APPLIED SCIENCE UNIVERSITY

History of Architecture II | Spring 2024

Dr Duaa Al Maani

Early Christianity
&
Byzantine architecture

R E M E M E B E R!
This is a summary taken from the following books/ articles / websites. You can always refer to
them to get more info about this topic.

1- Global History Of Architecture By Ching, Jarzombek , and Prakash. 2nd edition.

2- Architecture: A Visual History by Jonathan Glancey
3- A new pictorial language: the image in Early Medieval art. Article By Dr. Nancy Ross.
4- Architecture and liturgy. Article By Dr. Jennifer Awes Freeman
5- Early Christian art and architecture after Constantine . Article by Dr. Allen Farber
6- Christianity, an introduction. Article By Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Nancy Ross And Dr. Steven Zucker
7- The lives of Christ and the Virgin in Byzantine art. Article By Dr. Evan Freeman
8- Introduction to the Middle Ages. Article By Dr. Nancy Ross
9- The origins of Byzantine architecture. Article By Dr. Robert G. Ousterhout
10- Early Byzantine architecture after Constantine By Dr. Robert G. Ousterhout
11- Justinian Mosaic, San Vitale. Article by Khan Academy.
12- https://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/dura_europos/
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HANDOUT 1
Early Christian & Byzantine architecture
INTRODUCTION

The earliest Christians were not especially interested in architecture. They believed that the kingdom
of God was imminent, and so there was little point in building churches or anything else. But when
the roman emperor Constantine founded Constantinople, the “New Rome”, in 330, all this was to
change dramatically.

During the pre-Constantinian period, there was not much that distinguished the Christian churches
1
from typical domestic architecture. A striking example of this is presented by a Christian community
house, from the Syrian town of Dura-Europos. Here a typical home (dating to about 254 AD) has
been adapted to the needs of the congregation (House church). This small church had been
converted from a typical Roman home, which had a square layout with a courtyard at its center. A
wall was taken down to combine two rooms: this was undoubtedly the room for services and
teaching. It is significant that the most elaborate aspect of the house is the room designed as a
baptistery. This reflects the importance of Baptism to initiate new members into the mysteries of
the faith. Otherwise, this building would not stand out from the other houses. This baptistery
contains some of the earliest surviving Christian frescoes.

Dura Europos (Salhiyeh, Syria). Christian house church

converted from a private house AD 231. Isometric view +
before and after

The Byzantines were in the process of adapting

Christianity to establish the basis from which imperial
power could draw its authority. When the Roman
Empire went East, (and also Christian) with its new
capital at Constantinople, its architecture became
more sensuous and more ambitious than ever before.
This Byzantine style, with increasingly exotic domes
and even richer mosaics, travelled west to Ravenna
and Venice and as far north as Moscow.
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The time period between Constantine the Great (272–337) and Justinian (483–565) was one of
consolidation. All other religions were denied legal protection. Pagan temples were torn down, and
strict laws passed to consolidate and unify the Christian domination of the empire. In 529, Justinian
closed the Academy in Athens, largely to stem the multiplication of ideas and theories in theological
debates and to enforce a unified doctrine. Many of its scholars had to seek refuge in Persia, taking
with them the fruits of Greek learning.

Constantine & his architects

2 confronted a major challenge: what
should be the physical form of the
church?
Clearly the traditional form of the Roman temple would be inappropriate both from associations
with pagan cults but also from the difference in function.
Temples served as treasuries and dwellings for the cult; sacrifices occurred on outdoor altars with
the temple as a backdrop. This meant that Roman temple architecture was largely an architecture
of the exterior. Since Christianity was a religion that demanded initiation to participate in religious
practices, Christian architecture put greater emphasis on the interior . The Christian churches
needed large interior spaces to house the growing congregations and to mark the clear separation
of the faithful from the unfaithful. At the same time, the new Christian churches needed to be
visually meaningful. The buildings needed to convey the new authority of Christianity.
These factors were instrumental in the formulation during the Constantinian period of an
architectural form that would become the core of Christian architecture to our own time: the
Christian Basilica. We can say then that the first major Christian churches in Rome and the Italian
peninsula were based on basilicas.

