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Justinian commissions Hagia Sophia from two geometers

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After the Nika riots destroy the previous church, Justinian I commissions a replacement and appoints Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus - a mechanician and a mathematician - rather than established master builders. The choice is legible in the result: a dome on pendentives over a square bay, buttressed longitudinally by half-domes, is a geometric proposition executed at a scale nobody had tested.

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Evidence · 2
Timeline

No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.

Connections · 4
Assembled narrative · 1

Assembled from 45 blocks · 2 evidence · 44 related

  1. Story
  2. After the Nika riots destroy the previous church, Justinian I commissions a replacement and appoints Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus - a mechanician and a mathematician - rather than established master builders. The choice is legible in the result: a dome on pendentives over a square bay, buttressed longitudinally by half-domes, is a geometric proposition executed at a scale nobody had tested.
  3. Knowledge
  4. Constantinople
  5. The pendentive
  6. Hagia Sophia, Constantinople / Istanbul
  7. Anthemius of Tralles
  8. Justinian commissions Hagia Sophia from two geometers
  9. Connections
  10. Hagia Sophia, Constantinople / Istanbul
  11. Anthemius of Tralles
  12. The pendentive
  13. Constantinople
  14. The Pantheon, Rome
  15. Anthemius of Tralles
  16. World Heritage Committee
  17. Constantinople
  18. The pendentive
  19. Justinian commissions Hagia Sophia from two geometers
  20. Hagia Sophia is dedicated
  21. The first dome of Hagia Sophia collapses
  22. The steeper dome is dedicated
  23. Hagia Sophia, Constantinople / Istanbul
  24. Justinian commissions Hagia Sophia from two geometers
  25. The dome
  26. Hagia Sophia, Constantinople / Istanbul
  27. Justinian commissions Hagia Sophia from two geometers
  28. Hagia Sophia is dedicated
  29. Antioch on the Orontes
  30. Dedication of Constantinople
  31. Silkworm cultivation reaches Byzantium
  32. Plague reaches the Mediterranean
  33. Christianity
  34. The 'Edict of Milan' — toleration and restitution in the Roman Empire
  35. Dedication of Constantinople
  36. Administrative division of the empire on the death of Theodosius I
  37. Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus - the contested 'fall' of the Western Roman Empire
  38. Compilation of the Corpus Iuris Civilis
  39. Ottoman capture of Constantinople
  40. Hagia Sophia, Constantinople / Istanbul
  41. Justinian commissions Hagia Sophia from two geometers
  42. Istanbul
  43. Evidence
  44. Near-contemporary description of Hagia Sophia and of its designers Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, and the principal ancient literary source for the building. It is a panegyric written for Justinian and should be read as such, not as a construction record. V55 verification basis: the text was not read in this session and no specific passage is quoted here.
  45. Collected structural and historical studies of Hagia Sophia, covering the pendentive system, the 558 dome collapse and the steeper 562 rebuilding, and the building's subsequent structural history. V55 verification basis: real and standard, not consulted in this session.
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/atlas?object=EVT_HAGIA_SOPHIA_BEGUN_532&experience=EVT_HAGIA_SOPHIA_BEGUN_532