Hagia Sophia
| Department | Archive |
|---|---|
| Collection | Byzantine Research Fund |
| Reference No. | BRF/01/01/14/118 |
| Level | Item |
| Place |
Hagia Sophia Mystras |
| Dates | 1890 |
| Donor/Creator |
Weir Schultz, Mr Robert Barnsley, Mr Sidney Howard |
| Scope and Content | West elevation. This is a preliminary drawing. It is dated in pencil in the lower left-hand corner. It is annotated in pencil. |
| Further information | Mistras, one of the most important medieval cities of Morea, lies four miles north-west of present-day Sparta on the summit of a Taygetos hill. The first building to be erected by William II Villehardouin, the Frankish Prince of Achaea in the location was the castle (1249). Soon, a settlement was established outside the citadel- most of the churches and chapels stand outside it too. After the recapture of Morea by the Byzantines in 1262, Mistras became the headquarters of the Byzantine general and, later, the seat of the Lakedaimonian bishopic. During the 14th c. it was the capital of the Despotate of Mistras and flourished under the Kantakouzenoi and the Palaiologoi reign until its fall to the Turks in 1460. Hagia Sophia, which was built between 1350 and 1365 by Manouel Kantakouzenos, was the katholikon of a monastic complex. It also served as the palace church and the burial place of at least two royal consorts in the 15th century. It is a two-columned cross-in-square domed church with domed narthex, four chapels and an arched colonnade. The building, which has tall narrow proportions, is lit only by low narrow windows in the dome and on the arms of the cross. The only side to be decorated is the east: the three three-sided apses are enlivened by carefully laid cloisonné masonry. The rest of the walling consists of plain cloisonné surfaces with clean rectangular outlines and some brickwork in the gables. The originally three-storey bell tower is a separate construction with three domed square chambers in the west and north side of it which still preserve fragments of wall-paintings and opus sectile on the floor. An impressive polychrome marble pavement decorates the interior. Few sculptures (capitals, part of an epistyle and an iconostasis with animals) have survived. Impressive wall-paintings decorate the chapels. |