Vitale were imported from the East; among them, "melon-capitals" like those which adorn the columns on the ground-floor of SS. Sergius and Bacchus.
The similarity of the two churches has yet another interest. Their likeness const.i.tutes them symbols of Justinian"s great policy--the reunion of the East and the West, a reunion maintained for some two hundred years after its consummation. Since that unity was impaired, they have stood, one beside the Adriatic, the other beside the Marmora, like hills which erewhile formed sides of the same mountain, and rose to the same peak, but which a cruel tide has torn apart and holds separate, in spite of their kinship.
But, perhaps, the chief interest attaching to SS. Sergius and Bacchus is the fact that it represents a stage in the solution of the problem how to crown a square building with a dome, the characteristic mark of Byzantine architecture.
To cover a round building, round from summit to base like the Pantheon, with a dome is comparatively an easy matter, for in that case two circular structures meet and fit together along the whole circuit of their circ.u.mferences. On the other hand, to set the round rim of a dome upon a square substructure seems an attempt to join figures which from the nature of things can never coalesce.
Such a union is conceivable, only if, by some device, the different figures can, at least at some point, be cut to the same shape. The problem to be solved may therefore be stated as the question, whether the summit of a square structure can be converted into a circle corresponding to the rim of the dome it is to support. In SS. Sergius and Bacchus we have the type of a building in which a step was taken in that direction. There, as we have seen, the base upon which the dome rests is formed by a substructure consisting of eight arches arranged in the figure of an octagon; the gaps at the angles, where arch bends away from arch, being filled with masonry to the level of the heads of the arches. Such a base, it is true, does not match the dome as accurately as a round substructure like the Pantheon. Still, an octagon approximates to a circle more closely than a square does. Its contour offers more points of contact to the orbed canopy set upon it, and the gaps at its angles, being comparatively small, can readily be filled up to afford the dome a continuous support. If the fit is not perfect, it is sufficient to secure a decided advance beyond the simpler art, which knew only how to put one round thing upon another round thing. And what beautiful results could be gained by this advance, SS. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople and San Vitale at Ravenna are there to prove.
But the end was not thus reached. Circular buildings and octagonal buildings are exceedingly beautiful; they should always stay with us.
But they are not the most convenient, and cannot become the buildings in general use. For the practical purposes of life, square or oblong halls are in greater demand; such as the basilica, which could serve as a court of justice, a church, a school, a market, or a throne-room. Hence the question still remained, Can the summit of a square structure be turned into a circular base for a dome?
And it is the merit of the architects of S. Sophia, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, his nephew, to have applied the method which solves that problem, with such ability, such splendid success, and to have made it so conspicuous and famous, that they seem the discoverers of the method, and not only its most ill.u.s.trious exponents. The object which these men set themselves to accomplish was to combine the advantages of a basilican edifice with the advantages of a domical building. For, in S. Sophia, the lineaments and beauty of a basilica are still retained--the threefold division of a stately hall into nave and aisles, the recess of the apse at the east end, the galleries dividing the other sides into two stories, long lines of columns, the l.u.s.tre of marble and the glow of mosaics all are here. But the ceiling of a basilica, whether flat, pointed, or vaulted, was an insignificant feature. It cramped the upward view; it vexed the eye as heavy. In a church, it seemed to fling back to earth the aspirations which sought the heavens. It was dark; through it the Light of the world could not stream into the soul.
[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF S. SOPHIA, THE SULTAN"S GALLERY
This gallery, built of marble and screened with gilt fretwork, is for the exclusive use of the Sultan; it is approached by a separate entrance.]
Whereas a dome was something bold and striking; its construction evinced great architectural skill; and rewarded the labour bestowed upon it, by the dignity and the grace it gave to the building whose brow it crowned.
It also appealed to the spiritual mind; it lifted the heart on high, it was kindred to the skies; it was a cloud through which the glory beyond the earth could come, in the subdued light that permits mortal eyes to behold the vision of G.o.d. For, most a.s.suredly, the architects of S.
Sophia were not content to rear only a marvel of mechanical skill. Like true artists they intended to compose "a poem in stone," nay, to build a "gate of heaven." But first that which is natural, afterwards that which is spiritual. And we must therefore glance at the method they employed to cover a basilica with a domed canopy.
In the central area, let us say, of a rectangular building, 235 feet N.
and S. by 250 feet E. and W., erect a square structure of four arches.
