 61 Curtain wall, 716 Ćurčić, Slobodan, 318 Curtea de Argeş (Wallachia, Romania), Nicholas, Church of St., 669 Episcopal Monastery, 669 Cybele, Greco-Roman goddess, 24 Cycladic Islands (Greece), 368 Cyril of Scythopolis, Monastic historian, 82 Cyril and Methodius, Sts., Missionaries to the Slavs, 531, 532 Cyprus, 267, 282–83, 391, 499, 512 Dado, 716 Dagit, Henry, architect, 713 Dağ Pazarı (Asia Minor, Turkey), Church at, 179 Dakhla Oasis (Egypt), 133 Kellis, Southeast Church, 131, 133 Dalassena, Anna, Empress, 354 Dalmatia, Roman province of, 115 Damascus (Syria), 160, 284, 287, 480, 499, 580, 590 Great Mosque of, 287, 290, 292 John, Church of St., 287 Jupiter, Temple of, 287 Nur al-Din, Hospital of, 499, 500 Danilo II, Archbishop of Peć (Serbia, now Kosovo), 659

Index

765

Danube River, 667 Dara (Asia Minor, Turkey), 165, 166, 219 Cisterns of, 165 Kordes River, 165 Dardanelles Strait (Turkey) , 680 Dar Qita (Syria), Sergius, Church of St., 239 David III of Tao (“the Great”), King of Georgia, 455, 469–71 David IV (“the Builder”), King of Georgia, 456, 475, 477 Dealu Monastery (Wallachia, Romania), 669 Debre Damo (Ethiopia), Church of, 296–97, 297 Dečani (Serbia, now Kosovo), Monastery of, 659 Pantokrator, Church of the (Mausoleum of Stefan Dečanski), 659, 661, 662, 663 Dečanski, Stefan Uroš III, King of Serbia, 653, 659, 661 Decius, Emperor, 147 Decumanus, 716 Deesis, 716 Déhès (Syria), village of, 163, 172 Demetrius, St., of Thessalonike, 74, 76, 77, 79, 108, 153–54 Dendrochronology, 248, 251, 252, 257, 716 Dendyra (Egypt), Temple of Hathor, Church in, 134 Delphi, Serpent Column from, 26 Dereağzı (near Myra, Asia Minor, Turkey), Church, 435, 436, 437 Desiderius, Abbot of Montecassino, 507 Design methodology Early Byzantine, 81–88 Middle Byzantine, 381–85 Despotes, 716 Diakonikon, 716 Diaphragm arch, 716 Digenes Akritas, Byzantine novel, 342 Dies natalis, 716 Diocletian, Emperor, 9, 10, 25, 69 Diophysite, 716 Dioscuri, Twins Castor and Pollux of GrecoRoman myth, 25 Divriği (Asia Minor, Turkey), Mosque-Hospital, 583, 585 Djémila (Algeria), Double church complex at, 123 Djurdjevi Stupovi Monastery, Church of St. George, 551–52, 552 Dnieper River (Russia, now Ukraine), 541 Dodekaorton, 717 Dogtooth cornice, 717 766 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Dome, 717 Domed basilica, 189–96, 251–52, 717 Dominican, Monastic order, 573 Domus, 717 Domus ecclesiae (House-church), 4–5, 73, 717 Dura Europos, of, 4–5, 6 Rome, of, 4 Donjon, 717 Doors, wooden, 39 Dougga (Tunisia), 167–68, 168 Doukaina, Maria, Empress, 390 Dovecote, 717 Drama (Macedonia, Greece), Sophia, Church of Hagia, 318 Drum, 717 Dura Europos (Syria), 5, 5 Domus ecclesiae (House-church), 4–5, 6 Mithraeum, 6 Synagogue, 5–7, 7 Dušan, Stefan (Uroš IV), King of Serbia and Greece, 624, 650, 653, 659, 661, 662, 665 Ecclesia/ekklesia, 4, 13, 717 Ecclesius, Bishop of Ravenna, 83, 221, 222 Edessa (Urfa, Asia Minor, Turkey), 277 Edessa, County of (Crusader State), 480 Edirne (Adrianople, Thrace, Turkey), 621, 649, 682, 687 Selimiye Camii, 687, 689, 690 Üç Șerefeli Cami, 682, 684, 685 Egeria, pilgrim, 33, 63 Egypt, monuments in, 51, 53–57, 132–134 ‘Ein Karim (Palestine), John the Baptist, Church of St., 482 Ekphrasis, 717 Eirene-Piroska (Irene of Hungary), Empress, 370 Elbow column, 717 Elegmi (see Kurşunlu) Elis (Peloponnese, Greece), 574 Blachernae Monastery, 575, 576 El Kef (Tunisia), Dar el Kous, 231, 235 Enez (Ainos, Thrace, Turkey), Fatih Camii, 317, 359–60, 365, 401, 401 Enkainia, 717 Entablature, 717 Ephesus, Council of, 102, 110, 145, 148 Ephesus (Asia Minor, Turkey), 24, 64–65, 68, 137, 147–148, 150, 151, 172, 333, 334, 335

Ayasoluk, Hill of, 334 Artemis, Temple of, 147 Embolos, 147, 150 Gothic siege of, 147 John the Evangelist (Ayasoluk), Church of St., 64–65, 89, 110, 147, 195, 334, 344, 516 Mary (Theotokos), Cathedral of St., 109, 115, 147–8, 250, 255 Olympieion, 148 Panayirdağ, Maryrium of the Seven Sleepers, 147 Epidauros (Greece), Basilica of, 107, 107, 108 Epiphanius of Salamis, Bishop and Church Father, 149 Epirus (Greece), 562, 564–71, 564, 626, 656, 658 Epistyle (see Architrave) Ereğli (Thrace, Turkey), Herakleia Perinthos, cathedral of, 257 Eremos (Mani, Peloponnese, Greece), Barbara, Church of St., 426, 428 Ergasterion, 717 Ergates, 717 Ergolabos, 717 Ereroyk’ (Armenia), Basilica, Turkey of, 269 Eski Gümüş (Cappadocia), residential complex, 344 Esplanade, 717 Ethiopia (Abyssinia), buildings in, 295–97 Eucharist, 717 Euclid, Greek mathematician, 81 Eudoxia, Empress, 85 Gaza, Church of, 85 Eufrasius, Bishop of Poreč, 223 Eukterion, 717 Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, 22, 23, 26–27, 30–34, 42, 49, 63 Life of Constantine, 23, 31, 34 Euthymios the Younger, St., 405 Evros River Valley (Meriç, Maritsa, Thrace), 644 Exedra, 717 Exonarthex (see Narthex) Exo teichos, 717 Extrados, 717 Falier, Vitale, Doge of Venice, 514 Faras (Nubia), North Church, 295, 295 Old Dongola, Church of the Granite Columns in, 295, 295

Fastigium, 717 Fatimids, 294, 295, 413, 479, 480, 523 Fenestration, 717 Ferai (Thrace, Greece), Panagia Kosmosoteira, 357, 373, 375, 376, 377, 378, 412 Feudalism, 717 Filarete (Antionio di Pietro Averlino), Florentine architect, 693 Fioravanti, Roldolfo (Aristotele), Bolognese architect, 693, 694 Fisandon (Lycaonia, Asia Minor, Turkey), 443, 443 Flying buttress, 717 Font, 717 Formwork, 717 Forum/fora, 717 Foundation systems, 92 Four-column church, 717 “Franks” (Western Europeans), 413 Free-cross plan, 717 Fresco, 717 Frieze, 717 Frigidarium, 717 Frourion, 717 Fryazin, Bon, Milanese architect, 694 Fulcher of Chartres, Chronicler of the First Crusade, 345 Fulk, Crusader King of Jerusalem, 485 Furta sacra, 717 Gable, 717 Gadroon, 717 Galatia (Asia Minor, Turkey), 443 Galerius, Emperor, 11, 153 Galilee (Palestine), 70 Galla Placidia, Empress, 49–50, 121 Gallery, 717 Gaṙni (Armenia), Roman Temple at, 269 Gastouni (Peloponnese, Greece), Panagia Katholike, Church of, 574, 575 Gavit/zamatun, 717 Gaza (Palestine), 84–85 Eudoxia, Church of, 84–85 Rufinus, architect of, 85 Stephen’s, St., Church of, 85, 231 Geghard (near Gaṙni, Armenia), Monastery, 587, 589, 590 Gelveri (see Güzelyurt) George of Antioch (prime minister of Roger II), 517