The most notable example would have been the church of St. Peter, founded by Constantine himself
in 330 but later replaced by the current Basilica. He also built churches in the Holy Land, most
notably the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and he built churches in his newly constructed
capital of Constantinople. Fortunately, many basilica churches survive, such as Rome’s 5th century
Santa Maria Maggiore. Though the city of Rome was no longer a political or economic power, it
became an important religious and pilgrimage center much like Jerusalem, for it had the burial
places of St. Peter.
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St. Peter the Apostle, disciple of Jesus Christ, recognized in

the early Christian church as the leader of the 12 apostles. He
received from Jesus the name Cephas “Rock”; hence Peter,
from Petros, a Greek translation of Kepa.

St. Peter ’s Basilica was built in the site where St. Peter is
said to have been crucified in Rome.

Constantine founded the original basilica over the tomb

3 of St. Peter around 320. A broad flight of stairs led to
the atrium, built on a vast platform over the sloping
ground. The platform itself was constructed over
Roman cemetery, with the tops of the various tomb
structures cut off and the intermediate spaces filled in.
The church itself, because of its use, was 112 meters in
length. The nave can be described as a covered street
with colonnades on both sides. The columns were not
built for the church but were taken from pre-Christian
Roman buildings.
The rather dark nave, illuminated only by high
clerestory windows, led not to an apse, but to a large
transept, which was a unique space. At its focus, over
the tomb of St. Peter in the crypt below and just in front
of the apse, was a canopy, resting on four columns.
Though today the nave-and-transept combination
might seem common, that was not the case in the 4th
century. The building’s significance lies in part in the
difficulties involved in its construction.
The use of concrete had by that time been forgotten,
and vaulting was thus impossible.
The art of stone masonry itself was diminished; even for a building commissioned by the emperor,
the columns had to be taken from Roman buildings. Despite these limitations, and perhaps even
because of them, the building achieved directness and majesty—it was one of the first buildings in
the evolving Mediterranean world that was meant from its inception to highlight the mass appeal
of the new religion. This was no dark and intimate “house of the gods” in the Hellenistic tradition.
Rather, it was a space in which large- scale communal ritual overlapped with the message of imperial
glory.
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A transept is (in a cross-shaped church) either of the two parts forming the arms
of the cross shape, projecting at right angles from the nave.

A narthex is an enclosed porch, or designated meeting area- usually colonnaded

or arcaded, appearing inside the entrance of an early Christian and Byzantine
basilicas.

However, a new architecture was slow to evolve in Constantinople. It was not until the reign of the
emperor Justinian (527-565) that something truly radical occurred: his commission for the church
4 of Hagia Sophia. New architectural forms, such as the brick dome, were developed, concrete by
this time having been forgotten. The Hagia Sophia was the most ambitious and splendid
architectural accomplishment of the age.

Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem

Since at least the 2nd century AD people have believed that the place where the Church of the
Nativity, Bethlehem, now stands is where Jesus was born. A church was first completed there in
AD 339 (Helena) and the edifice that replaced it after a fire in the 6th century (Justinian), retains
elaborate floor mosaics from the original building.
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Upper picture: Plan of Basilica (ground floor)

Lower pictures: Reconstruction of the Constantinian church
proposed by scholars.
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CENTRALLY PLANNED BYZANTINE CHURCHES

Roman temples such as the Pantheon and early Christian baptisteries and mausoleum had featured
centralized plans. Not surprisingly, these precedents combined well with the Byzantine fondness for
dome-building and contribute to the development of the most characteristic Byzantine churches,
which had circular or Greek-cross plans. Justinian’s churches again provide the dominant models for
later centuries. The church of Hagia Sophia was the forerunner of much Byzantine architecture.
For the Justinian prototype of a centralized churches on a Greek cross plan, we will also study SS.
Sergius and Bacchus church (527-36) in Constantinople, S. Vitale church (538-48) in Ravenna, and
St. Mark (830) in Venice. Those churches illustrate different variations on the theme of central plans.
6
HAGIA SOPHIA

