Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/63

Rh After reading the pompons descriptions of ancient Constantinople in Byzantine writers, it is certainly- surprising to find so few extant monuments of its former magnificence. I was much interested in seeing the building which the laquais de place call the Palace of Belisarius, but which seems to be the palace which Byzantine writers call Hebdomon or Magnaura. This is one of the few extant specimens of Byzantine civil architecture. It is built of bricks of different colours, arranged so as to form rich bands of inlaid- work : in the interior are columns with highly orna- mented capitals. This edifice, called by the Turks Tekir Serai, is built on a rentrant angle of the city wall. Near it is a Byzantine church, now converted into a mosque, called Kachi'eie, which I believe few travellers visit.$17$

The entrance, as is usually the case in Byzantine churches, is through a narthex, or vestibule, on the west, in which are some faded frescoes. A side aisle on the south is richly decorated with mosaics both on the walls and cupolas above: these cupolas are divided into segments, each of which contains the figure of one of the Prophets. In the space between the cupolas are represented the miracles of the New Testament and other incidents from sacred history. On the walls are colossal figures much defaced, and smaller compositions. The larger figures were detached against a gold background; in the smaller compositions landscapes were represented in the distance, very like those in early Italian pictures. The figures have very long proportions, and are simply and grandly composed. The colouring is