Index

767

Geraki (Peloponnese, Greece), 574, 644, 645 Houses of, 341 Sozon, Church of St., 312, 314 Gerasa (Jerash, Jordan), 130, 148–151, 152, 153, 154, 157, 163 Artemis, Temple of, 149 Cathedral complex, 130, 149, 153 Dionysus, Temple, 149 Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs, Church of the, 176, 176 Propylaia Church, 151 Theodore, Basilica of St., 130, 149 Water management of, 151 Gerizim (Palestine), Mt., Theotokos, Church of the, 128, 134, 175, 176, 176 Germanos I, Patriarch of Constantinople, xxiv Gesamkunstwerk, 717 Giorgi I, King of Georgia, 473 Giurdignano (Calabria, Italy), Salvatore, Church of San, 509 Glacis, 717 Glarentza (Peloponnese, Greece), 572, Francis, Church of St., 573, 573 Godunov, Boris, Tsar of Russia, 702 Gothic, Western architectural style, 479, 492– 99, 540, 562, 567, 569, 572, 574, 575, 590, 634, 643, 664, 665, 673, 695, 713 Göreme (Cappadocia, Turkey), 330 Çarıklı Kilise (“Sandal Church”), 452 Elmalı Kilise (“Apple Church”), 447, 449 Karanlık Kilise Monastery (“Dark Church”), 307, 451, 452, 452 Kılıçlar Kilise (“Swords Church”), 445, 447 Tokalı Kilise (“Buckle Church”), 444–45, 446 Gortyna (Crete, Greece), Titus, Church of St., 259, 263, 298 Goshavank (Armenia), Monastery of, 590 Grabar, André, 62 Gračanica (Serbia, now Kosovo), Dormition, Church of the, 656–58, 658, 659, 660, 664 Grado (Italy), 514 Graffiti, 9, 14, 73, 400 Greek cross, 717 Gregory of Nazianzus, 70, 102, 104, 142, 237 Gregory of Nyssa, 104, 239 Gregory II, Pope, 267 Groin vault, or cross vault, 717 Guiscard, Robert (brother of Roger II of Sicily), 523 768 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Güzelyurt (Karbala or Byzantine Gelveri, Asia Minor, Turkey), 233, 441 Gregory, Church of St., 441 Gynaikokastro (Macedonia, Greece), Fortress at, 644 Habsenas (Ṭ ur ‘Abdin, Turkey) Mor Lazoor, 280, 282, 288 Hadrā, Dayr Anbā (Egypt), Church of, 294 Hadrian, Emperor, 12, 21, 23, 28, 141 Haghbat (Armenia), Monastery of, 587, 588, 590, 591 Haghartsin (Armenia), refectory of, 590 Hagiasma, 717 Ḥ āḥ (Ṭ ur ‘Abdin, Turkey), El-‘Adhra (Church of the Virgin), 279–80, 287, 288 Hakim, al-, Fatimid Caliph, 479, 484 Hammath Tiberias, Synagogue of, 130, 131 Hasan Dağı (Mt. Argaios, Asia Minor, Turkey), 160, 438 Süt Kilisesi (“Milk Church”), 438 Yağdebaş Kilisesi, 438, 439, 441 Hattin, Battle of, 479 Haunch, 717 Hegetor, Ram of, 383 Hegoumenos, 717 Helena, Empress (Mother of Constantine), 16, 29, 225 Buildings of, 16, 29, 32 True Cross, and, 32, 63 Helladic School (“Helladic Paradigm”) of Architecture, 405, 412–427 Hemicycle, 717 Hemisphaeron, 717 Heraclius, Emperor, 270, 273, 283 Hermit, 717 Hermitage, 717 Hermopolis Magna (al-Ashmunayn, Egypt), Great Basilica at, 134, 134 Herod the Great, King of Judea, 28 Heron of Byzantium, Byzantine writer, 383–84 Heroon/heroa, 717 Hierapolis (Pamukkale, Asia Minor, Turkey), 74, 194 Philip, St., Church of, 74, 75, 76, 194, 195 Hieron, 717 Hippodrome (see Circus) Hisham, Umayyad Caliph, 160, 290 Hohenstaufen Dynasty (German), 526

Hokkaido Island (Japan), Hakodate Khristos, Church of, 707 Holobolos, Manuel, Palaiologan court poet, 597 Holy Roman Empire, 267 Hoṙomos Monastery (Armenia, now eastern Turkey), 466–67, 467, 468, 469 Horseshoe arch, 718 Horreum/horrea, 718 Hospitallers, Order of the, 493, 500, 501, 504 Hungary, Kingdom of, 667 Hypatos, 718 Hypocaust, 718 Hypogeum/hypogea, 718 Icon, 718 Iconoclasm, 245, 247, 267, 303, 718 Iconostasis, 718 ̇ Ada (Latmos, Asia Minor, Turkey), Ikiz Monastery, 564 Illiad, 212 Impost block, 718 Impost capital, 718 Indiction, 718 Inhabited scroll, 718 Innocent III, Pope, 561 Inscribed cross plan, 718 Insula, 718 Intervallum, 718 Intrados, 718 Ionic capital, 718 Ipat’ev Chronicle, 482 Isauria (Asia Minor, Turkey), 179 Ishkani (Iş̇ han, Georgia, now eastern Turkey), Cathedral of, 473, 474, 475, 538 Isidorus of Miletus, architect-engineer, 82, 194, 201, 206, 209, 212 Isidorus the Younger, architect-engineer, 85, 210 Islam, Development of, 267, 284–85 Early architecture, 284–86, 309, 313 Shi’ite, 479 Sunni, 479, 480 Isova (Peloponnese, Greece), Church, 572 Istanbul (see Constantinople) Çamlıca Republic Mosque, 710, 712 Istra (near Moscow, Russia), New Jerusalem, Monastery of the, 700, 702 Resurrection, Cathedral of the, 700, 702 Italà (Sicily), Pietro e Paolo, Church of Santi, 524, 525

Iustiniana Prima (see Caričin Grad) Ivan Alexander, Tsar of Bulgaria, 650, 651 Ivan I, Prince of Moscow, 692 Ivan III, Tsar of Moscow, 692, 693 Ivan IV (the Terrible), Tsar of Moscow, 695, 702 Iwan (see Ayvan) Jamb, 718 Jaroslav (the Wise), Prince of Kievan Rus’, 542, 544 Jerash (see Gerasa) Jericho (Palestine), 56 Jerome, St., 61–62 Jerusalem, 6, 18, 21, 22, 28, 28, 56, 61–63, 130, 147, 175, 215, 283, 284, 286, 395, 480–92, 561, 699, 702 Aelia Capitolina, 21, 29 al-Aqsa Mosque, 481, 481, 482, 483–84, 499 Anne, Abbey Church of St., 484–86, 487, 488 Aphrodite, Temple of, 29 Ascension, Church of, 29–30, 29, 486 Bethesda, Pool of, 484 Capitoline Jupiter, Temple of, 21, 29, 286 Cardo, 29, 31 Cenacle (Upper Room at Sion), 493, 496 Cross, Monastery of the, 481–82, 483 Cyril, St., Bishop of, 33, 42, 63 Dome of the Rock, 286, 291, 481, 483–84, 499, 687 Dormition of the Virgin, Church of the, 176 Eleona, Church of (Mount of Olives), 29–30, 64 Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount), 286, 481, 499 Gethsemane (Mount of Olives), 74 Virgin, Tomb of the, 74, 486 Golden Gate, 492 Kathisma Church (Seat of the Virgin), 74, 128, 175, 176, 176, 286 Mary Latin, St., 486 Mary of the Germans, St., 486 Mary the Great, St., 486 Mary Magdalene, St., 486 Moriah, Mount, 286 Nea Ekklesia, 82, 225 Sepulchre, Church of the Holy, 29–34, 31, 62–63, 65, 114, 147, 225, 286, 479, 481, 482–83, 484, 485, 486–92, 490, 491, 492, 493, 494, 497, 700, 702

