Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/336

Rh 8J6 CONSTANTINOPLE command the enterprlze was commenced. No fewer than 10,000 workmen are said to have been engaged under the direction of 100 master builders; and when the woik I 1 II COURT or THE. 1 uiAetcr Plan of Mosque of St Sophia. A. Ancient Sacristy. B. Ancient Baptistry. C. The Side Galleries. D. The Four Minarets, E. F 1st and 2&amp;lt;.l Porch or Narthex. Gi Fi ont Gallery. H. Formerly the Emperor s and Patri arch s seats. I. The Mihrab, where the Koran is kept. K. Formerly the Altar. was completed it had cost the imperial treasury about 1,000,000. The principal material of the walls was brick, but the whole interior was lined with costly marbles; and to add to its splendours the temples of the ancient gods at Heliopolis and Ephesus, at Delos and Baalbec, at Athens and Cyzicus, were plundered of their columns. To render the dome as light as possible it was constructed of pumice-stone and Rhodian bricks, and to secure the building from the ravages of fire no wood was employed except for the doors. Not long after its completion the dome was shaken by an earthquake, but it was repaired by Isidore, the grandson of tho original architect. In 1453 Mahomet converted the church into a mosque, artd since that date numerous minor alterations have been made in the less essential parts of the building. A pretty com plete restoration was effected in 1847-49 by Fossati, who found that the weight of the dome was too great for the Supporting walls, threatening the whole with destruction. 1 The most remarkable of the church-mosques, besides St 1 The churches of Constantinople in 1202 were, according to &quot;Alberich, 500. Of more than 50 the remains or the sites have been identified. Six of these are in the possession of Christians, five being held by the Greeks and one by the Armenians. The five churches are (1) Mougloutissa (Mongolian); (2) St George of the Cypress in Psamathia; (3) the Ayasma (holy well) of St Mary in Blachernce; (4) the Ayasma of the Sleep of St Mary, between the mosques Zeirek and Vefa; (5) the Ayasma of St Therapon (a Cyprian martyr) in the Seraglio wall near Pasha Kapusi. The church indicated as given to the Armenians is Perioleptou (Soulou Monastir), Possibly another church similarly transferred might be named, in Balata, to which a monastery was annexed. Three other churches, though not turned into mosques, have passed out of the hands of the Christians St Irene, Sts Nicolas and Augustine, and St Juliana. In the sea-wall of the Seraglio gardens is the eastern entrance of another church perhaps St George of the Mangaua; to the north, is the Ayasma of the Saviour. Sophia, are the following: (1) Kutclwk Aya 8op7iia, the Church original model of the great church. It was built for Jus- D10;Sf l U( tinian before his accession, and dedicated to martyrs of his own Illyrian race SS. Sergius and Bacchus. The lower stage is the original fabric. Here, according to Mahometan tradition, Messiah appeared among the worshippers. (2) Pantocrator (the Almighty), now Zeirek Jamisi, a triple church of the Comneni. Its monastery became the head quarters of the Latins in the 13th century. (3) St John of tke Studium Emer-ahor a basilica. Here was the famous monastery of Accemeti (watchers) and a school of church poets. (4) The Church of the Saviour, with the monastery of the Chora, as being not only lv rfj x^P? (&quot; in the fields,&quot;) but f] x^P - T&amp;lt;jOI/ WVTCOV the (land of the living), a gem of beauty still, even in its decay, rich with mosaic of the 14th. century of a style purer and more refined than that which is more often seen and admired at Ravenna and Palermo. In this church, alternately with the Hodegetria, was kept the Holy Robe of the Virgin, which was wont to be carried in procession when the walls were threatened, and with which the patriarch Photius is said to have scared away the first Russian fleet which came against the city down the Bosphorus in the 9th century. (5) Pammacaristou Fetiyeh Jamisi. The Greek patriarch moved hither from, the Church of the Holy Apostles which had been assigned him. One dome of this church is still full of mosaic work. The mosques of Constantinople are reckoned variously M OSt1U( from 350 to 500, mesjids (chapels) included. Many of them retain the materials as well as occupy the sites of ancient churches. The great mosque of Suliman was chiefly built of the remains of the church of St Euphemia at Chalcedon, where the fourth OEcumenical Council was held, 451. This church stood above the valley of Haidar-Pasha, near Kadikeui; an ayasma belonging to it stands near the railway terminus at a little distance from the shore. The imperial mosques, that of Eyoub included, are nine in number. Most of them stand on high ground; and, with the harmonious contrast of dome and minaret, they offer to the eye a more pleasing view than the Christian churches of the past. The hills may be counted as these lordly struc tures follow in stately order, and the monuments of Osman, Suliman, Mahomet, and Selim seem to repeat the form fixed on the first hill by the architects of Justinian; and on high festivals their soaring minarets, more airy than the campaniles of the West, and beaming with festoons of light, shine out like beacons over the neighbouring waters. Galata and Pera. Along the north shore of the Golden o a i a t a Horn spreads the quarter known as Galata, rising up to Pera. the crest of the hill and including the massive tower which crowns it. Beyond and above Galata, Pera stretches forward along the ridge that runs parallel with the shore. Both these quarters are chiefly inhabited by Christians, native and foreign. Galata is the seat of commercial establishments, Pera that of the diplomatic bodies. At the foot of the great tower of Galata is gathered a cluster of English institutions, the consulate, consular court, consular prison, seamen s hospital, post-office, and sailors home. Several institutions, native and foreign, have been established of late years in Pera. The main street which connects these two quarters winds up from the outer bridge. A little beyond the Municipality House, it is crossed by another near the point where it separates the Russian Embassy from the Hotel d Angleterre; hence the Greek name of Pera ^ravpoBpo/jnov (the cross roads). This street, rising tortuously from above Tophaneh, is said to have been formed by the track of Mahomet s fleet of boats, which were rolled up to the crest of the hill and then down on the other side to the inlet below Kassim- Pasha, on the edge of which the Divan-Haneh (Admiralty) now stands. Before reaching the point of intersection this street,