Byzantine Architecture: Domes, Mosaics and Hagia Sophia

Byzantine architecture is the building art of the Byzantine Empire, with Constantinople as its centre, from the fourth century to 1453. It is characterised by domes on pendentives, brick and mosaic, and by churches with a centralised plan. Hagia Sophia is its masterpiece.

Facts

Roman foundations, Christian dome

Byzantine architecture grew out of Roman building. When Emperor Constantine moved the empire’s capital to Constantinople in 330 he took with him the knowledge of vaults, domes and brick, but joined it to a new faith. Christian churches could now be built openly and on a large scale, and they were given interiors meant to give a sense of heaven on earth.

The main device is the dome on pendentives, the curved triangular surfaces that let a round dome rest on a square base. This made it possible to enclose large, bright rooms without needing a circular ground plan. Read more about the technique under arches and vaults and in the guide to vaults and arches. The style is described more closely under the Byzantine style.

Hagia Sophia

Emperor Justinian had Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, built in only five years, 532–537, after an earlier church burned in the Nika riot. The architects were Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, both mathematicians and engineers. The great dome has a diameter of about 31 metres and rises over 50 metres above the floor, and a ring of windows at its base makes it seem to float.

The building has been preserved through alterations. After 1453 it became a mosque with minarets, in 1935 a museum and in 2020 a mosque again. Even so the space is essentially what Justinian had built. It inspired later Ottoman mosques, among them Sinan’s, and Justinian himself appears in a mosaic in Ravenna; see Justinian among the works.

Ravenna, Venice and the Greek cross

In Ravenna in Italy are some of the best-preserved Byzantine buildings. San Vitale, consecrated in 548, is an octagonal church with mosaics of Justinian and Empress Theodora. Sant’Apollinare in Classe has long rows of arcades and an apse mosaic, and the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia is a small, cross-shaped burial chapel with a blue starry mosaic in the dome.

St Mark’s in Venice, rebuilt from 1063, has five domes on a Greek cross and spacious gold mosaics. Later Byzantine architecture often builds small churches with a dome over an inscribed cross, such as Hosios Loukas in Greece and the Chora Church in Istanbul, where frescoes and mosaics from the fourteenth century survive. The ancient cistern Basilica Cistern shows that the same techniques were used for everyday structures.

Recognising and understanding

First look for domes resting on pendentives, often several domes surrounding a larger one. Then look at the surfaces: the exterior is often plain brick, while the interior shimmers with marble and gold mosaic. It works as a theological point: the outside is modest, the inside joined to heaven. Windows in shifting rows make the light seem to move.

The difference from the West is clear: Romanesque and Gothic architecture invested in length and height, whereas the Byzantine preferred the centre. The style influenced Russian churches, Balkan monasteries and, through trade, the whole Mediterranean; see also Islamic architecture, which took up the dome. Read about the church as a building type and the parts of a church. The period is covered under the Middle Ages; see also Hagia Sophia among the works.

How to recognise it

Exercise

Which architectural element makes it possible to place a round dome on a square room?