Index

769

Jerusalem (continued ) Adam, Chapel of, 483 Anastasis Rotunda, 32, 33, 44, 63, 286, 483, 485, 487 Belfry, Crusader, 489 Calvary (Golgotha), 32–33, 62–63, 483, 487, 489 Canons, Cloister of the, 487 Choir, Crusader, 488, 493 Constantinian basilica, of, 30–32, 63, 487 Franks, Chapel of the, 489 Helena, Chapel of, 487, 491, 492 Hemisphaeron, 31–32 Invention of the Cross, Crypt of the, 487 Tomb of Christ (Aedicula), 29–34, 32, 62–63, 700 Temple of Solomon, 18, 28–29, 29, 33, 42, 130, 131, 147, 184, 215, 225, 285, 286, 483 Holy of Holies (Tabernacle), 42, 131, 184 Tyropoeon Valley, 33, 225 Jerusalem, Kingdom of (Crusader State), 480, 493, 561 Jewish Revolt, great (first), 28 Jewish Revolt, second, 28 Jezava River (Serbia), 667 John the Baptist, St., 13 John the Evangelist, St., 13 John VII, Patriarch of Constantinople, 365 Judean Desert (Palestine), 56 Julian the Apostate, Emperor, 102 Julius Caesar, Emperor, 25 Jupiter, Roman god, 23–24 Justin I, Emperor, 165, 184, 185 Justinian I, Emperor, 64, 65, 82, 83, 91, 97, 134, 157, 161, 165, 184, 185, 189, 193, 199, 200, 207–10, 215, 219, 221, 225, 245, 251, 261, 283, 687, 710 Jvari (Mtskheta, Georgia), Holy Cross, Church of the, 271, 273, 274, 278 Kafiona (Mani, Peloponnese, Greece), Theodores, Church of Sts., 427, 429 Kahve Asar Ada (Latmos, Asia Minor, Turkey), 564, 566 Kalenić Monastery (Serbia), Presentation of the Virgin, Church of the, 666, 668, 669, 669 Kalligopoulos family, 574–75 Kantakouzenos, John VI, Emperor, 632, 644, 649 770 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Kantakouzenos, Manuel, Despot of the Morea, 632, 643 Kars (Armenia, now eastern Turkey), 456 Karytaina (Peloponnese, Greece), Fortress at, 646 Matzouranogiannis tower-house of, 646 Kastoria (Macedonia, Greece), Anagyroi, Church of the, 408, 409 Koubelidike Church, 313, 315 Stephen, Church of St., 408, 408 Katechoumena, 718 Kathedra (see Cathedra) Katholikon, 718 Katramide, Queen of Armenia, 459 Kawamura, Izo, architect, 707 Kazan, Battle of, 695, 700 Kellia (Egypt), monastic community of, 54, 55 Kephale, 718 Keria (Mani, Peloponnese, Greece), John, Church of St., 426 Kachkar, 718 Kerkyra (Corfu, Greece), Iosonis and Sosipatros, Church of, 414 Kharab Shams (Syria), Basilica of, 128 Kidron Valley (Palestine), 56 Sabas, St., Monastery (Great Lavra) of, 56, 57, 58, Kiev (Russia, now Ukraine), 312, 368, 395, 541–42 Caves, Monastery of the, Dormition of the Virgin, Church of the, 543 Holy Trinity, Church of the, 312, 313, 543 Dormition Cathedral, 545, 547, Eirene, Monastery of St., 542 George, Monastery of St., 542 Golden Gate, 542, 542 Sophia, Cathedral of St., 368, 542–43, 543, 544, 544–45, 545, 546, 547 Starokjivs’ka Hill, 541 Tithe (Desyatinnaya) Church, 541–42, 542, 544 Kievan Rus’, 215, 312, 357, 366, 395 Buildings in, 540–550 Kılıç Arslan II, Seljuk Sultan of Rûm, 579 Kilistra (Asia Minor, Turkey), Chapel, 453 Kirşehir (Asia Minor, Turkey), Üçayak Church (“Three Feet”), 440, 443–44, 444 Kisleçukuru (Asia Minor, Turkey), Monastery, 327, 329

Kitta (Mani, Peloponnese, Greece), Sergius and Bacchus (or St. George), Church of Sts., xxii, 312, 313, 314, 426, 426, 428 Klimax, 718 Kline/klinae, 718 Knez, 718 Koine, 718 Koinobion/-a, cenobite, 718 Kokoshniki, 718 Kolomenskoe (Russia), 695 Ascension, Church of the, 695, 698 Kolusha (Bulgaria), George, Church of St., 538, 538, 602 Komnenian Dynasty, 317, 562, 564, 597 Tombs of, 373–76 Komnenodoukai Dynasty (Despotate of Epirus), 564 Komnenoi, Grand, 575 Komnenos, Alexios I, Emperor, 354, 480 Komnenos, Andronikos, 575 Komnenos, Isaak, Crown Prince, 373, 375–76, 390, 412 Komnenos, John II, Emperor, 370, 412 Komnenos, Manuel I, Emperor, 538, 550, 551, 561, 576 Komnenos Doukas, Michael II, Ruler of Epirus, 565–66 Kondopoga (Russia), Assumption, Church of the, 699 Konya (Ikonion, Asia Minor, Turkey), 432, 480, 562, 578, 579–83, 581, 587, 590 Alaeddin Camii, 579, 582 ̇ Minareli Medrese, 580, 583, 582, 583 Ince K’orogo (Georgia), Church at, 385, 386, 391, 392, 395 Kos (Greece), Mastichari, John, Basilica of St., 108, 111 Köşe Dağı (Asia Minor, Turkey), Battle of, 578 Kosovo, 1389 Battle of, 649, 653 Kotor (Serbia, now Montenegro), 552 Kramolin (Lovech, Bulgaria), 255 Krautheimer, Richard, 247 Kremlin, 718 Krum, Khan of Bulgaria, 532 Kruševac (Serbia), Stephen (Lazarica), Church of St., 664, 665, 666, 666, 667, 669 Ktetor, 718 Kubāniyyah, Dayr al- (Egypt), Church of, 294, 294 Külliye, 718

Kuršumlija (Serbia), Nicholas, Church of St., 551, 551, 552, 553 Kurşunlu (Bithynia, Turkey), Megas Agros Monastery, 258–59, 262 Kurşunlu (Elegmi, Bithynia, Turkey), Aberkios (Abercius), Church of St., 359, 402, 434–35 Kutaisi (Georgia), 473 Gelati Monastery, 475, 476, 477 Academy, 475 George, Chapel of St., 475 Nicholas, Chapel of St., 475 Kydna (Lycia, Asia Minor, Turkey), Church, 389, 389, 432 Kypseli (Epirus, Greece), Demetrius, Church of St., 569, 571, 571 Lacedaemonia (see Sparta) Lalibela (Ethiopia), Churches of, 297 Beta Emmanuel, Church of, 297, 297 Lambova (Albania), Koimesis Church, 318 Larissa (Thessaly, Greece), 536 Larnaca (Cyprus), Lazarus, Church of St., 282, 290 Laskaris, Theodore I, Emperor of Nicaea, 562 Laskaris, Theodore II Doukas, Emperor of Nicaea, 336, 563, 595 Latin cross, 718 Latmos (Bafa Gölü, Asia Minor, Turkey), 564 Laura or lavra, 718 Laurent’ev Chronicle, 542 Lazar, Prince of Serbia, 664–66 Lazarević, Stefan, Despot of Serbia, 667 Lazarus Galesiotes, St., 383 Lebanon, Cedars of, 225 Lekepanos, Romanos I, Emperor, 306, 309, 348, 349 Leo, Bishop of Argos, 420 Leo III, Emperor, 345 Leo IV, Emperor, 345 Leo V, Emperor, 345 Leptourgos, 718 Les Andelys (France), Chateau Gaillard (of Richard I Lionheart), 504 Lesnovo (Serbia, now North Macedonia), Monastery at, 661 Archangels, Church of the, 661–62, 664 Liber Pontificalis (Book of the Popes), 42, 48 Libyan Desert (Egypt), 69 Licinius, Emperor, 11, 21, 26

Index

771

Lime mortar, 718 Limes, 718 Limestone Massif (Syria), 128 Quarries in, 88, 90 Villages of, 162–63 Lindos (Rhodes, Greece), John, Church of St., 437 Lintel, 718 Lite, 718 Lithoxoos, 718 Liturgy, 718 Loculus/loculi, 718 Locus sanctus/loca sancta, 718 Lombards, 507 Luke (Greece), Blessed St., 414, 416 Luke the Apostle, St., 34, 49, 61 Lunette, 718 Lusignan, Guy de, King of Jerusalem, 493 Lusignan, Isabelle de, wife of Despot Manuel Kantakouzenos of Mystras, 643 Maale Adumin (Palestine), Monastery of Martyrius, 56–57, 59 Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, 31 Macellum/macella, 718 Machicolation, 718 Madrassa/medrese, 718 Maghreb (North Africa), 479 Magnesia (Asia Minor, Turkey), 563 Mahdi, al-, Fatimid Caliph, 481 Maistor/mastoras, 718 Majolica, 718 Malik, Abd al-, Umayyad Caliph, 286 Mallius, Petrus, medieval Roman author, 16 Mamluks, 504, 597 Manasija (Resava) Monastery (Serbia), Holy Trinity, Church of the, 666–67, 670, 671 Mango, Cyril, 248, 259 Mani (Peloponnese, Greece), 398, 413, 425 Mantinea (Peloponnese, Greece), Fotini, Church of St., 705, 706 Manuel, Bishop of Strumica, 409 Manzikert (Asia Minor, Turkey), 1071 Battle of, 432, 455, 480, 562, 578 Mardin (Ṭur ‘Abdin, Asia Minor, Turkey), Dayr al’Za’faran, complex of, 279, 284, 285 Marea (Egypt), basilica of, 134 Marinis, Vasileios, 385 Maritsa, Battle of, 649, 653, 662 772 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Mark the Deacon, Author of Vita Porphyrii, 84 Markov Monastery (Serbia, now North Macedonia), 662 Demetrius, Church of St., 662, 665 Martin, St., Bishop of Tours, 61 Martyr, 718 Martyrium, 8, 16, 18, 33–34, 62–63, 64, 73, 286, 719 Mary the Younger, St., of Vize, 252 Matejič Monastery (Serbia, now North Macedonia), 662 Virgin, Church of the, 662, 666 Mausoleum, 14, 37, 44, 46–47, 121, 719 Baptisteries, relationship to, 44 Maxentius, Emperor, 11, 14, 19 Basilica of, 19 Maximian, Bishop of Ravenna, 222, 230 Maximian, Emperor, 11 Mayafarqin (Ṭur ‘Abdin, Asia Minor, Turkey), Church of the Virgin, 192, 192 Mazara (Sicily), Nicolò Regale, San, 518, 519 Meander pattern, 719 Mechanikos/mechanikoi or mechanikopoios/ mechanikopoioi, 719 Mecca (Arabian Peninsula), Muslim holy city, 290, 309, 683 Megara, Greek colony of, 23 Mega teichos, 719 Megaw, A.H.S., 357 Mehmed (Mehmet) II (“the Conqueror”), Ottoman Sultan, 618, 682, 683–84 Melfi (Basilicata, Italy), 507 Melisende, Crusader Queen of Jerusalem, 485 Melitene (Malatya, Asia Minor, Turkey), 432 Menas, St. (Egypt), 68–70 Mendicant, Monastic orders, 572 Mengujekid Turks, 583, 590 Mensa, 719 Merbaka (Peloponnese, Greece), Koimesis, Church of the, 574, 574 Meryemlik (Asia Minor, Turkey), 64, 110, 178, 179 Domed basilica, 178, 179 Thekla, Church of St., 64, 110, 116, 134 Mese, 719 Mesopotam (Albania), Nicholas, Church of St., 569 Mesarites, Nicholas, Byzantine author, 341 Messenia (Greece), Baths of, 339 Meteora (Thessaly, Greece), Monasteries of, 624

