ENGLISH VERSION Maria Luigia Fobelli. Un tempio per Giustiniano. Santa Sofia di Costantinopoli e la 'Descrizione' di Paolo Silenziario

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION

Maria Luigia Fobelli. 

Un tempio per Giustiniano. Santa Sofia di Costantinopoli e la Descrizione di Paolo Silenziario [A temple for Justinian. Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and the Description by Paulus Silentiarius]

Rome, Viella, 2005

Istanbul, Hagia Sofia

[1] Text of the back cover: 

"The second reconstruction of the greatest Byzantine architectural monument ever, the Basilica of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, was completed in December 562. 

Paul the Silentiary – a poet and intellectual at the court of the Emperor Justinian - composed for the occasion a description in verses of the church. The poem, conceived as a literary parallel of the monument, was at the centre of a solemn ceremony intended to commemorate the event for an exclusive audience: for Justinian and his wife Theodora, the patriarch Eutychius, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and representatives of the civil and military aristocracy.

The Great Dome

The work of Paul the Silentiary is the main source for art historians on the church in the age of Justinian, and the starting point for any attempt to draw its original portrait, altered by numerous events such as earthquakes, reconstructions and restorations, the destruction of liturgical furnishings, the transformation into a mosque (1453) and finally into a museum (1934).

This volume presents the first modern and integral Italian version - with a facing-page Greek text - of the Description of Hagia Sophia followed by an analysis of the poem within the ekphrasis tradition of late antiquity and by an accurate comment highlighting the special role that even today it has to fully understand the extraordinary monument it describes. Finally, inspired by the text, we discuss some specific issues of the building in the age of Justinian, like the figurative program of the presbytery enclosure, the decorative systems, and the role of natural and artificial light in the Great Church.”

[2] Hagia Sophia was inaugurated for the first time in 537, but was severely damaged by the earthquakes of 557, so that "the arch, the eastern half-dome and part of the great dome fell..., squeezing the tabernacle, the altar and the ambon under the rubble" (p. 9). The reconstruction took five years and led to a second inauguration, precisely the event celebrated by Paul the Silentiary in his poem. However, at the time of the ceremony, which was held on the last Sunday of December 562 or the first Sunday of January 563, the ambon was not yet completed. The fact helps to explain why, although Paul’s work was essentially unitary, it is traditionally divided into two parts, namely the description of the church itself (these are the first 1029 verses) and of the ambon (see the following 304 verses). 

[3] The Description of Hagia Sofia has come to us through a sole manuscript, the Pal. Gr. 23, of the University Library of Heidelberg. "It is a miscellaneous code copied in Byzantium in the tenth century, which collects works of sacred and profane argument ... The Palatinus Graecus 23 came to Heidelberg in the early seventeenth century..." (pp. 11-12) and was here secured without interruption, except for a brief period in France after the Napoleonic requisitions (on the phenomenon of requisitions see Bénédicte Savoy, Patrimoine annexé. Les biens culturels saisis par la France en Allemagne autour de 1800).

A section of the original architecture of Hagia Sophia

[4] "The Description of Hagia Sofia was published for the first time in Paris in 1680 by Du Cange in his Historia byzantina duplici commentario illustrata [Note of the translator: Dual illustrated commentary of Byzantine history] with a version and a commentary in Latin, except for the description of the ambon, published for the first time in Berlin by Bekker in 1815. Both poems were reprinted by Bekker in Bonn in 1837 in the Volume 28 of the Corpus Historiae Scriptorum Byzantinae [Note of the translator: The collection of writings on Byzantine history] with the translation and the commentary by Du Cange. In the same format they were published by Migne in Paris in 1860 in the volume 86 of the Patrologia Graeca [Note of the translator: Greek patristics]. The first modern critical edition is that of Friedländer (1912), which still remains the main one and on which I have based my Italian version and my comment "(p. 12). It is not entirely correct to say, as mentioned on the back cover, that this would be the "first modern and integral Italian version", given that a full translation in Italian and with commentary (albeit without the original text in Greek) was published by Alessandro Veniero in Catania in 1916. This is correctly mentioned in the bibliography (p. 211), as well as by Schlosser in his Letteratura artistica (p. 20).

[5] In the context of a robust work of such an importance, it is a duty to mention the really excellent iconographic apparatus.

Interior of Hagia Sofia

[6] We are displaying hereafter the text of the review on the work, signed by Cinzia Dal Maso, published in the Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore on 16.4.2006 (the original article is kept inside the volume).

