Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/554

538 538 SAEACENIC ARCHITECTURE. Part IIL foundation of St. Peter's at Rome liacl already been laid. The old principles of art were already losing their hold on the architects of Europe, a revolution was taking place, and tliongh tliis would hardly be much felt so far east as the Bospliorus, or materially influence strangers like the Turks, still it must have had some in- fluence, and modified their style to some extent. Be this as it may, we are struck at Constantinople with the same phenomenon which meets us everywhere in the Mahomedan world. Wherever the various nationalities settled who had embraced that faith, they at once adopted the architectural forms of their new country, and set to work to mould and modify them, so as to bring them more into con- formity with their special requirements. Nowhere do they seem to have brought their style with them, or thought of forcing that on their new subjects. In this they were wise; and it is what probably all nations would do who had any true knowledge of art, or any true feeling for its purposes. In nine cases out of ten the original people of a country find out the arrangements most suited to their climate, and the forms of construction best adapted to the materials which are available ; and to attempt to substitute for these forms suited to other climates and another class of materials, is what only an Aryan would think of doing. The Turks, though barbarous, belonged to one of the great building races of the world ; and ^o soon as they entered Constantinople set to work vigorously to vindicate the characteristics of the family. Besides appropriating seven or eight of the principal churches of the city, with 8ta. Sophia at the head of the list, to the new worship, Mahomet II. founded six or seven new mosques, some of them of great magnificence. The chief of these is that which still bears his name, and crowns the highest of the seven hills on which the city stands. To make way for it, he pulled down the Church of the Apostles, which had been the burying-place of the Christian emperors apparently since the time of Constantine, and was consequently an edifice of consider- able magnificence. It had, however, been plundered by the Latin barbai'ians who sacked the city some time before the Moslems, and it was also so crippled by earthquakes as to be in a dangerous state. In order to effect his purpose, Mahomet employed Christodulos, a Christian resident in Constantinojde, to erect on the spot, a mosque, which he intended should surpass all others in his empire. How far he was successful we have now little means of judging. An earth- quake in 1763 so completely ruined this mosque that the repairs amounted almost to a I'ebuilding; and as these were carried out with the quasi-Italian details of the latter half of the 18th century, its present appearance probably conveys very little idea either of the form or of the magnificence of the original building. Enough of its form, however, still remains to tell us that, like all Turkish mosques, it