Athanasius of, St., 624 Metamorphosis Monastery, 624, 625 Metochion/metochia, 719 Metochites, Theodore, Byzantine politician and author, 349, 605, 612, 614–16 Miaphysite, 719 Michael IV, Emperor, 388 Mihrab Mika’el debra Selam (Ethiopia), Church of, 297, 298, 298 Mikre Prespa (Macedonia, Greece), Achilleios, Church of St., 536–38, 538 Milan (Italy), 4, 11, 43, 44, 101, 102, 115–17, 119–121, 516, 695 Apostles, Church of the Holy (Basilica Apostolorum), 102, 115–16, 117, 119 Edict of (Peace of the Church), 4, 11, 14, 21 Lorenzo, San, 44, 84, 85, 119–21, 120, 177 Sant’Aquilino, Chapel of, 44, 119–121, 120 Simpliciano, San (Basilica Virginum), 116–17 Tecla, Santa, Cathedral of, 43, 44, 115 Baptistery of, 43–44 Vittore, San, Church of, 121 Mileto (Calabria, Italy), Abbey church at, 523 Mili (Sicily), Maria, Church of Santa, 524, 524 Millet, Gabriel, 412, 662 Milutin, Uroš, King of Serbia, 622, 650 Milutin, Stefan Uroš II, King of Serbia, 653, 655–57, 659 Minaret, 719 Mircea I, Ruler of Wallachia, 669 Mithraeum, 719 Mithras, Cult of, 5 Moerbeke, William of, Archbishop of Frankish Corinth, 574 Mohammed, Muslim prophet, 284, 286, 683 Mokisos (Viranşehir, Asia Minor, Turkey), 160–162, 161, 162, 172 Moldavia (Romania), Region of, 649, 667, 669, 679 Moldoviţa (Moldavia, Romania), Annunciation, Church of the, 673, 675 Monastery, 719 Monasticism, 37, 39, 54–57, 65 Egypt, in, 54–56 Cappadocia, in, 450–53 Coenobium, 54, 56 Laura (lavra), 54 Middle Byzantine, 321–331

Palestine, in, 56–57 Syria, in, 65 Monemvasia (Peloponnese, Greece), 334, 413, 639, 644 Sophia, Church of St., 334, 413, 639 Mongols, 456, 550, 562, 578, 581, 679, 690, 692, 700, 702 Monica, St., 124 Monograms, architectural, 189, 212, 212 Monreale (Sicily), Cathedral of, 521, 521, 523, 524 Montagnana, Alevisio Lamberti da, Venetian architect, 694 Montecassino (Italy), Monastery of, 507 “Morava School” of architecture (Serbia), 649, 662, 665, 669 Moravia, Great, 531 Morea (Peloponnese, Greece), 571–75 Mor Gabriel (Qartmin, Ṭur ‘Abdin, Asia Minor, Turkey), 277–78, 283 Mortar, 719 Mortared rubble, 719 Mosaic, 719 Moscow (Russia), 679, 692, 692–702 Basil, Cathedral of St. (Intercession of the Virgin), xxiii, 695, 699, 699–700, 702 Christ the Savior, Cathedral of (Andronikov Monastery), 690, 708–09, 710, 710 Donskoy Monastery (Old Cathedral), 700, 702 Virgin of the Don, 702 Grand Duke of, 614 Kitay-Gorod, neighborhood of, 695 Kremlin, 692, 693, 694–96, 697 Annunciation, Cathedral of the, 693–94, 697 Archangel Michael, Cathedral of the, 694 Dormition (Assumption), Cathedral of the, 692, 693, 694, 694, 695, 696 Great Bell Tower of Ivan III Moscow River (Russia), 690 Moses (Prophet), 227 Mosques, 719 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 365 Mren (Armenia, now eastern Turkey), Cathedral of, 269, 270, 271, 271, 272, 274, 459 Mtskheta (Georgia), Svetitskhoveli (Twelve Apostles) Cathedral, 475, 476 Mullion, 719 Murad I, Ottoman Sultan, 653, 680

Index

773

Murad II, Ottoman Sultan, 682 Mushabbak (Syria), 90, 128 Muqarnas, 719 Myra (Demre, Asia Minor, Turkey), (near) Alakent, Byzantine church of, 94 Nicholas, Church of St., 74, 76–77, 251, 251, 252, 432, 434 Myriokephalon (Asia Minor, Turkey), Battle of, 432 Myrobletos/-oi, 719 Mystery religion, 719 Mystras (Mistra, Peloponnese, Greece), 252, 334, 339, 344, 625, 632–43, 633, 634, 646 Brontochion Monastery, 639 Hodegetria (or Aphentiko), Church of the, 640, 641, 642–43, 642 Theodores, Katholikon of Sts., 639–40, 640, 642 Demetrius (Metropolis), Church of St., 639, 639, 642–43 Despots, Palace of the, 599, 635, 636 Palaiologos wing, 633, 636 Evangelistria, Church of the, 643 Frangopoulos House, 634, 637 Laskaris House, 634, 638, 639 Monemvasia Gate, 635 Pantanassa, Katholikon of the, 643, 643 Peribleptos (Perivleptos) Monastery, 643, 644 Sophia, Church of St., 643 Zoodochos Pege, Grand Hermitage of, 625 Naos, 719 Narthex, 719 Nave, 719 Nation of Islam, 708 Natrun, Wadi (Egypt), Bishoi, Dayr Anbā, 294 Virgin, Church of the (Dayr al-Suriān), 294, 294 Naxos (Greece), Apalirou, Kastro, 334–35, 336, 337 Apalirou, George, Church of St., 335 Metochi, Holy Apostles, Church of, 368, 369 Nea Anchialos (Thessaly, Greece), 109 Neamţ Monastery (Moldavia, Romania), 673, 675 Necropolis, 719 Neglinnaia River (Russia), 692 774 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Nemanja, Stefan, grand župan of Raška, 377, 378, 550, 551, 552, 621 Nemanjić Dynasty (Serbia), 667 Neon, Bishop of Ravenna, 44 Neophyte, 719 Neoplatonism, Pseudo-Dionysus and, 212 Nerezi (near Skopje, North Macedonia), Panteleimon, Church of St., 357, 359, 373, 397, 410, 411, 412, 550 Nerl River (Russia), Pokrov (Veil of the Virgin) Church, 547, 549, 550, 550 Nesebar (Messembria, Bulgaria), 650, 651 Archangels, Church of the, 651 John, Church of St., 536, 537 John Aleitourgetos, Church of St., 651–53, 654, 655 Old Metropolis, 230, 233, 537 Pantokrator, Church of the, 651, 652, 653 Paraskeva, Church of St., 651 Theodore, Church of St., 651 Nestor of Thessalonike, St., 154 Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 102 New York City (United States), Liberty Park, 709 Nicholas, Church of St., 709 Nicholas, Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine of St., 709, 711 ̇ Nicaea (Iznik, Asia Minor, Turkey), 335, 337, 432, 434, 480, 500, 562–63, 575, 578, 621, 626, 627, 679 Church A near the Istanbul Gate, 434, 434, 435 Council of, 29, 102 Empire of, 562 Hacı Özbek Camii, 681, 681 Hyacinthus, Monastery of St., 254–55 Koimesis (Dormition of the Virgin), Church of the, 248, 249, 250, 254, 261, 359, 434, 563 Second council of, 79 Sophia, Hagia, 434, 681 Tryphon, Church of St., 563, 564 Walls of, 434, 563, 564 Niche, 719 Nicomedia (Izmit, Asia Minor, Turkey), 9, 10, 24, 679 Nicholas of Myra, St., 77 Nicholas of Sion, St., 94 Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia, 708 Nif (See Nymphaion)

