Sainte Sophie Aya Sofia

Mosaic of the Virgin and the Christ Child in St Sophia. 867. Conch of the apse. This is the earliest of the surviving figured mosaics in St Sophia and dates to the period immediately after the Iconoclasm. (In 726, the emperor Leo the Isaurian issued a series of edicts against the veneration of images, ordering the army to destroy all icons – ushering in the period of Byzantine iconoclasm. At that time, all religious pictures and statues were removed from the Hagia Sophia. After a brief reprieve under Empress Irene (797–802), the iconoclasts made a comeback. Emperor Theophilus was strongly influenced by Islamic art, which forbids the representation of living beings. He had a two-winged bronze door with his monograms installed at the southern entrance of the church.)