The Hagia Sophia (“sacred wisdom” 532– 37) in Constantinople was, from the date of its opening,
considered one of the greatest buildings in the Western world. Little is known for certain about its
predecessor, which was dedicated by Constantine in 360 but damaged in civil strife. For the new
church, the emperor Justinian called in Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, who produced a
daring and lofty domed structure still largely intact today. Covered with marble and gold, its
greatness made it one of the most talked about buildings in the Christian world. However, an
earthquake destroyed the dome in 557, barely twenty years after its dedication. But undaunted,
Justinian had a new one built, though the second one was more steeply pitched.
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The church of Hagia Sophia was the forerunner of much Byzantine architecture. The architects
created a huge space for worship in the centre of the building by their adoption of an enormous,
light-filled saucer dome. It is supported by 4 pendentives vaults, which spring from 4 huge arches
that define the space beneath the dome. Lavishly decorated, the Hagia Sophia showed a number
of breaks with classicism of Rome: for example, columns topped with capitals decorated with
serpentine foliage. Hagia Sophia was built in 5 years; its first dome was replaced in 563 after
earthquakes. The church became a mosque in 1453, and a museum in 1931 till 2020, to function as
mosque again.
7
The structural system is simple but inventive. A
30-meter square forms the centre. The dome
was placed on the square base of four arches
that rested on four piers, and not on the
exterior walls like the Pantheon. This created
pendentives that hold the dome of forty ribs.
Windows line the base of the dome, making it
seem to float. The vaults, made of brick, are
thin and lightweight. The combination of
supporting half-domes, quarter-domes, and
massive piers were enough. Later, from the 8th
century on, various types of buttresses were
added to the exterior to prevent problems.

The east and west arches are closed off with a screen of columns and windows. The undersides of
the east and west arches, however, seem to have blown away, allowing one to look into vast, three-
apsed buildings on both sides. The deep galleries on the north and south, which form spacious
corridors parallel to the nave, help create the sense of drama that pervades the building. From a
structural point of view, they serve to divide the buttressing into segments.

The use of windows is similarly complex. The window at the east end of the apse, the lights along
the base of the dome, and those on the north and south all allow light to stream directly into the
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nave. Under the north and south tympana, the colonnaded columns stand in the shadows, backlit
from the windows in the outer wall. Impressive as the complex structural system of the Hagia Sophia
is, the architects made every effort to make it appear effortless. The marble cladding and the
mosaics would have obliterated any sense of oppression or weight. From the dark-gray marble of
the pavement to green marble with white veins, dark-blue marble with yellow veins, and reddish
columns, to the silver and gold of the mosaics, the eye moves from surface to surface as if structure
simply did not exist.

The first dome was covered with a gold mosaic. The second one had a large figure of a cross
embedded in its decoration. The windows were filled with glass tinted blue, red, green, brown,
yellow, and purple. The light was thus a subdued one. Even the patterned marble floor, unlike the
floor of the Pantheon, denies a sense of stability and has been described by ancient commentators
as a wavy sea. Though a good deal of the marble panels have survived, few of the mosaics have,
since most were taken down or plastered over during its conversion to a mosque. (The Hagia Sophia
was secularized in 1935.)

During the reconstruction of the second dome, Isidore the

Younger (nephew of Isidore of Miletus) had attempted to solve
the structural problem by demolishing the original dome
entirely. He cut down the excessive lateral thrust by increasing
the curvature to an almost hemisphere-like shape to remedy
the flaw of original design. It has been recorded that the
unknown configuration of the first dome gave a greater impact
to amaze eyewitnesses than its substitute.

The top dome is the present dome (A), and (B) the bottom is
the approximate profile of original dome.
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From the outside, with its staggered heaping of volumes, a visitor would not expect an interior space
of this dimension and scale. In fact, past the narthex the space rises forcefully, creating the feeling
of being at the bottom of a vast canyon. Night-time illumination must also have been impressive.
From the base of the dome, brass chains swept down to support a metal ring equipped with flat
silver disks pierced to hold glass vessels for oil lamps. Within this vast candelabrum hung another,
smaller crown of lights, while higher up, a great silver disk acted as a reflector.

The church was sited just north of the palace complex at the terminus of the main avenue that ran
through the city. Apart from the Hagia Sophia, very little of the palace survives today. In
9 Constantinople, stone had given way to brick. (The Hagia Sophia is basically a brick building.) The
use of concrete, furthermore, had been forgotten by this time.

Traditional domes can be highly-efficient structures, similar to arches. They are

self-supporting, stabilised by the force of gravity acting on their weight to hold
them in compression. They are able to span large areas and require no
intermediary columns, creating a free space below.

Saucer dome: a dome that is less than a hemisphere in form or that shows less
than a hemisphere on the exterior. Shallow dome.