Nikephoros I, Emperor, 532 Nikopolis (Greece), 26, 109 Ass and Its Keeper statue, 26 Basilica A, 112 Basilica B, 112 Nile River (Egypt), 215 Niphon I, Patriarch of Constantinople, 629 Nitria (Egypt), monastic community of, 54 Nomisma/nomismata, 719 Normans, 507, 509 North Africa, Fortification systems of, 167–68 Monuments in, 46, 98, 123–126, 231–233 Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae, 137, 138, 144 Novgorod (Russia), George, Church of St. (Yuriev Monastery), 545 Sophia, Church of St., 543, 544, 546, 547 Theodore Stratelates, Church of St., 690 Transfiguration of the Savior on Elijah Street, Church of the, 690, 691 Nubia, Monuments in, 295 Nymphaion (Nif, Asia Minor, Turkey), Imperial palace at, 563, 565, 599 Nymphaeum/nymphaea, 719 Octaconch, 719 Octagon-domed church, 719 Odo of Deuil, historian of the Second Crusade, 346 Ogival arch, 719 Ohrid (North Macedonia), 536, 655 Perivleptos, Church of the, 569 Oikodomos/oikodomoi, 719 Oikos, 719 Oikoumene/ecumene, 719 Old Church Slavonic, 531, 667 Olia (Santorini, Greece), Church, 706 Olynthos (Macedonia, Greece), Mariana, Tower of, 646, 646–47 Onega (Russia), Lake, Kizhi Island, Transfiguration, Church of the, 701, 702, 703 Onion dome, 719 Opus africanum, 719 Opus listatum, 719 Opus mixtum, 719 Opus sectile, 719 Orant, 719

Oratory, 719 Orders, Classical, 14, 104–06 Orhan, Ottoman Sultan, 679–80 Orientalism, xix Orlandos, Anastasios, 705 Ortahisar (Cappadocia, Turkey), Balkan Dere, Basil, Church of St., 449 Hallaç Manastırı, residential complex, 342, 343, 444, 447, 448, 450 Orthodox Christianity, Constantinople-based, 531, 541, 572, 574 Orthodox Church, Serbian, 658–59 Orthodox Church, Syrian, 277, 279 Oshki (see Öšk Vank) Öšk Vank (Georgia, now eastern Turkey), John the Baptist, Church of St., 391, 392, 420, 471, 471, 472, 473, 473 Osman I, Ottoman Sultan, 679–80 Ossuary, 719 Ostia (Italy), 105 Synagogue at, 132 Ostrogoths, 102, 121 Ot’ht’a Eklesia (Dörtkilise, Georgia, now eastern Turkey), 469–71, 469, 470, 538 Otranto (Italy), Pietro, Church of San, 508, 509, 517 Ottoman Empire, buildings in, 669, 679–90 Ottoman (Osmanlı) Turks, 26, 286, 326, 330, 353, 361, 431, 562, 575, 595, 602, 618, 621, 624, 626, 649, 650, 653, 662, 667, 669, 676, 679–90, 710 Ottomania, Viennese, 365 Pahlavuni, Grigor, Armenian aristocrat, 465 Pakourianos, Gregory, Byzantine general, 538 Palaiologan Dynasty, 595, 597, 600, 602, 629 “Palaiologan Renaissance,” 614 Palaiologina, Theodora, Empress, 600 Palaiologina, Zoe (Sophia), Princess, 692–93 Palaiologos, Andronikos II, Emperor, 595, 600, 624, 653 Palaiologos, Andronikos III, Emperor, 602, 644 Palaiologos, John V, Emperor, 614, 649 Palaiologos, John VI, Emperor, 614 Palaiologos, John VII, Emperor, 562, 614 Palaiologos, John VIII, Emperor, 614 Palaiologos, Manuel II, Emperor, 633 Palaiologos, Michael VII, Emperor, 595, 597 Palaiologos, Michael VIII, Emperor, 597, 600 Palaiologos Kantakouzenos, Theodoros, 600

Index

775

Palatium, 719 Palermo (Sicily), 507, 517–524 Caltado, San, 519, 520, 521 Cappella Palatina, 521–23, 521, 523, 524 Cuba Palace, 517 Maria dell’Ammiraglio, Church of Santa (Martorana), 517, 518, 519, 521 Ziza Palace, 517 Palisade, 719 Palladion/palladium, 719 Pan tiles, 720 Panakton (Attika, Greece), Village of, 647 Pantokrator, 720 Panvinio, Onofrio, 357 Papatheodorou, Costas, architect, 705 Paphlagonia (Asia Minor, Turkey), Region of, 432 Parapet, 720 Parhali (Barhali, Georgia, now eastern Turkey), Monastery, 471 Paros (Greece), Ekatontapyliani (Katopoliani) Panagia, Church, 106, 228, 230, 232 Papal States, 507 Parthians, 284 Pastophoria, 720 Paterikon, 720 Patriarch, 720 Patrikios, 720 Patronage, 82–84, 87, 101 Paul the Apostle, St., 8, 14, 102, 109, 112, 153, 259 Paul the Silentiary, 84, 210, 215 Paula, St., 62 Pax Nicephori, 508 Peć (Serbia, now Kosovo), 658, 661 Apostles, Church of the Holy, 659 Demetrius, Church of St., 659 Virgin, Church of the, 659 Nicholas, Chapel of St., 659 Pelagonia (Macedonia, Greece), Battle of, 632 Pemzashen (Armenia), Church of, 274, 281 Pendentive, 720 Pendentive dome, 720 Pereslavl’ (Russia), 543 Pergamon (Asia Minor, Turkey), 336, 339, 341 Perge (Asia Minor, Turkey), Basilica A, 111, 117 Peristerai (Greece), Andrew, Church of St., 357, 359, 405, 406 Peristerona (Cyprus), Barnabas and Hilarion, Church of Sts., 283 Peristyle, 720 776 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Perpetua, St., 124 Peter the Apostle, St., 8, 9, 14, 259 Basilica of (Rome), 16–17, 17 House of (Capernaum), 70, 73 Tomb of (Rome), 9, 11 Peter, Archbishop of Jerusalem, 82 Pheidias, Greek sculptor, 27 Phiale, 720 Philadelphia (Alaşehir, Asia Minor, Turkey), John, Church of St., 194, 195 Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, United States), Frances de Sales, Church of St., 710, 712, 713 Philippi (Greece), Basilica A, 109, 113, 190 Basilica B, 97, 190–92, 191, 249, 344 Baths of, 339 Market of (Macellum), 344 Paul, Cathedral of St., 109, 113 Philippias (near Arta, Epirus, Greece), Pantanassa, Church of, 567, 568, 569 Philostorgius, Church historian, 27 Phokas, Bardas, General, 444 Phokas, Nikephoros II, Emperor, 326, 349 Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople, xxv Phrangopoulos, John, state official in Mystras, 643 Piazza Armerina (Sicily), Villa at, 168, 169, 169 Pier, 720 Pieria (Macedonia, Greece), Koundouriotissa, Church of the, 318 Pilaster, 720 Pilgrim, 720 Pilgrimage, 37, 61–79, 124–25, 132, 231 Pilier cantonné Pillow voussoir, 720 Pisa (Italy), 193, 514 Piscina, 720 Pithos/pithoi, 720 Plataea (Greece), Battle of, 26 Pliska (Bulgaria), 532, 533, 534 Basilica, 5, 533, 534 Boyar Church, 533, 534 Great Basilica, 532, 533, 534, 534 Palace complex, 532, 533, 534 Typical Basilica, 532, 533, 534 Point support, 720 Pointed arch, 720 Poland, 669 Polis, 720 Polotzk (Russia, now Belarus), Sophia, Church of St., 544

