The Section near the Hagia Sophia

From the present main square of the upper town we must take a rather steep path leading northward in order to get to the Hagia Sophia. After just a few meters the "south" side of the church comes into our view (see plate 31). The entrance is located in the Venetian loggia, stretched out along the front of the building. As we proceed toward the entrance, we pass by an olive tree and some fig trees that are growing wild. (The olive tree provides the oil for the lamps of the church.) The south side of the church is still in a bad state of disrepair, though restoration work (in 1845 and in 1970) has recreated the spatial effect of the interior, and the Byzantine fenestration of the exterior. We can thus agree with the comment of the traveler Sir Thomas Wyse, who in 1858 described this church as the "crowning glory of the site."

Although the legend tenaciously persists that Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus (1282 — 1328), the great friend and patron of Monemvasia, commissioned the construction of this church, there is now strong evidence to indicate that the structure is much older than his rule. Definitive information on the dating of the building must await the deciphering of the charter of the church, which is located to the left and right of the central narthex door leading into the nave. (The charter consists of white letters on a blue background, with a purple border). So far Byzantine scholars have been unable to transcribe or translate the badly scratched inscription.

The church of Hagia Sophia in Monemvasia is one of the few examples of a domical church with an octagonal support, like those built in Greece only from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries; the form was probably taken over from Constantinople. In this form of architecture a cupola rises above the crossing of the four arms of the structure. The drum and cupola are supported at eight points, for pendentives join the arches of the vaulted arms, thus transforming the square crossing area into the circle of the drum. In a church of this type the walls of the arms can resolve into pillars at the crossing. In the Hagia Sophia this occurs in the western arm. Thus we have a two pillared structure with a dome on pendentives. The ground plan will help to clarify this explanation.

A two story loggia, built during the first Venetian rule, stretches out in front of the church. It consists of three groined vaults which rest on heavy pillars; each of the small sides of the loggia also has an open archway. Vaults and pillars produce an extraordinarily compact and massive effect. Familiar Venetian moldings separate the pillars from the arches, the passageway from the story above it, and the roof from the rest of the superstructure. A window with a Renaissance frame is located directly above each of the three front arches. We can only guess at the location of the access to the upper story, for no stairway is evident. The access must have been from the narthex, where there was formerly a gallery. This gallery had a door to the south (see plate 31), which provided access to it for the emperor, or for his representative, when attending divine services.

Above the entrance of the narthex there is an old Byzantine marble relief which shows two lambs and two doves or peacocks; between the animals lies a sword pointing downward.

In the narthex we can still recognize the remains of frescoes, such as the head of Christ, framed by the same colored bands that border the charter document. The opening above the head of Christ was necessary to provide a view of the altar for the ruler or for his representative, who could thus sit in the gallery, and still take part in the worship service. The narthex consists of three groin rib vaults. The doors into the church have marble jambs and ornamented frames.

An hemispherical cupola made of brick rises above the central square interior of the church. The dome itself rests on eight pendentives, and sits atop a drum that has sixteen windows. Eight spandrels support the drum. The walls below the squinches on the north and south sides are solid; but to the east and west they open up with arches below the encircling marble cornice. The arches allow for a rectangular construction with two pillars on the west side, and three apsidal chapels to the east. A groin rib vault spans the central space above the altar; here is located a well preserved fresco of the Pantocrator, Ruler of All, a figure of Christ holding an open Gospel (see plate 34). Rectangular rooms at each of the four corners make the ground plan of the building into a square; slightly pointed archways connect the rectangular rooms on the south to the southern transept. On the north side a small door connects one of the rectangular rooms to the northern transept; the only access to the other room is through the narthex.

During the Turkish occupation the Hagia Sophia was used as a mosque. The Turks whitewashed all of the frescoes, and built a mihrab, a niche in the wall that indicates the direction of Mecca. In the case of the Hagia Sophia the mihrab is therefore located in the "southern" transept of the church. During the Byzantine period a door was located at this point; it led to a convent that was built on to the Hagia Sophia (see ground plan).

Within the main apse we can still see the ruins of frescoes of bishops; in the southern apsidal chapel is a representation of an angel. The pillars also bear the remains of frescoes. A frieze decorated with acanthus leaves ornaments the drum; medallions with bust portraits decorate the eight pendentives. Some of these are very well preserved. All of the frescoes date from the thirteenth century. Various marble architectural remains from the Byzantine period are stored in the northern transept of the church. Included are stone slabs of an iconostasis, lintels for doors and windows, and capitals from windows, all of which are beautifully decorated.
The capitals built into the windows of the church are particularly worthy of note, both from within and from without. They are elaborately ornamented. In addition to geometric and botanical decorations, we can find depictions of a dancer in a long robe (on the outside, behind the area where the cloister was located), and depictions of animals. The latter include representations of two hares, a hen, and two billing doves (see plate 32).

The masonry of the church is ashlar with a layer of brick placed horizontally between each course of stonework, and two bricks between the stones at the vertical joints. The cupola has an unbroken brick cornice on the outside; engaged columns, made up of layers of ashlar and brick, decorate the spaces between the windows of the drum.

To reach the site of the former convent we must turn left immediately upon leaving the church, and descend the steps beneath the arch of the loggia. At one time the convent was built directly onto the church; the building was fashioned out of beautiful Byzantine stonework. The Turks closed the cloister, and left the structure to decay. The building consisted of two aisles of five bays, each covered with groin rib vaults in brick. The vaults rested on two square pillars and two columns made of green marble. Now only one lonely column juts out against the sky. The remains of the cloister finally collapsed in the 1890s. These ruins have now been moved aside, which gives the "southern" facade of the church a rather "stripped" effect (see plate 31). A small example of the beautiful stonework of the cloister still stands at the corner near the loggia. The cisterns beneath the entire site of the convent are still intact. At several points we can still see the pebble mosaic flooring that was used in the cloister.