The influence of Hagia Sophia

It combined eastern and western influences, thereby, producing one of the world’s greatest
buildings. The church is special because it broke away from an architecture of columns. Its interior
space is covered by the highest possible saucer dome. The architect had built a magnificent new
building type. The influence of Hagias Sophia spread back to Italy, across Greece and turkey, and up
through Russia. It was also the basis of the superb 16th century mosques designed by Sinan.
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SS. SERGIUS AND BACCHUS

SS. Sergius and Bacchus is essentially a domed octagon surrounded by aisles and galleries encased
in a square, whereas S. Vitale’s octagonal dome is echoed by octagonal galleries and aisles. The
strong centralizing tendencies of both churches are countered somewhat by apsidal projections
opposite the narthex side. In SS Sergius and Bacchus, the eight piers of columns, set alternately
beneath curving and straight arches, so that the domed area penetrates the surrounding corner
spaces. The sixteen-sided vault dome reflects the configuration below in alternate straight and
curved profile section above its rather low drum.
10

Although the dome at S. Vitale is smaller, the

church design is more sophisticated, with a
higher drum and greater internal cohesiveness
than at SS. Sergius and Bacchus. Clerestory
windows illuminate the nave directly, and
between the piers of the octagon all the niches
are semi-circular, carving into aisles and
galleries to borrow additional light from
windows in the exterior wall. Semi domes over
each of the niches complement the dome that
rises over the nave. The proportions of the
exterior are equally fine.

Red-tile roofs in direct volumetric expression of the internal space cap simple arched windows set
in brick walls articulated by pilasters. SS. Sergius and Bacchus has lost most of its original interior
mosaic, but S. Vitale displays the beautiful products of imperial workshops in both marble and
mosaic. Carved capitals complete richly veined marble column shafts, book-matched marbles face
the lower wall surfaces, and both geometric and figural mosaics complete arch soffits, upper walls,
apse, and floors. Mosaic donor panels set on the sides of the apse portray Justinian and his court
across from the empress Theodora and her attendants. The apse semi-dome shows Christ flanked
by angels with St Vitalis to Christ’s right and bishop Eccles’s to the left. The bishop holds a model of
the church and Christ passes a crown to St. Vitale.
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11

ST. VITALE, RAVENNA

Basilica of St. Vitale (538–45 CE) in Ravenna was built during the 6th century. It was financed by a
wealthy local banker whose monogram appears on the capitals of the ground floor. St. Vitale, known
as a prime example of Byzantine architecture in the West, is clearly linked ichnographically to
Constantinople.
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The central area is an octagon supported by piers, between which double-height bays swell out and
away from the center. The surfaces were richly decorated with marble panels and mosaics. The
double-shell plan with its wedge-shape piers is similar to SS. Sergius and Bacchus. The sanctuary is
also given greater prominence and is more remote from the central space. The ambulatory and
gallery were originally not vaulted (the present vaults are medieval), placing greater emphasis on
the piers, which are buttressed to their backs. To compensate for the mass of the piers, the
architects replaced the rhythmic alternation of semi-circular and straight screens with a continuous
row of semi-circular niches and thus give the space an airier feeling.

12 The dome of St. Vitale: the bottom of the dome and the top of the arches underneath are separated
by several meters and do not touch. The exterior is of plain brick, as was typical of Byzantine
architecture, but the dome is not visible from the outside. Today the basilica is most famous for its
Byzantine-type mosaics showing Emperor Justinian representing regal authority, bring offerings.
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ST MARK’S CATHEDRAL

A standing church built on the model of Justinian’s church of the holy apostles in S. Marco in Venice,
begun in 830 and rebuilt in 1063-89. This spectacular cathedral has been rebuilt and added to over
many centuries as Venice’s wealth, ambition, and reach grew. It was first built to house the remains
of St. Mark, one of the four evangelists. Tradition has it that the body St. Mark was brought to Venice
after it was taken from its first resting place in Alexandria by Venetian Christians in 828.

Hemispherical internal domes cover each arm of the Greek cross plan, and a central one crowns the
crossing. All are set on pendentives, with barrel vaults connecting the large, pierced piers that
13 sustain the downward thrust of the domes. Windows at the base of some domes illuminate the
upper regions of the church and allow light to sparkle across the gold ground mosaics of the interior.
While the basic design concept for S. Marco stems from Byzantium, much there reflects other
architectural traditions. For example, the present exterior portal hoods date from the fifteenth
century, and the external dome profiles, raised on a timber framework above the masonry work,
reflect the shape of eastern domes. It became the model for Romanesque churches in the south of
France shortly after its completion.
A glorious wave of fairy-tale architecture seemingly magically washed up from the venetian lagoon
and deposited in front of St. Mark’s square to dazzle generations of worshippers and visitors to the
most serene city, the many domed cathedral in Venice is a wonderful fusion of Byzantine and Gothic
styles. St Mark’s cathedral in Venice, Italy, is in part based on Hagia Sophia and the Basilica of the
Apostles, both in Constantinople.