Pomerium, 720 Pope (Bishop of Rome), 14, 42, 48, 107, 185, 720 Poreč (Croatia), Eufrasius, Basilica of, 105, 223– 25, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227 Porphyrogennetos, 720 Porphyry, 720 Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza, 84 Portico, 720 Pozzolana, 720 Praetorian prefect, 720 Presbyterium, 720 Preslav (Bulgaria), 344, 534–36 Avradaka, Church 1, 536 Avradaka, Church 2, 536 Bial Briag, Church 1, 536 Patleina Monastery, Panteleimon, Church of St., 535, 535 Round Church, 534–35, 535 Prespa (Great), Lake, 536, 624 Panagia Eleousa, 624–25, 626 See also Mikre Prespa Prilep (Macedonia), Nicholas, Church of St., 569 Princes’ Islands (Sea of Marmara, Turkey), 247 Chalke (Heybeliada), Theotokos Kamariotissa, 359, 360, 366, 414 Prizren (Serbia, now Kosovo), Archangels, Church of the (Mausoleum of Stefan Dušan), 661, 665–66 Virgin (Bogorodica) Ljeviška, Church of the, 656, 657 Procopius, of Caesarea, court historian, 83, 161, 165, 185, 200, 208–10, 212–13, 215, 219, 225 De Aedificiis, 219 Secret History, 200 Proconnesus, 720 Prokhor of Gorodets, painter, 694 Prokonnesos (see Proconnesus) Propylon/propylaeum, 720 Prothesis, 720 Proteichisma, 720 Protomajolica, 720 Protome, 720 Protosebatos, 720 Psellos, Michael, Byzantine author, 388–89 Pseudo-Kufic, 392, 413, 414, 419–20, 423, 720 Pskov (Russia), 543, 693, 694 Pumpkin dome, 720 Putlog, 720 Pydna (Macedonia, Greece), Church at, 318

Pylon temple, 720 Pythion (Thrace, Greece), Fortress at, 644, 645, 646 Qal’at Sem’an (Syria), Symeon, St., Monastery of, 65, 66, 67, 68, 68, 69, 78, 105, 128 Qalb Lozeh (Syria), Church at, 127, 128, 128, 241 Qasr ibn Wardan (Syria), Palace and military complex of, 166–67, 167, 227, 228, 230, 231 Qibla, 720 Quadrant arch, 720 Quadrant vault, 720 Quadriburgium, 720 Quadrifrons arch, 720 Quincunx, 720 Quarry, 65, 88, 90, 230, 395 Aliki (Thasos, Greece), of, 88, 91 Dokimion (Asia Minor, Turkey), 395 Hebdomon (Bakırköy, Constantinople), 395 Limestone Massif (Syria), of, 88, 90 Proconessus, Island of (Sea of Marmara, Asia Minor, Turkey), of, 88, 230, 395 Thasos (Greece), 395 Rampart, 720 Rareş, Peter, Ruler of Moldavia, 673 “Raška School” of architecture (Serbia), 550 Ravanica Monastery (Serbia), Ascension, Church of the, 665, 667, 667, 668 Ravenna (Italy), 44, 98, 101, 102, 121, 169–70, 224, 241 Apollinare Nuovo, Sant’, 121, 122, 169 Baptistery, Orthodox (Neonian), 44, 45, 46, 99, 223 Croce, Santa, 49, 51, 52, 102, 121 Galla Placidia, Mausoleum of, 49–50, 51, 121 Palace of Theoderic, 122, 123, 169, 170 Vitale, San, 83, 83, 99, 105, 219–223, 220, 221, 222, 225, 230, 241 Rebated shelf, 720 Recessed brick masonry, 394–95, 394, 395, 720 Red Sea, 295, 296 Refectory, 721 Refrigerium/refrigeria, 721 Relics, 721 Translation of, 34, 49, 61, 62, 64, 69, 76 Veneration of, 27, 37, 39, 61–63

Index

777

Renaissance, Italian, 516, 540, 598, 693, 695 Rendina (Macedonia, Greece), Fortress at, 644 Resafa (Sergiopolis, Syria), 128, 158–160, 159, 160, 290, 291 Al-Mundhir, Audience hall of (church?), 160 Basilica B, 159 Fortifications of, 159, 160, 163–64, Mosque of, 290 Basilica A, Church of St. Sergius (also Church of the Holy Cross), 158–160, 291, 384 Tetraconch Church, 160, 177 Umayyad Mosque, 160 Respond, 721 Revetment, 721 Rhegion (near Constantinople), 88, 534 Rhodes (Greece), 344, 437 Ribbed dome, 721 Ribbed vault, 721 Richard I (Lionheart), King of England, 505 Rila (Bulgaria), Monastery of, 650, 651 Khrelio, Tower of, 650, 651 Rivio (Epirus, Greece), Stephen, Church of St., 312 Roger I, Norman King of Sicily, 524 Roger II, Norman King of Sicily, 517, 521, 523, 524 Romanesque, Western architectural style, 459, 460, 470, 479, 480, 484, 486, 489, 508, 514, 516, 540, 545, 547, 552, 557, 653, 661, 693, 713 Romanitas, 721 Rome (Italy), 4, 6, 7–12, 8, 24, 27–28, 38, 47, 88, 92, 93, 102, 132, 137, 175, 179, 231, 507, 531, 562 Agnese, Sant’, 48, 231, 234, 267 Costanza, Santa (Mausoleum of Constantina), 48–49, 49, 50, 88, 105 Apostolorum, Basilica (see Rome, Sebastiano, Basilica of San) Ara Pacis, of Augustus, 24 Augustus, Mausoleum of, 24 Aventine Hill, 38 Bassus, Junius, Audience hall of, 13 Caelian Hill, 6 Catacombs, 7, 8–10, 8, 9, 10, 51 St. Callixtus, of, 7, 9, 9 Priscilla, of, 10 Colosseum, 27, 125 Helios (Sun god), colossal statue, 28 778 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Constantine, Arch of, 12, 12, 28 Constantine, Colossal statue of, 1, 11 Constantiniana, Basilica (see Lateran Basilica) Callixtus, Catacombs of St., 7, 9 Popes, Chapel of the, 8 Circus Maximus (hippodrome), 24 Clemente, San, (titulus Clementis), house church, 6 Crisogono, San, church, 9 Domus ecclesiae, 4 Forum Romanum, 4 Giovanni e Paolo, Santi, (Titulus Byzantis or Pammachii), house church, 6 Imperial baths of, 144 Lateran Basilica (Basilica Constantiniana), 13–14, 13, 17–18, 38, 42, 88, 104 Baptistery of, 42, 43 Licinian Gardens, Pavilion of, 95, 96, 179 Lorenzo fuori le mura, Church of San (St. Lawrence outside the walls), 231 Maria Maggiore, Church of Santa, 112, 114, 118, 228 Maxentius, Basilica of, 19 Nero, Stadium of, 9 Palace, Imperial, 13 Pantheon, 182, 199, 201, 206, 212 Paolo fuori le mura, Church of San (St. Paul’s outside the walls), 94, 104, 111–12, 114, 117, 118, 507 Peter’s Basilica, St., 9, 16–19, 17, 18, 51, 63, 65, 92, 93, 94, 94, 112, 114, 117, 708 Andrew, Chapel of, 19 Peter, Tomb of, 9, 11, 63, 64, 64 Petronilla, Chapel of, 19 Pietro e Marcellino, Basilica of Santi, Via Labicana, 16, 16 Helena, Mausoleum of, 16, 47–48, 47 Sabina, Church of Santa, 38, 39, 38, 39 Sebastiano, Basilica of San, Via Appia (Basilica Apostolorum), 14, 15, 16 Sebastiano, Catacombs of San, 7 Sebastiano, Triclia of San, 7, 10 Senate House, 24 Stefano Rotondo, Church of Santo, 114–15, 119, 175 Titulus/tituli, 4, 6, 38 Trajan, Forum of, 13–14, 139 Ulpia, Basilica, 13–14 Vatican Hill, 9

Vatican Museum, 48 Vestals, Temple of, 27 Roman Empire, 3 Roman religion, 4 Roman temples, 4 Romania, buildings in, 667–76 Romanov Dynasty, 709 Ronchamps (France), Notre Dame du Haut, 707, 707 Roofing, materials of, Ceramic tile, 92, 94 Cut stone, 92 Lead sheeting, 92, 94 Wooden trussed, 13, 14, 16, 39, 84, 93–94, 95, 97, 177, 179, 183, 189, 223, 225 Rossano (Calabria, Italy), Marco, Church of San, 509 Rott, Hans, 431, 443 Rotunda, 721 Rublev, Andrei, painter, 694 Russia, buildings in, 690–703 Saghmosavank (Armenia), Library of, 590 Sail vault, 721 St. Gall (Switzerland), Monastery, 322 Saladin, Ayyubid Sultan, 479, 499 Ṣalaḥ (Ṭ ur ‘Abdin, Asia Minor, Turkey), Mor Ya‘qub, monastery of, 279, 286 Salamis (Cyprus), Barnabas, Church of St., 282 Epiphanius, Cathedral of St., 282, 289 Salona (Croatia), 8, 115 Salona-Marusinac (Croatia), Anastasius, Martyrium of, 115, 119 Funerary Complex, 115, 119 Samarina (Messenia, Greece), Zoodochos Pege, Church of the, 423–24, 424, 425 Samandağ (near Antioch, Asia Minor, Turkey), Symeon the Younger, St., Church abd Monastery of, 68, 69, 70 Samuel, Ruler of Bulgaria, 536, 538 Sanahin (Armenia), Monastery of, 587, 590 Sanctuary (see Bema), 721 Sansovino, Jacopo, architect, 516 Santa Eufemia (Italy), Maria, Monastery of Santa, 523 Saone (Qal’at Saladin, Syria), Castle of, 501, 502 Sapareva Bania (Bulgaria), Nicholas, Church of St., 538, 538 Sarcophagus, 721

