Hagia Sophia
A Vision
for Empires
As stated in the introduction to the book “… a Byzantine intellectual tinged by Renaissance humanism, Manuel Chrysoloros, took a significant step in shifting Hagia Sophia from the realm of the divine to that of human genius. He still admitted that it was the work of divine wisdom … Yet, even if one could not explain how the vault of Hagia Sophia was held in place, that had been done by an architect who was not guided by precedent, for nothing of the kind had been done before. He must have been a great geometrician who placed his trust in the harmonies of science and thereby proved not only his own genius, but that of humankind in general.”
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A book in my parents’ library La Peinture Byzantine (1953) published by Skira influenced the slipcase of this book. The use of details—depicting the donation of land and of gold coins—is continued in the opening spreads, unfolding like a film and leading the reader to the interior
of the building and the title pages.
The use of empty space in the layout corresponds to
the spaciousness of the building.
Monuments and Memory, Made and Unmade edited by Robert S. Nelson and Margaret Olin calls this book “Surely the most handsome book ever to be published on Hagia Sophia.”
Main photography by Ahmet Ertuğ, text by Cyril Mango.
Published by Ertuğ & Kocabıyık, printed by Amilcare Pizzi in 1997.