Contarini’s new design consisted of a large, Greek-cross style

plan, modelled after the Church of the Holy Apostles in
Constantinople. Section shows the original dome profile &
the taller shells (coloured in green) erected in the 15th
century to dramatize the exterior effect

The cathedral is laid out on a Greek cross plan and stands on many thousands of wooden piles sunk
into the ooze of the lagoon. Over hundreds of years, these have risen and fallen and the lustrous
marble floors they support now undulate as if as much a part of the sea as of the land. The centre
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of the cross and each of its four arms are crowned with domes. The original domes seen from inside
the basilica are topped by tall timber and lead superstructures, each capped with an onion dome
which were added in the mid-13th century. The exterior walls are lavishly adorned with marble, with
the columns surrounding doors carved from different coloured marbles, some plundered from older
churches and classical temples from across the Byzantine Empire.
Inside, decorative mosaics laid on gold backdrops were added over the generations. Lit by candles
and oil lamps and suffused by daylight filtering through high windows, the mosaics conspire to
create a spine-tingling and numinous atmosphere.

14 Doge Domenico Contarini: the remains of St Mark were first housed in Venice in
a 9-th century Romanesque Basilica, but this was destroyed by fire in 976.
Domenico Contrini became doge of Venice in1043, and he felt strongly that the
city needed a more impressive basilica than the previous design. he commissioned
the new buidling in 1063, in the 20th year of his reign, but died in 1071, 25 years
before his spectaular Cathedral was complete.

Notice the Crowning glory: atop the highest pinnacle of the

façade, a statue of St Mark surrounded by angels rests on an
intricate base supported by two lions.
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ART - TOWARDS ABSTRACTION (AND AWAY FROM ILLUSION)

Classical art, or the art of ancient Greece and Rome,

sought to create a convincing illusion for the viewer.
Artists sculpting the images of gods and goddesses tried
to make their statues appear like an idealized human
figure. Some of these sculptures, such as the Aphrodite of
Knidos by Praxiteles, were so lifelike that legends spread
about the statues coming to life and speaking to people.
After all, a statue of a god or goddess in the ancient world
15
was believed to embody deity.

The illusionary quality of classical art posed a significant problem for early Christian theologians.
When God dictated the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, God expressly forbade the
Israelites from making any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that
is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Early Christians saw themselves as
the spiritual progeny of the Israelites and tried to comply with this commandment. Nevertheless,
many early Christians were converted pagans who were accustomed to images in religious worship.
The use of images in religious ritual was visually compelling and difficult to abandon. Christian art,
which was initially influenced by the illusionary quality of classical art, started to move away from
naturalistic representation and instead pushed towards abstraction. Artists began to abandon
classical artistic conventions like shading, modelling and perspective conventions that make the
image appear more real. They no longer observed details in nature to record them in paint, bronze,
marble, or mosaic. Instead, artists favored flat representations of people, animals and objects that
only looked nominally like their subjects in real life.

Byzantine Capitals
Naturalistic decoration column capitals: byzantine capitals break away from the classical
conventions of Greece and Rome. Sinuous lines and naturalistic forms are precursors to the
Gothic style. There are two types of capitals used at Hagia Sophia: composite and Ionic. Composite
capitals line the principal space of the nave. Ionic capitals are used behind them in the side spaces,
in a minor position. At Hagia Sophia, though, the capitals are filled with foliage in all sorts of
variations. In some, the small, lush leaves appear to be caught up in the spinning of the scrolls—
clearly, a different, nonclassical sensibility had taken over the design.
Ruling from Constantinople, the Byzantines were the dominant force in
the Mediterranean, but even they had to negotiate with invaders from
the north and deal as best they could with the rulers of Italy. The plains
and deserts of Syria and Persia, though still under the control of the
Sassanians, were in a state of unrest. Prophet Muhammed founded the
last of the great modern religions, Islam, and it speeded quickly. Armenia
experienced a moment of growth, mediating between East and West.
Especially in architecture, it played an important role of cultural transmission by preserving the
ancient Greek and Hellenistic traditions of fine masonry craftsmanship (in contrast to the Byzantine
workmen, who had reverted to brick).