Sardis (Asia Minor, Turkey), 333, 344 Church D, 194, 195 Church E, 384, 384, 396, 563, 567 Synagogue, 132 Sasanians, 5, 184, 215, 284, 309 Sbeitla (Sufetula, Tunisia), Cathedral complex of, 126, 126 Bellator, Church of, 126 Jucundus, Chapel of (Baptistery), 126 Vitalis, Basilica, 126 Scaffolding, 721 Scetis (Egypt), monastic community of, 54 Schola cantorum, 721 Scythopolis (Bet She’an, Palestine), Round Church, 128, 129, 130, 175 Sebaste (Palestine), John, Cathedral of St., 493, 496 Sebastokrator, 721 Seben-Bolu (Çeltikdere, Phrygia, Asia Minor, Turkey), Byzantine church of, 435, 435, 443 Selçikler (Phrygia, Asia Minor, Turkey), 432 Seleucia-Piera (near Antioch, Asia Minor, Turkey), 84 Church, Aisled tetraconch, 84, 85, 177, 177 Selim I, Ottoman Sultan, 687 Seljuk Turks, 349, 432, 434, 437, 455–56, 479–80, 561, 562, 578–583, 588, 590, 592, 599, 600, 621, 679, 680, 681 Selymbria (Silivri, Thrace, Turkey), John, Church of St., 614, 615 Semidome, 721 Sens Cathedral (France), 493 Septimius Severus, Emperor, 21, 23 Serbia, Buildings in, 550–53, 653–67 Serdica (Sofia, Bulgaria), 24 Serreh (Nubia), East, Churches of, 295, 296 Servia (Macedonia, Greece), Basilica, 408–09, 537 Setting pins, 93, 94 Sevanavank’ (Armenia), churches of, 277 Ševčenko, Ihor, 259 Seven Sleepers, martyr saints, 147 Severan Dynasty, 4 Shaft, 721 Shechem (Nablus, Palestine), 64 Jacob’s Well, at, 64 Shed roof, 721 Shenoute, Leader of White Monastery Federation (Egypt), 54

Index

779

She-wolf, 25 Shuhadā (Egypt), Dayr al-, Church at, 294, 294 Sicily (Italy), Norman, 507, 516–26 Side (Asia Minor, Turkey), Byzantine church, 437, 437 Church H, 257–58, 262 Episcopal palace, 258, 262 Sige (Kumkaya, Asia Minor, Turkey), Church of the Archangels, 256–57 Sigma table, 721 Sinai (Egypt), 64, Catherine, Church and Monastery of St., 64, 94, 95, 164–65, 164, 219, 225, 226, 227, 227, 228, 229, 241 Sinan, Mimar, Ottoman architect, 684–85, 687, 690, 710 Sinasos (Cappadocia, Asia Minor, Turkey), Basil, St., Church of, 248 Siret (Moldavia, Romania), Holy Trinity, Church of the, 669 Sirmium (Serbia), 154 Sivirhisar (Cappadocia, Asia Minor, Turkey), Red Church (Kızıl Kilise), 97, 98, 233, 236, 237, 237 Sixtus III, Pope, 43 Skepides, John, Byzantine provincial administrator, 450 Skeuophylakion, 721 Skeuophylax, 721 Skopje (Serbia, now North Macedonia), 655, 662 Skripou (Orchomenos, Boeotia, Greece), Koimesis, Church of the, 259, 264, 265 Slavs, 531 Smbat, Yovhannes, Ruler of Armenia, 467 Smbat II, King of Armenia, 458, 459 Smederevo (Serbia), Fortified town of, 667, 671, 695 Sofia (Bulgaria) Alexander Nevesky, Cathedral of, 705 Sophia, Cathedral of St., 230, 233 Soğanlı Valley (Cappadocia, Turkey) Chapel, 449 Courtyard complexes of, 342 Geyikli Monastery, 329, 330, 444, 445, 450 Kubbeli Kilise (“Domed Church”), 453 Saklı Kilise (“Hidden Church”), 444 Sohag (Egypt), 54–56, 133 Atripe, women’s monastery, 54 780 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

Red Monastery, 54–56, 56, 132, 133, 133, 134 White Monastery (Dayr al-Abiad), 54–56, 55, 56, 133 Solea, 721 Solidus/solidi, 721 Sol Invictus, 11, 12, 27, 721 Sopoćani (Serbia), Monastery of, 553, 556, 653 Trinity, Church of the Holy, 553, 556 Soviet Union, 709 Spandrel, 721 Sparta (Lacedaemonia, Peloponnese, Greece), 334, 339, 632, 633, 644 Sparta, Nikon, Basilica of St., 383, 639 Split (Croatia), Diocletian, Mausoleum of, 44 Spolia, 12, 14, 17, 24–26, 33, 39, 55, 84, 92, 104, 224, 259, 267, 721 Squinch, 721 Stational liturgy, 721 Staiti (Calabria, Italy), Maria, Church of Santa, 524 Stalin, Joseph, Soviet ruler, 709 Staro Nagoričino (Serbia, now North Macedonia), George, Church of St., 656 Stele, 721 Stephen, St., relics of, 114–15 Stephen of Aila, master mason, 225 Stephen III the Great, Ruler of Moldavia, 669, 673 Stilo (Calabria), Cattolica of, 357, 359, 508–09, 510 Stilted arch, 721 Stiris (Boeotia, Greece), 259 Loukas, Hosios, Monastery of, 295, 310, 322, 323, 324, 365, 393, 408, 413–14, 415, 416, 417, 418–19 Barbara, Church of St., 322 Katholikon, 313, 319, 324, 413, 414, 415, 417, 418–19, 429 Panagia, Church of the, 310, 322, 323, 324, 393, 413, 414, 419 Stoa, 721 Stoudios, Consul in Constantinople, 39 String course, 721 Strzygowski, Josef, 268, 431 Stucco, 44, 224, 721 Studenica (Serbia), Monastery of, 328, 377–78, 384, 552–53, 553, 554, 555, 653, 661 Virgin, Church of the, 377–78, 385 Stylite, 721

Stylobate, 721 Suceviţa (Moldavia, Romania), Monastery of, 330, 673, 676 Sullivan, Louis, architect, 707 Süleymaniye the Magnificent, Ottoman Sultan, 685 Symeon I, Ruler of Bulgaria, 532, 534 Symeon Stylites the Elder, St., 65, 322, 624 Symeon Stylites the Younger, St., 68 Synagogue, 5, 6, 10, 73, 130–132, 721 Beth Alpha (Palestine), 131, 130 Capernaum (Palestine), at, 131 Dura Europos (Syria), at, 5, 6, 130 Hammath Tiberias (Palestine), at, 131, 130 Ostia (Italy), at, 132 Sardis (Asia Minor, Turkey), at, 132 Synkellos, 721 Synthronon/synthrona, 721 Syrian bema, 721 Taberna/tabernae, 721 T’alin (Armenia), Large church and chapel of, 259, 269, 271, 276, 277, 298 Tabernacle, 33, 131 Taghba (Palestine), Multiplication of the Loaves, Church of, 128, 129 Tao-Klarjeti (Georgia, now eastern Turkey), Region of, 420, 456, 475 Tarchaniotes, Michael Glabas, Byzantine military official, 602 Tatars (see Mongols) Tebessa (Theveste, Algeria), Crispina, St., Pilgrimage complex of, 124–25, 125, 126 Technites, 721 Tegea (Peloponnese, Greece), Palaia Episkopi, 357, 359 Telanissos (Deir Sem’an, Syria), 68, 68 Temenos, 721 Templar, Order of the Knights, 483, 484 Templon, 721 Tepidarium, 721 Tessera, 721 Tetraconch, 721 Tetrapylon, 721 Tetrarchy, 9, 11, 24, 44, 153, 721 Teutonic Knights, Order of the, 500 Thasios Island (Bithynia, Asia Minor, Turkey), 256 Thebes (Greece), 338, 341, 647 Theodora, Empress, 82, 185, 189, 200, 210, 221, 225, 277

Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, 81, 121 Theodosius I, Emperor, 102, 139, 154 Theodosius II, Emperor, 137, 139, 141, 170, 181 Theophanes the Confessor, 259 Theophanes the Greek, painter, 694 Theophilos, Emperor, 345, 365 Theophylact of Ohrid, 410 Thessalonike (Macedonia, Greece), 24, 74, 78, 108, 151, 153–155, 155, 163, 338, 395, 406, 605, 621, 624, 626–632, 656, 658, 662 Acheiropoietos, Church of the, 105, 108, 109, 110, 111, 154, 230 Agora, 153, 154, 344, 626 Apostles, Church of the Holy, 397, 627, 627, 628–30, 629, 630, 657, 658 Byzantine Bath of, 339, 340 Catherine (Hagia Aikaterine), Church of St., 627, 627, 628–30, 628, Chortiates, Mount, 627 David, Hosios, 249 Demetrius, Church of St., 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 108, 154, 344, 627 Decumanus (Mese), 153, 156 Dionysus, Temple of, 153 Egnatia, Via, 153 Elijah (Elias), Church of the Prophet, 630, 632, 632 Galerius, Arch of, 153, 156 Galerius, Mausoleum of (Rotunda of St. George), 153–54 Heptapyrgion Fortress, 626 Hippodrome, 153 Imperial palace, 153 Kassandreotike Gate, 344 Kyr-Isaak, Monastery of, 626 Panteleimon, Church of St., 627, 627, 628, 628, 629 Nestor, Martyrium, 154 Nicholas Orphanos, Church of St., 627, 630, 655 Panagia ton Chalkeon, 397, 399, 406–07, 406, 605 Serapeum, 153 Sophia, Cathedral of Hagia, 154, 155, 157, 248, 249, 250, 252–54, 255, 256, 257, 258, 261, 317, 627 Taxiarchs (Archangels), Church of the, 630, 631 Vlattadon Monastery, 627, 627, 630

Index

781

Theophanes Continuatus, Byzantine historian, 247 Theophany, 721 Theotokos, 721 Thermal window, 721 Tiberias, Lake (Palestine), 128 Tie beams, wooden, 92, 93, 97, 397–98, 721 Tie rods, iron, 97, 97, 721 Timothy the Apostle, St., 34, 49 Titulus, 721 Tivoli, Hadrian’s Villa, 179 Tomarza (Asia Minor, Turkey), Church of the Panagia, 231, 233, 236 Tomb chapels, Egypt, of, 51 Ton, Konstantin, architect, 708 Tortosa (Tartus, Syria), Notre Dame, Church of, 492–93, 495 Torus molding, 722 Trabeated, 722 Trabzon (see Trebizond) Tracery, 722 Transept, 722 Trans-Siberian Railway, 707 Transverse arch, 722 Transverse barrel vault, 722 Transylvania, 669 Trapeza, 722 Trdat, Armenian architect, 210, 366, 385, 459–60, 462 Trebizond (Asia Minor, Turkey), 344, 437, 444, 575–78, 577 Anne, Church of St., 437–38, 439, 576 Chrysokephalos, Cathedral of (Fatih Camii), 438, 575, 577, 578 Empire of, 562, 576 Eugenios, Church of St. (Yeni Cuma Camii), 344, 438, 576 Nakip Camii, 438 Sophia, Hagia, 576, 578, 579, 580, 581 Tribleon/triblea, 722 Triclia, 7, 10, 722 Triclinium, 722 Triconch, 722 Trier (Germany), 14–15 Basilica of (Aula Palatina), 14, 15 Horrea of (warehouses), 14 Trilye (Zeytinbağı, Asia Minor, Turkey), Fatih Camii (St. Stephen?), 249, 250, 257, 258, 259, 261, 262, 261, 306, 309 782 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

John Pelekete, Monastery of St., 259, 262, 263 Pantobasilissa, Church of the, 681 Tripoli, County of (Crusader State), 480 Triumph of Orthodoxy, 248, 303, 322 Triumphal arch, 722 T’rnovo (Bulgaria), 538; see Turnovo Trogir (Croatia), 553 Trojan War, 27 Tropaion/tropaia, 8, 9, 722 Troy (Asia Minor, Turkey), Athena, Temple of, 27 Trumpet squinch, 722 Truss/trussing, 722 Tsimiskes, John I, Emperor, 365–66 Tubi fittili, 44, 98, 99, 222–23, 722 Tufa, 722 Tuff, 722 Tunisia, monuments in, 46, 47 Ṭ ur ‘Abdin (Asia Minor, Turkey), 267, 277, 285, 285, 298 Midyat and Mardin, churches of, 277, 285 Turkish War of Independence, 431 Turnovo (Bulgaria), 649–50, 650 Forty Martyrs, Church of the, 650 Tsars, Palace of the, 650 Patriarchate, Palace of the, 650 Tursun Bey, biographer of Mehmed II, 684 Two-column church, 722 Typikon, 722 Tyre, William of, Crusade historian, 486–87, 489 Tzar/tsar, 722 Tzetzes, John, Byzantine author, 346 Umar, Umayyad Caliph, 284 Umayyads, 284, 285 Umm ar-Rasas (Kastron Mefa’a, Jordan), Stephen, Church of St., 291, 293 Ürgüp (Cappadocia), Turkey Sarıca Kilise (“Yellow Church”), 445, 447, 448 Uroš I, Grand Prince of Serbia, 553 Uroš V, Stefan, King of Serbia, 553 Vagarshapat (Armenia), 414 Gayanē, Church of St. (Echmiatsin), 270, 272 Hṙip’simē, Church of St., 269, 279, 273, 279, 280, 456 Zuart’noc’ (Zvart’nots’, Church of the Vigilant Powers), 274, 281, 282, 385, 462 Valdemone (Sicily), Churches of, 524 Valens, Emperor, 142

Valenzano (Apulia, Italy), Ognissanti, Church of the, 511–12 Vamvaka (Mani, Peloponnese, Greece), Theodores, Church of Sts., 399, 425, 426, 427 Van, Lake (Armenia, now eastern Turkey), 456 Van Millingen, Alexander, 247 Vandals, 38, 102, 123, 167, 225 Vardar River (see Axios River) Varna, Crusade of, 667 Vasili III, Grand Prince of Moscow, 692 Vassal, 722 Vatatzes, John II Doukas, Emperor of Nicaea, 563 Vault, 722 Vaulting systems, structural aspects of, 94–97 Formwork, wooden, 97, 98 Tie beams, wooden, 92, 93, 97 Tie rods, iron, 97, 97 Tubi fittili, 44, 98, 99 Venice (Italy), 508, 512–516, 561, 562 Nicolò di Lido, Monastery of San, 514 Marco, Basilica of San, xxi, 382, 400, 508, 514–516, 515 Murano, Maria e Donato, Church of Santi, 516, 517 Pala d’Oro, 370 Torcello, Maria Assunta, Cathedral of Santa, 512, 512, 513 Torcello, Fosca, Church of Santa, 512–13, 513, 514 Veljusa (North Macedonia), Eleousa, Church of the, 313, 319, 321, 359, 409–10, 410, 550 Verde antico/verde antique, 722 Veroia (Macedonia, Greece), Old Metropolis, 408–09, 409, 537 Victor, Bishop of Ravenna, 222 Villehardouin, Geoffrey of, Crusader historian, 571, 573 Villehardouin, William II of, Prince of Achaea, 632 Villehardouin Dynasty, 572, 574 Vita, 722 Vitalis, St., 221, 222 Vitebsk (Russia, now Belarus), 543 Visigoths, 38, 102 Vita, Fra, Franciscan friar and master builder from Kotor, 659 Vitruvius, architect, xxv, 81, 84, 87, 381 Vize (Thrace, Turkey), Sophia, Hagia, 249, 250, 252, 255, 261

Vladimir (Russia), Dormition Cathedral, 545, 692, 693 Vladimir, Virgin of (icon), 547 Vladimir (the Great), Prince of Kievan Rus’, 540–41, 542 Vladimir-Suzdal (Russia), Principality of, 545 Volute, 722 Voroneţ (Moldavia, Romania), George, Church of St., 673, 673, 674 Votive, 722 Voussoirs, 722 Wadi, 722 Walid, al-, Umayyad Caliph, 290 Wallachia (Romania), Region of, 649, 667, 679 War of 1812, 708 Wauwatosa (Wisconsin, United States), Annunciation, Church of the, 708, 709 William I, Norman King of Sicily, 523 William II, Norman King of Sicily, 523, 526 Wind-blown capitals, 722 World War I, 431 Wright, Frank Lloyd, architect, 707–08 Würzburg, John of, Crusader author, 487 Xenodochia, 722 Yantra River (Bulgaria), 650 Yemrehane Kristos (Ethiopia), Church of, 297, 299 Yeroskipou (Cyprus), Paraskevi, Church of St., 283, 290 Yusuf, Emir of Azerbaijan (Sajid), 456 Zagorsk (Russia), Trinity and St. Sergius, Monastery of, 702 Dormition, Cathedral of the, 702 Zahir, al-, Fatimid Caliph, 481 Zakomary, 722 Zarakas (Peloponnese, Greece), Cistercian monastery at, 572 Zawiya, 722 Zeno, Emperor, 65, 134, 175, 179 Zirid Court (Tunis, Tunisia), 519 Zromi (Georgia), Ascension, Church of the, 270, 271, 272, 273 Zvenigorod (near Moscow, Russia), Dormition, Cathedral of the, 690 Nativity of the Virgin, Church of the (Monastery of St. Sava), 690, 691

Index

783