Theodora: Empress of Byzantium (Mark Magowan Books) (42 page)

Justinian and Theodora had at least one precedent with which to compare themselves, since the ancient artistic tradition was marked by competitive emulation. That precedent was the church of Saint Polyeuktos, commissioned by Lady Juliana Anicia (mentioned above) and built in 524–27 during the last years of Justin’s life. When Justin’s nephew Justinian took the throne, he asked the wealthy lady to contribute generously to the imperial coffers. In reply, she pointed to the richly decorated church, with its “colored marbles, columns inlaid with glass and amethysts, and floor and wall mosaics,”
¹²
and with aristocratic and womanly disdain, she said: “Here is my wealth.” Still, not wanting the emperor to leave empty-handed, she pulled one of her rings from her finger and offered it to him.
¹³

The new Augusti replied to her biting provocation by building churches for Saint Euphemia and Saint Irene, and then the church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, next to the palace of Hormisdas (which became a Monophysite center under Theodora’s protection [
fig. 25
]). Known as the “Little Holy Wisdom” for its structural similarity to the great basilica, it has an enchanting central-plan structure. Inside, marble columns streaked with green and pink are surmounted by impost capitals. These inverted cone shapes [
fig. 34
] bear the structural weight of the vaults: they are the most functional and rational, and yet the most abstract of all capitals—and they are also triumphantly decorative. Constantinople’s craftsmen carved these openwork capitals with an infinite number of volutes, and today they still pull the visitor into an embroidered marble labyrinth of effects, preparing him for the imperial propaganda enunciated in the frieze and then in the great dome above.

33. Exterior of the basilica of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia), 532–37 (with later additions), Istanbul.

34. Marble impost capital with Justinian’s monogram, 532–37(?), basilica of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia), Istanbul.

Theodora pushed most for the reconstruction, along the northern branch of the Mesê (Constantinople’s central avenue), of the basilica of the Holy Apostles. In ancient times the basilica had been used as a tomb-mausoleum of the emperors and their consorts, and this function was preserved, in an extraordinary instance of both the loss and the conservation of artistic heritage.

A new building replaced the former basilica, which dated back to the age of Constantine and was set on fire by the Nika rebels; the new buiding was very popular in the Byzantine age, and was celebrated by intellectuals and poets. (When the Turks later conquered Constantinople, a mosque was erected on the site, but that too suffered the ravages of time.) Few traces survive of the basilica archetype so dear to Theodora: the basilica of Saint Mark’s in Venice is one; another is the collection of ruins of the basilica of Saint John in Ephesus (near present-day Kusadasi, Turkey). They stand as enduring evidence of the timeless prestige of the Holy Apostles church, and they permit us to reconstruct it in our mind’s eye.

One architectural element made the church of the Holy Apostles famous: the daring cruciform plan, with each arm covered by a dome. The central cupola was located at the point where the arms joined. This “five-dome” structure also became very popular in Slavic Christendom, which owes so much to Constantinople. Under the great dome—almost like the lofty bed canopy of an alcove for eternal sleep—Theodora and Justinian hoped to rest together in their imperial sarcophagi [
Fig. 35
] until the end of time.

The Augusti intended the church of the Holy Apostles to be their final resting place; they poured their deepest feelings into the church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus; but their pride and joy—especially the emperor’s—was the Holy Wisdom. Fifteen hundred years after it was built, after acting as a mosque and then a museum, it is still among the most famous and admired buildings in the world—though,
paradoxically, it is famous for what it was
not
meant to be: an architectural space, a temple of light, the final wonder of Christian antiquity.

Medieval visitors might have come closest to the spirit of the place, since they recognized Constantinople as the Mother of all Cities. Admiring the Holy Wisdom, they found renewed faith in Paradise; they were surrounded by objects, colors, visions, and scents (lost to us now) that they perceived as promises and prefigurations. If the city rebuilt by the emperor and the empress in the light of Christianity was a sacred shell, then the Holy Wisdom was its pearl. It was the most visible, most flaunted treasure of Justinian and Theodora.

