WORLD ACHIEVEMENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 101, 29 March 1939, Page 2

WORLD ACHIEVEMENT

ST. SOPHIA. The mention of Constantinople brings to mind St. Sophia. Justinian’s greatest work, it was begun in 532 and dedicated, five years after. Marking the highest development of Byzantine style in architecture, it has since been the model for almost all Greek churches, and even for hundreds of mosques. The problem the architects (Anthemiuin of Tralles and Isidores of Miletus) had to solve was this: How to carry a dome 107 feet in diameter on four arches, the arches forming the central square or court of the church. Their original dome fell down less than 20 years after it was built, but the work was Iregun again, and the dome we see to-day was erected soon after. It was made higher still, and pierced at a low level with 40 windows, all giving an extraordinary lightness to the structure. Of the four central arches below the dome, two are filled with lofty columns. The church was built of brick, the internal walls being encased in thin slabs of precious marble. Above the marble the walls have frescoes on a gold ground. The columns on the ground floor are of porphyry, those on the upper storey of verd antique. The church is 260 feet long, and the apex of the dome is 175 feet above the floor. It has been said that tbe lighting is admirably distributed, and that the rich decoration of the marble slabs, the monolith columns, the elaborate carving of the capitals, the beautiful marble inlay of the spandrels, and the glimpses hero and there of 6ome of the mosaics give to this church an effect which is unparalleled by any other interior in the world.—(L)