Where arch bends away from arch, there are triangular empty s.p.a.ces breaking the continuity of the lines of the square summit. Such a base is not round, and it is broken. Can it be made continuous and circular--that is the question? It can. Fill the yawning triangular s.p.a.ces with masonry to the level of the heads of the arches; only let that masonry be made concave, as though portions of the proposed dome were inserted between the arches, to dovetail with them. And to your surprise, perhaps, but inevitably, the square summit is transformed into a circle, capable of becoming the bed on which a dome may rest as accurately and securely, as though the square of arches was round and solid to the very floor. It is all very simple, after you have seen it done; but the device which introduced into those triangular gaps at the upper corners of the square the pendentives which, when they mounted to the height of the arches, converted a square into a circle was a master-stroke of genius, whoever conceived it first, and an epoch in the history of architecture. But how is this domed square structure to be connected with the walls of the rectangular area within which it is enclosed? How, especially, is it to be held in position, lest it be split open by the thrust of the dome and hurled to the ground? The double-storied aisles to the north and the south furnish the required support in those directions. But it was in the means devised to sustain the dome on the east and the west, that Anthemius and Isidorus displayed all their daring, and secured an effect that has never been matched for grandeur and beauty.
They placed two comparatively small piers to the east of the dome-crowned fabric and two to the west of it; arched the piers, and connected them to the right and the left, still with arches, with the great piers to the rear of which they respectively stood. Filling up the triangular void s.p.a.ces between these arches, they thus gained a semicircular base upon which to rear, at either extremity, a semi-dome, climbing with gentle curve to the feet of the great dome, to support it in its lordly place, and (if the expression may be pardoned) to stretch it from one end of the nave to the other. It is as though the octagon of SS. Sergius and Bacchus had been cut in twain and set east and west of a square surmounted by a dome, converting the central area of the church into an elliptical or oval figure.
For elasticity of spring, for the grace and majesty of its upward flight, for amplitude, for the lightness with which it hangs in air, there is no canopy like the arched roof spread over the nave extending from the Royal Gates to the altar of S. Sophia.
Poised on arches and columns, soaring from triple bays to semi-dome, and from semi-dome to dome, bolder and bolder, higher and higher, more and more convergent, culminating above a circle of forty lights, through which the radiant heavens appear, it is not strange that it has seemed a canopy merged in the sky, and that for more than thirteen centuries men have worshipped beneath it with the feeling "This is none other than the House of G.o.d!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: FOUNTAIN IN S. SOPHIA
One of the two great alabaster water-jars near the entrance.]
Only one thing more was needed to make the fabric artistically complete--to spread over it what Ruskin terms, "that most subtle, variable, inexpressible colour in the world--the colour of gla.s.s, of transparent alabaster, of polished marble, and l.u.s.trous gold."
Accordingly, all that porphyry, verde antique, white marble, marbles of variegated hues, in the form of pillar, slab, capital, inlaid patterns, could contribute, all that delicate carving, with its lights and shadows, all that mosaics bright and soft as sunset tints could lend, was brought into requisition, until every part of the interior surface was suffused in a splendid coloration, and the solid fabric stood transfigured into a pavilion of some iridescent tissue, overwrought with gorgeous embroidery, and held up on shafts of prophyry and emerald.
Many persons are, it is said, disappointed with the first view of even the interior of S. Sophia. Of course the church is not in the state which made Justinian exclaim, when he first crossed its threshold, "O Solomon, I have surpa.s.sed thee." But, after making every allowance for the effect of what detracts from the original glory of the church, those disappointed with S. Sophia must be reminded that, as some one has remarked, "it costs an expensive education to admire a sunset"; and, furthermore, that it is the mark of what is truly great to transcend our immediate grasp, and to reveal its majesty only to prolonged and reverent contemplation.
S. John Studius, SS. Sergius and Bacchus, S. Sophia, and S. Irene, notwithstanding their great differences, agree in following, to an extent that can be recognised, traditions of ancient art. The light of a day, that is past and over, is still reflected from them; or, to change the figure, in them the foliage of a bygone summer mingles spa.r.s.e and faded forms with the leaves of a new spring. In the other churches left in the city, old features disappear, and what is new reigns supreme. The influence of S. Sophia upon the history of Art has, it is said, been greater than that of any other single building. And yet S. Sophia has never been repeated.
Nor is this strange. A masterpiece cannot be reproduced. But we must seek farther for a complete explanation of the fact. While S. Sophia is, from one point of view, a culmination, it is, from another point of view, a stage in a process of development. The combination of basilican and domical features which it displays is a tribute at once to the influence of old tastes and to the influence of a new fashion. The result of the cross, so to speak, of the two influences was superb, and might well have arrested further change. But considerations, practical and theoretical, were at work urging movement onwards. Although the dome of S. Sophia was a great triumph, it was not a complete success. It rested squat upon the building, when viewed from without. And what was more serious, its thrust against the walls of the church was so strong as to demand external b.u.t.tressing to prevent a fall. Furthermore, while to stand in a forest of pillars was impressive, it was a pleasure that interfered with the duty of following readily the services at the altar, and broke the unity of the congregation of worshippers. Then, men had grown somewhat weary of the basilica, and were enamoured with the dome.
