Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/65

Rh gold texts from the Koran, fixed like hatchments on the pilasters; the chandeliers suspended from the dome as if to plumb its vast abyss; the prayer- carpets strewn with the books of the Mollah, and the other outward signs and appurtenances of Mussul- man worship will be banished from St. Sophia; when its internal perspective will no longer be disturbed by an arrangement which forces the eye of the reluctant Giaour to squint Mecca-ward; when its mosaics, now overlaid with whitewash, and faintly visible here and there like the text of a palimpsest, will shine forth in renewed glory, and in their original combination with the precioixs many-coloured columns and the exquisite lace-like carving of the capitals.

But what modern Anthemius could restore the exterior of the building, what amount of polychrome decoration could make this huge, clumsy, naked mass of brickwork pleasant to the eye? Admitting that the original design has been much mutilated and defoced, still I think the exterior of St. Sophia shows that Byzantine architecture depended for its external effect almost entirely on inlaid polychrome decoration, and very little on the harmony of chiaroscuro produced by the judicious opposition of plane and projecting surfaces.

Within the precinct of the Seraglio, the govern- ment has recently made a small museum in the ancient church of St. Irene. Here a few fragments of sculptures and inscriptions are flung together without any attempt at arrangement. Among these I noticed the upper part of an Amazon, in high relief: she is represented as rushing forward and