Haghia Sophia - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 42

the tympana. At the eastern and western ends, to north and south,
semicircular exedrae prolong the nave, with two massive monolithic
columns of porphyry below and six of verd antique above, on which
rest smaller semidomes. At the east, beyond the subsidiary piers, a
semicircular apse projects beyond the east wall; it too is covered by a
semidome or conch. Finally, four great buttresses projecting from the
north and south walls opposite the central piers help to consolidate
the whole fabric.
If the plan is to all intents and purposes that of a basilica, the
originality consists in covering it with a dome and two semidomes.
Glorious as is the dome, it is the introduction of the semidomes
which constitutes the real triumph of genius. For in addition to
lengthening the nave, they make it possible to appreciate from the
very threshold the soaring, hovering height; they allow the dome,
in short, to play its true and full part in the total efect. Contrast
the relative inefectiveness of such a dome as that of St. Peter's, from
which radiate barrel-vaults along the axes of the building. That
dome, though higher and somewhat greater in diameter than Haghia
Sophia's, is almost insignificant, for it can only be seen when one is
very nearly underneath it, so that one must crane back one's neck to
get a view of it at all. How very diferent here, where from every point
of view the dome dominates the whole interior!
THE COLUMNS AND MARBLES
Much has been written about the provenance of the various columns
in the church. The Anonymous of Banduri, that Baron Munchausen
among Byzantine writers, is the chief source of various legends that
have grown up and are still repeated about where the great columns
of the nave came from: the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, some
buildings at Rome, the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, or one of those
at Baalbec, the tales difer with the tellers. But there seems to be no
foundation for these stories and there is every reason to believe that
most of the columns, if not all, were specially quarried for Haghia
Sophia. From the Silentiary's description, there can be little doubt
that the eight monolithic verd antique columns of the nave, the 16
columns of the aisles, the 40 columns of the gallery arcade, and all the