Accordingly, a logical necessity urged the mind to draw all the conclusions involved in the premises which had won the faith of the world of Art. Henceforth, the architectural ideal would be a domed rectangular edifice as free from pier or pillar, and as wide open to view, if that were possible, as the area beneath the dome of the Pantheon.
Consequently, the columns or piers bordering the nave decrease in number until they are reduced to the four necessary to carry the arches upon which the dome rests. Lateral aisles become narrow; galleries disappear, or are represented by a gallery only over the narthex. Indeed, in such churches as S. Saviour-in-the-Chora, the piers that bear the dome are not free-standing supports, but narrow projections from the walls of the edifice; so that the interior is practically open to view in all its length and breadth, having neither aisles nor gallery. In dealing with the dome, the thrust was reduced, by carrying a cylindrical or polygonal turret (drum) to a moderate height above the roof, and surmounting the structure with a cupola. That the fundamental idea inspiring this movement, from the basilica to the perfect development of a domical building, was legitimate, and capable of producing magnificent results, cannot be disputed. But, for some reason, Byzantine architects in Constantinople did not realise their ideal to the extent we might expect. At least, no large church constructed on this plan is found in the city. Then a dome set upon a turret lacks ma.s.s and dignity, when viewed from without, and fails to dominate the interior, or lift eye and heart upwards, the moment the worshipper crosses the threshold. To look into such a dome and admire its mosaics is also difficult; sometimes, even painful.
In order to obtain a church of considerable size, the device was adopted of building several small churches side by side, furnished with a continuous narthex, and communicating with one another through their common wall or walls. The Church of S. Mary Panachrantes, situated in the Lycus valley, is an example of twin churches, while the Church of the Pantocrator offers an example of an agglomeration of three churches.
At other times the same result was obtained by adding to an older church a small chapel, as in S. Saviour-in-the-Chora, and the Pammacaristos.
To overcome the lack of grandeur in a dome placed on a drum, recourse was had to the system of adorning a church with several domes, in the hope that multiplicity would compensate for the absence of ma.s.s. This employment of several domes appears already in the reign of Justinian, who crowned the Church of the Holy Apostles with five domes. When a church is small, this arrangement produces a graceful and pleasing effect, as may be seen in the domes of S. Saviourin-the-Chora, S. Mary Pammacaristos, and the charming Church of S. Theodore Tyrone (Kilisse Djamissi, near Vefa Meidan). It is seen at its best in the domes of S.
Mark"s of Venice. But after all, this multiplication of domes does not harmonize with lofty sites and broad s.p.a.ces. Under the wide sky, and on the hilltops of Constantinople, it looks a petty thing. It can never attain the grandeur and sublimity essential to the highest achievements of artistic architecture. Strangely enough, the ideal of Byzantine architects is realised better in the imperial mosques that crown the summits of Stamboul, and rise above the hills on which they stand, as naturally and proudly as a peak lifts its head into the sky. How puny are the domes of the Pantocrator or those of the Pantepoptes compared with the dome of the Mosque of the Conqueror, or the dome over the Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, or the dome of the Mosque Shahzade, or even the dome of the Mosque of Sultan Selim! Nor is it only in their exterior aspect that the great mosques fulfil the Byzantine ideal. They do so likewise within. The long pillared lines of the basilica have vanished. In the Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, only four piers and four columns, the latter from Byzantine buildings, break the interior view. In the Mosque of Sultan Achmed, only four piers uphold the roof.
And at the same time, what s.p.a.ciousness! What loftiness and grandeur! If in these mosques one misses the warmth of feeling awakened in S. Sophia, one finds the same sense of the majesty of Heaven, the same suggestion of the littleness of man.
But, if we must not look for grandeur in the churches of Constantinople outside S. Sophia, we meet with much that is exceedingly attractive.
This would be more evident were it not for the neglect, the wilful destruction, the inane attempts at decoration, to which the buildings have been subjected. The groined ceiling, edged with a broad band of marble lace, in the lateral apses of the Pantepoptes is very graceful.
