Haghia Sophia - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 51

John, for he died not long after his coronation; we can almost see
the signs of approaching death in his pale and lined features. The
Emperor was known in his time as Kalo John, or John the Good. The
Byzantine historian Nicetas Choniates wrote of John that “he was the
best of all the emperors from the family of the Comneni who ever
sat upon the Roman throne.” Eirene was noted for her piety and for
her kindness to the poor, for which she is honoured as a saint in the
Orthodox Church. John and Eirene were full of good works; together
they founded the monastery of the Pantocrator, the triple church of
which is still one of the principal monuments on the Fourth Hill of
the city.
The latest in date of the mosaics in the gallery is the magnificent
Deesis, which is located in the east wall of the western buttress in
the south gallery. This mosaic, one of the very greatest works of art
produced in Byzantium, is thought to date from the beginning of
the fourteenth century. It is a striking illustration of the cultural
renaissance which took place in Constantinople after the restoration
of the Byzantine Empire by Michael VIII Palaeologus in 1261.
Although two-thirds of the mosaic is now lost, the features of the three
figures in the portrait are still completely intact and unmarred. Here
we see Christ flanked by the Virgin and St. John the Baptist; they lean
towards him in suppliant attitudes, pleading, so the iconographers
tell us, for the salvation of mankind. John looks towards Christ with
an expression of almost agonized grief on his face, while the young
and wistful Virgin casts her gaze shyly downwards. Christ, holding up
his right hand in a gesture of benediction, looks of into space with
a look of sadness in his eyes, appearing here as if he partook more of
the nature of man than of God, whatever the medieval theologians
may have decided about him. The Deesis is a work of great power and
beauty, a monument to the failed renaissance of Byzantium and its
vision of a humanistic Christ.
Set into the pavement just opposite to the Deesis is the tomb
of the man who ruined Byzantium. Carved in Latin letters on
the broken lid of a sarcophagus there, we see the illustrious name,
HENRICUS DANDALO. Dandalo, Doge of Venice, was one of the
leaders of the Fourth Crusade and was the one chiefly responsible for