mtfaidherbe1

There is a bug somewhere, somebody (Dan Jensen ?) sent me a message like if this wonderful photo was mine, and it is not. So please, Dan, don't say it is mine, I don't want to look like if I had stolen it.

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I don't have a good software for that. Which one would you recomand me ? (at a reasonable price, thanks)

 

Yes, I know, vut I don't have software. Which one would you recommand me ? (at a more than reasonable price, please) Thanks.

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The inscription encircling the rays at the centre of the dome is the Light Verse from the Coran and in arabic and reads "in the name of God the merciful and pitiful, God is the light of heaven and earth. His light is Himself, not as that which shines through glass or gleams in the morning star, or glows in the firebrand.".It was added in the eighteenth century and restored in the mid-nineteenth century by Izzet Effendi.<

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The mirhab (prayer niche) by which the Moslem worshippers find the direction of Mecca during prayers in St Sophia.

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Sultan's loge built by the Fossati brothers. These Italian architects undertook a major restoration of Saint Sophia for Sultan Abdul Mecit in 1847-9

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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 (829–842) 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.)

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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.)

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Minber (pulpit) and medaillons with inscriptions in arabic are Ottoman additions. The Minbar was installed by Murat III (1574-95).

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The coronation square of the Byzantine emperors in St Sophia. The present day omphalos (navel stone) consists of a large disk of dark marble within a square frame surrounded by smaller disks of various coloured marble placed in opus-sectile backround. (Opus sectile is an art technique popularized in the ancient and medieval Roman world where materials were cut and inlaid into walls and floors to make a picture or pattern. Common materials were marble, mother of pearl, and glass. The materials were cut in thin pieces, polished, then trimmed further according to a chosen pattern. Unlike tessellated mosaic techniques, where the placement of very small uniformly sized pieces forms a picture, opus sectile pieces are much larger and can be shaped to define large parts of the design.)

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