SUNDAY – Scaffalart

The poem of Paul the Silentiary dated 562, has now been published

Sofia, what a guide!

by Cinzia Dal Maso

Mosaic depicting St. John Chrysostom

Perfect tour guide, great communicator, a skilled storyteller. What else to say about Paul the Silentiary, the author of the highly sophisticated Description of the church of Hagia Sofia? Even those unfamiliar with the church can "see" it through his words, his illustration in story form. Today, we like to say that the public wants stories, that cultural heritage acquire life and curiosity for people if someone helps them to come alive, to tell themselves. To let recognise - behind the stones - the man who built them. Paul Silentiary did all this already fourteen centuries ago. With modesty and rigor. Following the rules of communication. But above all, with a great personal commitment. His enthusiasm is palpable and palpably genuine even when he praises the emperor and the patriarch. There is not too much flattery in his words, there is a taste for the story. You can read it all in one breath, in the clear and measured translation by Maria Luigia Fobelli. One would almost not want to concede the comment that illuminates with insight the rhetorical and descriptive choices of a difficult and complex text. But how would you stop reading the frenetic passage in which Justinian, having heard about the collapse of the dome of the basilica, immediately rushed to the site even without waiting for the escort ("action was faster than word") and the soldiers, realising it, follow him in no official order, trying clumsily to gather and recompose their formation on the way? And how not to get excited when you read about a “wonder in perpetual motion" and you see with your imagination the great dome, the half dome and the exedras succeeding each other in a continuum and almost blending into one another? And the dome, "immortal helm" of solid stonework, perfect spherical cap supported by four powerful pillars. But, at the same time, a "bright sky", perfect immateriality, almost suspended in the air from the crown of windows surrounding it.

Leo VI adoring Christ (detail)

Hagia Sophia was the great work of Emperor Justinian. After conquering the world, he wanted to leave the church as imperishable testimony of himself and he succeeded. Indeed, he made more than. Since then, Hagia Sofia is the Μεγάλη Εκκλησία (Megale Ekklesia – Great Church) par excellence for the whole of Christendom. A myth also for the West, after the schism. A lost myth since, with the Turkish conquest in 1453, it was converted into a mosque and forbidden to the followers of the ancient faith. It fuelled endless fantasies, spectacular leaps of imagination. Which were instead not necessary to our Paul the Silentiary for his ékphrasis [Note of the translator: ἔκϕρασις - description of a work of art]. The church that he describes is the original, the authentic one. Authentic and experienced are the events that led to its erection. The first enormous effort of only five years, which ended in 537 AD, an incomparable work of Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus. The earthquake of 558, which caused the collapse of the dome. The walls however had "a force to oppose the unsustainable assaults of a demon." The reconstruction and rededication in 562. And then the work is completed, "wonder before which the divine love sparked the light of every look." "Perfect temple" that is admired "with enchanted eyes ", as well as by virtue of the words of Paul, recited in front of emperor and patriarch.

Virgin and Child flanked by Justinian I and Constantine I

“Scholastic” words, of course, and genre words. But also dynamic words. They tell about the church in its making, the architectures that are connected to one another, the building blocks that multiply up to the top of the dome. With some technical curiosity, to hold the audience's attention, such as the sheets of lead inserted in the wall to lighten the weight of the dome. And a surprising simplicity of language. Exedras are "spaces and semi-circles", and there are arches and hollows, but no dome or apse. Paul talks to laymen, not to experts. He talks to everyone. With bold metaphors and educated quotes, and fully drawing from the language of the time. But avoiding the technicalities. To stimulate participation. To ensure that the audience "sees" a basin overlooking other basins, and which is coordinated with the dome through "walls in the shape of a triangle" (the penditives). Then, he wants the reader to "see" the marbles, described one by one in their multiple streaks of colour and backgrounds. And he wants him to imagine touching them. And the silver lining "the walls that separate the priests from the crowd" and the "tower" (the tabernacle). And finally the gold mosaic of the dome, but above all the gold of the altar and of the embroidery of the purple tablecloth on the altar. Here Paul has crossed the threshold forbidden to ordinary people, it is in the Sancta sanctorum, the Holy of Holies, but continues recklessly. He shows it to those who cannot see. It tells about the embroidery, one by one. He makes the reader travel with the imagination. Nowadays, it would be a perfect radio announcer. And in describing the night lighting, he gives the best of himself. Apparently a show, with the individual flames that light up one after the other. They come alive, each in their own way. They inundate of refulgence the immense room to transform it into a "clear sky with joy." It is the apotheosis.