35. Justinian’s sarcophagus, 565, Topkapi Saray, Istanbul.

The two rulers used the Holy Wisdom to express their power fully. They were not building but
re
building a city that had risen against them. They wanted the result to be a total redemption, a gesture of great daring that would fully display their personal and institutional arrogance. Perhaps because of this, there is no great church less mystical than the Holy Wisdom. It was not meant to be the church of a monastic order or a district or a guild, nor was it built by an individual suppliant. It was the basilica where the emperor of Constantinople, the thirteenth apostle, the Viceroy of Christ on Earth, the highest, noblest
man of all, attended sacred ceremonies. In the symmetrical, inverted projection of roles between imperial Constantinople and papal Rome, the only worthy comparison is the basilica of Saint Peter’s at the time of the universalist popes of the Renaissance.
¹⁴

If the insult of the Nika riots had marked a moment in time, then the imperial basilica would erase time. The unquestionably victorious, triumphant emperor demanded a shape that was tranquil and perfect, a shape as close as possible to a sphere (the image of the eternal). This extraordinary request was born of a “genuine oneiric revelation,”
¹⁵
and the engineers responded with extraordinary skill. The engineers were Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus; mathematicians proud of their name and their caste, they had inherited a great eastern Mediterranean tradition and belonged to the select cultural and scientific circles of the time.

In their discussions with the Augusti who commissioned the building, the rectilinear plan of the basilica that had burned in the 532 fire was replaced with a central-plan structure. In early Christendom, the
martyria
—places of worship erected atop the tombs of saints or martyrs—followed a central plan, as did the more recent church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus. The engineers extended the dimensions of that small masterpiece for the new Holy Wisdom, so that Christianity and power were expressed monumentally. The basilica would represent an expanding empire protected by the Almighty.

For years, Justinian must have stepped out of his offices in the palace with only one purpose in mind: to visit the basilica under construction. It was being built for the emperor’s eye: this was the eye that was invited to appreciate its structure, the eye that could trace the marble embroidery or the curving waves of the capitals, and then fly freely across the immense dome that appeared “suspended from Heaven”
¹⁶
by a golden chain and even “under the direct custody of angels”;
¹⁷
the eye that was suddenly bathed in light, as if the light “did not come from the outside, but was produced inside.”
¹⁸

But what he saw then, as he inspected the works with his retinue, was not what we see today. The central cupola was twenty-one feet lower than it is now, making the effect of the ceiling curvature even
bolder. The nave was punctuated with windows that were later walled up; the now-empty aisles were filled with rich liturgical furnishings that shone “with gold and silver.”
¹⁹
The Augustus could observe craftsmen working on gilded mosaics. For the most part, these mosaics (now lost) were “entirely non-figural and imitated the effect of shimmering silks enlivened by abstract patterns.”
²⁰
The lack of iconic representation has been linked to the anti-figurative tendencies that were latent in the eastern Mediterranean (including in Monophysitism) and that were to flourish in the Byzantine iconoclastic movement. The inscription on the altar, however, leaves no doubt as to Justinian and Theodora’s belief in
one
faith and
one
Church:

WE, YOUR SERVANTS JUSTINIAN AND THEODORA, OFFER TO YOU, OH CHRIST, WHAT IS YOURS FROM WHAT IS YOURS. MAY YOU ACCEPT IT BENEVOLENTLY, OH SON AND WORD OF GOD WHO BECAME INCARNATED AND WERE CRUCIFIED FOR US. KEEP US IN YOUR TRUE FAITH, AND INCREASE AND PROTECT THIS EMPIRE THAT YOU HAVE ENTRUSTED TO US FOR YOUR GLORY, WITH THE INTERCESSION OF THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, THE EVER-VIRGIN MARY
.
²¹

A visitor at the Holy Wisdom nowadays can try to see the building as the emperor did. Just as the emperor solemnly proceeded down the nave and took his place on the imperial throne, the visitor can walk the nave and scan the succession of spaces, trying to imagine the lost color scheme from the emperor’s point of view [
fig. 36
].

How does this building show humility, affliction, contrition? Everything in the Holy Wisdom bespeaks majesty. Earthly and divine majesty both; the court was conceived as a model of Paradise, and the basilica had all the more reason to mirror the heavenly kingdom. At the same time, everything in the Holy Wisdom was a gift, both to the emperor and from the emperor. Not so much to his people as to the Divinity from whom he derived his power, and who in turn affirmed and continued His own power through the emperor’s. For this reason, Justinian acquired the most precious materials to celebrate the Godhead, bringing them from the Mediterranean nearby and from the remote Atlantic
coasts of Gallia. The amount of money that went into the construction of the church might have sufficed to support two million families for a whole year (for example, the entire Aramaic-speaking population of the Near East).

36. Interior of the basilica of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia), 532–37 (with later additions), Istanbul.

The legends about the construction of the basilica tell of hidden treasures, messenger angels, and arks overflowing with gold dropping
from Heaven. This was considered an extraordinary building. Still, while only a heavenly vision or supernatural help could justify such a daring feat of architecture, the necessary economic and financial support was provided by the rigorous fiscal policy of John the Cappadocian.