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Chapter 8 Early Christian & Byzantine Art. Portrait of Galla Placidia, from a miniature painting on a gilded glass medallion ca. 400 Brescia
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Portrait of Galla Placidia, from a miniature painting on a gilded glass medallion ca. 400 Brescia Aelia Galla Placidia (c. 388 – November 27, 450) was the daughter of Roman EmperorTheodosius I and his second wife Galla, who herself was daughter of the Emperor Valentinian I, Galla Placidia was half sister of emperors Honorius and Arcadius.
Interior view of the Hagia SophiaIt was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years, until the completion of the Medieval Seville Cathedral in 1520.
Interior view looking towards the mihrab and one of the semi-domes
Side view of the Hagia Sophia, with the Ottoman stone buttresses clearly visible
The church was richly decorated with mosaics throughout the centuries. They either depicted the Virgin Mother, Jesus, Saints, or emperors and empresses. Other parts were decorated in a purely decorative style with geometric patters.During the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, the Latin Crusaders vandalized the valuable items in every important Byzantine structure of the city, including the golden mosaics of the Hagia Sophia. Much of these valuable items were shipped to Venice, whose Doge, Enrico Dandolo, had organized the invasion and sack of Constantinople.
In order to understand what a pendentive is, however, it might be best to show visually the problem a pendentive was trying to solve. Look at these three pictures and then read the description below.
A pendentive is a constructive device permitting the placing of a circular dome over a square room or an ellipticaldome over a rectangular room. The pendentives, which are triangular segments of a sphere, taper to points at the bottom and spread at the top to establish the continuous circular or elliptical base needed for the dome. In masonry the pendentives thus receive the weight of the dome, concentrating it at the four corners where it can be received by the piers beneath. Prior to the pendentive's development, the device of corbelling or the use of the squinch in the corners of a room had been employed. The first attempts at pendentives were made by the Romans and full achievement of the form was reached in Hagia Sophia at Constantinople (6th cent.) by the Eastern RomanByzantine Empire. Pendentives were commonly used in Renaissance and baroque churches, with a drum often inserted between the dome and pendentives.
The iconic image of Christ Pantocrator ("Christ, Ruler of All") was one of the first images of Christ developed in the Early Christian Church and remains a central icon of the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the half-length image, Christ holds the New Testament in his left hand and makes the gesture of teaching or of blessing with his right.
