File:Architecture, classic and early Christian (1888) (14784091873).jpg

Identifier: architectureclas00smit (find matches)
Title: Architecture, classic and early Christian
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors: Smith, T. Roger (Thomas Roger), 1830-1903 Slater, John, 1847-1924
Subjects: Architecture Church architecture
Publisher: London : S. Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, Ltd., St. Dunstan's House, Fetter, Lane, Fleet Street, E.C.
Contributing Library: NCSU Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: NCSU Libraries

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om its outcome. It is doubtful ifany church older than the sixth century now remains inConstantinople; but it is certain that, to attain the powerof designing and erecting so great a work as Santa Sophia,the architects of Constantinople must have continued andlargely modified the Eoman practice of building vaults anddomes. There is every probability that if some of theearly churches in Byzantium were domed structures othersmay have been vaulted basilicas; the more so as the veryancient churches in Syria, which owed their origin toByzantium rather than to Eome, are most of them of thebasilica type. A church which had been erected by Constantine, dedi-cated to Santa Sophia (holy wisdom), was burnt early inthe reign of Justinian (a.d. 527 to 5G5); and in rebuildingit his architects, Anthemios of Thralles, and Isodoros ofMiletus, succeeded in erecting one of the most famousbuildings of the world, and one which is the typical andcentral embodiment of a distinct and very strongly marked P 2
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BTZAXTIXE. 213 ■^vell-tlefined style. The basis of this style may he said tobe the adoption of the dome, in preference to the vault orthe timber roof, as the covering of the space enclosed withinthe -walls; with the result that the general disposition ofthe plan is circular or square, rather than oblong, andthat the structure recalls the Pantheon more than thegreat Hall of the Thermce of Diocletian, or the Basilica oftSt. Paul. In Santa Sophia one vast fiattish dome domi-nates the central space. This dome is circular in plan,and the space over which it is placed is a square, thesides of which are occupied by four massive semicirculararches of 100 ft. span each, springing from four vastpiers, one at each of the four corners. The four tri-angular spaces between the corners of the square soenclosed and the circle or ring resting upon it are filledby what are termed pendentives —features which may,perhaps, be best described as portions of a dome, each justsufficient to fit into one co

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