As a general rule, considerable fancy and taste are displayed in the ornamentation of capitals. The exterior of apses is sometimes rendered pleasing by tiers of blind arches, or of niches and pilasters. The portico of S. Theodore Tyrone, with its columns, melon-capitals, sculptured bal.u.s.trade, retains, even in its decay and neglect, traces of remarkable beauty. There is fine work to be seen likewise in the Pantocrator. While in S. Saviour-in-the-Chora, one can spend days in admiration of its mosaics, frescoes, marbles, carvings, cornices, and borders. The undercut foliage, upon a dark background, which crowns the mosaic figure of the Virgin on the south-eastern pier of the church, is exquisite. Very fine also are the faces and the robes of some of the archangels in the dome of the side-chapel of the church. The mosaics on the vaulted ceiling of the inner narthex, representing traditional scenes in the life of the Virgin, are among the finest to be found anywhere. They are wonderfully rich and brilliant in colour. The marble revetment of the narthex is a splendid specimen of that style of decoration. There must have been excellent artists in Constantinople in the reign of Andronicus II., when the narthexes and the side-chapel of this church were so beautifully embellished.
Yet the visitor to the churches of Constantinople must be armed with such enthusiasm for what is historically great and artistically beautiful, that he will be stirred to pursue his way by even the minutest fragments of objects invested with these attributes. For it cannot be said of these old sanctuaries, that they have--
No need of a remoter charm By thought supplied, or any interest Unborrowed from the eye.
They have stood where no general appreciation for such things exists.
They have been in the keeping of those who have no pride in their preservation, no reverence for their a.s.sociations, no admiration for certain features of their beauty. They are covered not only with the dust of ages, but of neglect, ignorance, and depreciation. In visiting these churches, diverted from their original destination, and shorn of their glory, one is sometimes reminded of Gibbon sitting on the Capitoline hill of Old Rome, and listening to the barefooted monks who chanted vespers in the ruined temple of Jupiter. To his mind the spectacle suggested the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. So, as one hears the muezzin"s call sounding above the decayed sanctuaries of New Rome, one may feel disposed to muse on the destruction of the Roman Empire in the East. That is a natural, a legitimate, a profitable, line of thought. But it should not be the only direction our thoughts follow.
The Past comes before us not only with its faults, and weaknesses, and failures. It had its virtues, its strength, its achievements. The landmarks which it has left behind are not here to recall only the vanity of human things. They are with us to carry our minds and hearts back to great examples and to glorious deeds. Sometimes the visitor to these "church-mosques" is offered pieces of mosaic that have fallen from the dome under which he stands. They tell of decay, it is true. But with those radiant little cubes in his hand, an artist may reconstruct the forms of saints, the figures of apostles and martyrs, the faces of angels, the majesty of the Pantocrator. So these churches, even in their humiliation, recall the great community of our fellowmen who lived their lives, and wrought their deeds, in this city for more than a thousand years, and they aid us to think the n.o.ble thoughts, to catch the love for beauty, to cherish the high aspirations, and to emulate the services which glorified that community--that these things may never pa.s.s away.
CHAPTER X
IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITY TO-DAY
SO much has been written about Constantinople in its Turkish character, that to say anything entirely fresh and new upon the subject is impossible. The reader must, therefore, look to the ill.u.s.trations which adorn this work for the impression which the Oriental aspect of the city makes upon an artistic eye. If the writer of the text ventures to repeat some parts of a well-known tale, it is only because different ways of telling an old story vary the points of view from which the matter is regarded, bring different features into relief, and set them in another atmosphere and colour; as the appearance of the same landscape changes, according as it is seen at dawn, or at noon, or by the light of the setting sun.
Speaking of the bridge that spans the Golden Horn from Galata to Stamboul, De Amicis remarks that; "where every day a hundred thousand people pa.s.s, not one idea pa.s.ses in ten years." The slowness with which the East changes is, perhaps, the impression which the spectacle of life in Constantinople naturally makes upon the mind of a stranger. His attention is arrested by the differences between the scenes he observes for the first time and the scenes with which he is familiar. A fresh eye is quick to detect distinctions and peculiarities. On the other hand, "an old resident," on the same principle, is more deeply impressed by the changes which have been wrought in the life and aspect of the city of his abode, since the days of his early recollections. To the visitor the old is new, and the new is old; while to the resident the old is familiar, and the new is strange. If the former observer has the advantage of seeing things from a more striking and picturesque point of view, the latter is closer to fact and truth. Colonel White, writing in 1844, in his interesting book, _Three Years in Constantinople_, which such a competent authority as Sir Henry Layard p.r.o.nounced to be the best work on Turkish life, said, that if a certain policy were pursued, "fifty years cannot elapse ere travellers will flock to Constantinople in search for relics of Moslem inst.i.tutions with as much eagerness as they now seek for vestiges of Christian or Pagan antiquities. "It would be an exaggeration to say that this prophecy has been literally fulfilled. But events have verified its forecast to such an extent, that one is tempted to a.s.sume the prophet"s mantle, and predict that Colonel White"s words will come to pa.s.s in the next half-century. At any rate, if the world here has moved slowly, it has moved very far. The descriptions of Constantinople in such works as Miss Pardoe"s _City of the Sultan_, and Colonel White"s _Three Years in Constantinople_, seem to-day descriptions of another city.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A WET DAY ON THE GALATA BRIDGE
The men in long, white pocketless coats stationed at either end of the bridge collect the toll levied on every man, beast, and vehicle using the bridge--professional beggars alone being exempt.]
