134 ARCHITECTURE. 
finished within the short space of four years. The eastern dome was 
destroyed twenty years later, in consequence of an earthquake, but was 
quickly rebuilt, and the church consecrated for the second time by Justinian 
in the thirty-sixth year of his reign, and has now stood for 1200 years a 
great monument to its enlightened projector. 
This grand edifice (pl. 29, jig. 18, plan; pl. 28, jig. 3, view; jig. 4, 
section) covers an area of 2524 square toises, three fourteenths being 
occupied by walls and pillars. In front of the church is a court with colon- 
nades having sixteen columns in breadth and five in depth. The front of 
the building is occupied by the principal entrance and twelve niches, and 
forms the réar boundary of the court, which is 188 feet broad and 90 feet in 
depth. The portico has five doors leading into the vestibule, from which 
the interior of the church is approached by nine doors. The central nave is 
158 feet wide, and closed above by one entire and two half cupolas of the 
same diameter. The summit of the central dome is 189 feet from the floor. 
This dome has twenty semicircular windows, and rests on four pillars, 36 
feet high and 18 to 24 feet thick, and on six columns of Egyptian granite 
standing between the pillars. The entire building is 352 feet long, by 306 
feet in breadth. The sanctuary is raised a few steps above the floor, and 
forms a semicircle of 48 feet in diameter. Between the sanctuary and the 
principal nave were the seats of the emperor and patriarch, each on its own 
side. The great pillars are of freestone firmly anchored with iron. The 
weight of the domes was made as light as possible by employing in their 
construction pumice and light bricks from Rhodes. The rest of the masonry 
is of burnt bricks. The interior is faced with marble, jasper, and porphyry, 
but the costly material exhibits only indifferent workmanship. Many of 
the capitals are very tasteless in form and decoration. In some places the 
facings of costly stones are interrupted by panels of mosaic work in which 
gold foil is extensively used. Many of the columns used in the building 
were donations, among which are conspicuous eight porphyry columns from 
Aurelian’s Temple of the Sun, sent to Constantinople by a Roman matron, 
and eight of green porphyry sent by the authorities of Ephesus. The total 
cost of St. Sophia is computed as having exceeded five millions of dollars. 
Besides this church Justinian caused twenty-five others to be built in Con 
stantinople, some of them only little inferior in size. 
St. Mark’s in Venice (pl. 30, jig. 6, plan; jig. 7, view) was commenced 
in the eleventh century by order of the Doge Orceolo, and the construction 
was continued by the Doges Contarini and Selvi. It occupies the site of 
the old church, destroyed by fire in 976. In the year 1071 it was so far 
completed that the facing with marble and mosaic could be commenced. 
Its front and the arrangement of the cupolas in the interior show many 
affinities to St. Sophia’s in Constantinople. It is connected with the palace 
of the Doges by colonnades exhibiting Byzantine, Moorish, and pointed 
arches. The church differs from St. Sophia’s in the following particulars. 
The latter has one full and two half cupolas besides four smaller half cupolas 
attached to the walls of the principal nave, and forming the ceilings over its 
four corners at about two thirds the height of the two half cupolas that 
134 : 
