loved it in its best days, it was a model of celestial beauty, a glimpse of heaven itself. To the more sober English observer, "its mosaic of marble slabs of various patterns and beautiful colors, the domes, roofs, and curved surfaces, with gold-grounded mosaic relieved by figures or architectural devices" are " wonderfully grand and pleasing."[1] All that St. Mark's is to Venice, Hagia Sophia was to Constantinople. But St. Mark's, though enriched with some of the spoils of its great original, is, as to its interior at least, a feeble copy, Hagia Sophia justified its founder in declaring, "I have surpassed thee, O Solomon," and during seven centuries after Justinian his successors had each attempted to add to its wealth and its decoration. Yet this, incomparably the most beautiful church in Christendom, at the opening of the thirteenth century was stripped and plundered of every ornament which could be carried away. It appeared to the indignant Greeks that the very stones would be torn from the walls by these intruders, to whom nothing was sacred.[2]
Around the Great Church were other objects which could be readily converted into bronze, and the destruction of which was irreparable. The immense hippodrome was crowded with statues. Egypt had furnished an obelisk for the centre. Delphi had given its commemoratory bronze of the victory of Platsea. Later works of pagan sculptors were there in abundance, while Christian artists had continued the traditions of their ancestors in a style by no means so debased as Western writers have, until recently believed it to be. The cultured inhabitants of Constantinople appreciated these works of art, and took care of them. In giving a list of the more important of the objects which went to the melting-pot, Kicetas again and again urges that these works were destroyed by barbarians who were ignorant of their value. Incapable of
- ↑ Fergusson's "Hist, of Arch." vol. ii. p. 321.
- ↑ A most interesting account of the plunder of Ilagia Sophia is givn in the " Chronicle of Novgorod." See " Chroniques Greco-Romanes," par Charles Hopf. The author evidently knew the church well. Another interesting account is given in " Peregriuus," by Antony, Bishop of Novgorod; "Exuv. Sac." ii. p. 218.