In the political situation, in the matter of education both among the Turks and the Christian populations, the changes are simply enormous.
This is, however, not the place to expatiate upon these serious topics, although it is only by their consideration that the greatness and far-reaching consequences of the new state of things can be properly appreciated. But look at the change in the matter of dress. Where is now the variety of costume, where the brightness of colour that made the movement of the population at all times a procession in gala dress? So far as her garb is concerned, a Turkish woman to-day is a sere and withered leaf. She is almost a European lady, thinly disguised. And where are the men who moved about, crowned with turbans, and attired in long, coloured, flowing robes? You meet them occasionally on the street, or see them gathered about the mosques, weary and tattered stragglers of generations of men, whose mien and gait were the look and motion of princes. Some one has said that the Turks committed a great mistake when they adopted the European dress; for the change makes you suppose that they have ceased to be Orientals, and are to be judged by European standards in all respects. Too much is therefore expected of them.
Certainly the change has not improved their appearance. It has robbed them of that quiet dignity and commanding air which imposed immediate respect. The eagle is shorn of his plumes.
[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE GRAND BAZAAR]
The Turkish pasha, for instance, is now a shadow of his former self.
What a master of men he looked when seated on a fine Arab horse and glittering saddle-cloth, he rode slowly through the streets, accompanied by a retinue of servants on foot, the crowd making way for him to pa.s.s as though a king went by. What an incarnation of dignity he was when he floated on the Bosporus in a caque of five pairs of oars, two servants squatting in front of him, with folded hands, in the bottom of the boat; his pipe-bearer, behind on the p.o.o.p, ready to present him with a long-stemmed pipe of cherry or jasmine wood, surmounted by an amber mouthpiece, adorned with diamonds. With the disappearance of such things, there has been a sensible weakening of the awe which the ruling race excited in the rest of the population. If any one wishes to experience the fall, so to speak, in the temperature of the feeling of awe produced by the change from an Oriental to a European garb let him visit the Museum of the Janissary Costumes. What terror those costumes must have inspired! Or let him visit the Imperial Treasury in the Seraglio, and walk down the line of lay-figures attired in the costumes worn by successive Sultans. The eye pays instant homage to every master of the Ottoman Empire clad in native apparel. But when the figure of Mahomet the Reformer, who swept away the janissaries and other old inst.i.tutions, is seen dressed in European clothes (except for the red fez), one reads there the sign that the glory of the House of Othman was on the wane. The dread and majesty by which the Turk was formerly hedged round have vanished. Within the memory of men still living, eunuchs carried swords to chastise indiscreet admirers of Oriental beauties, and did not hesitate to slash a European guilty of casting long, lingering looks upon the fair faces. It was forbidden, within days that one recalls, to pa.s.s the imperial palace on horseback or with an umbrella opened. So strictly was the rule enforced, that even the "Great Elchi,"
Sir Stratford Canning, riding by the palace, was once compelled to dismount from his horse. This proved too much for the great man. Furious at the indignity, he sent instantly for his dragoman, demanded an immediate audience of the Sultan, and obtained the order which put an end to the humiliating custom.
It is not, however, among the Turkish population alone that a marked change in dress has occurred. Within the memory of living persons, Armenian and Jewish women appeared in public wearing distinctive veils.
Baggy trousers, head-kerchiefs, striking colours, embroidered jackets, turbans, were in vogue among the non-Moslem inhabitants, making the scenes in the streets kaleidoscopic, and furnishing also a ready means whereby to identify the nationalities that seemed inextricably mingled together. It is surprising how a resident of Constantinople can recognise the nationality of the peoples he meets, even since a common style of dress has come into fashion. But in days not very remote, every native wore his country upon his sleeve. His costume was the badge of his race and people. Now, the order of the day is "a la Franca."
[Ill.u.s.tration: A FORTUNE-TELLER
In Stamboul, on the way to the Sublime Porte, an old negress may often be seen telling fortunes by means of coloured beads and sh.e.l.ls.]