Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/458

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
442
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE.
Part II.

442 BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. i'ART II. without wood or combustible materials of any sort — and hence their preservation. The earliest of these two, popularly known as the " Kutchuk Agia Soi^hia," or lesser Sta. Sophia, was originally a double church, or more properly speaking two churches placed side by side, precisely in the same manner as the two at Kelat Seman (Woodcut No. 872). The basilica was dedicated to the Apostles Peter and Paul ; the domical church, appropriately, to the Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus. The |p:f:.+:ir-|

  • - 8

•^v.^'

  • 1

■maa Am J 884. Church of Sergius and Bacchus. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in. 885. Section of Church of Sergius and Bacchus. (From A. Lenoir, " Architecture Monastique.") Scale 50 ft. to 1 in. former has entirely disappeared, from which I would infer that it was constructed with pillars and a wooden roof.i The latter remains very nearly intact. The frescoes and mosaics have, indeed, disap- peared from the body of the church, hidden, it is to be hoped, under the mass of whitewash which covers its walls — in the narthex they can still be distinguished. The existing churcli is nearly square in plan, being 109 feet by 92 over all, exclusive of the apse, and covering only about 10,000 square ft. It has consequently no pretensions to magnificence on the score of 886. Capital from Church of Sergius and Bacchus. (From Lenoir.) 887. Entablature from Church of Sergius and Bacchus. (From Lenoir.) dimensions, but is singularly elegant in design and proportion. Inter- nally, the arrangement of the piers of the dome, of the galleries, and of the pillars which support them, are almost identical with those of St. Vitale at Ravenna, but the proportions of the Eastern example are 1 A restoration of the church from I " AUchristhche Baiikunst," pis. xxxii. Procopms' description, "De .Edificiis," and xxxiii. I differ; but the data are lib. 1. eh. iv., will be found in Hubsch, I very insufficient.