WORKS OF AKT DESTROYED. 301

loved it in its best days, it was a model of celestial beauty, a glimpse of lieavcn itself. To tlie more sober English observ- er, " its mosaic of marble slabs of various patterns and beau- tiful colors, the domes, roofs, and curved surfaces, with gold- grounded mosaic relieved by figures or architectural devices" are " wonderfully grand and pleasing." ' All that St. Mark's is to Venice, Ilagia Sophia was to Constantinople. But St. Mark's, though enriched with some of the spoils of its great original, is, as to its interior at least, a feeble copy, llngia Sophia justified its founder in declaring, "I have surpassed thee, O Solomon," and during seven centuries after Justinian his successors had each attempted to add to its wealth and its decoration. Yet this, incomparably the most beautiful church in Christendom, at the opening of the thirteenth century was stripped and plundered of every ornament which could be carried away. It appeared to the indignant Greeks that the very stones would be torn from the walls by these intruders, to wliom nothing was sacred. "^ Around the Great Church were other objects which could be readily converted into bronze, and the destruction of which was irreparable. The immense hippodrome was crowded with statues. Egypt had furnished an obelisk for the centre. Delphi had given its commemoratory bronze of the victory of Platsea. Later works of pagan sculptors were there in abun- dance, while Christian artists had continued the traditions of their ancestors in a style by no means so debased as AVestern writers hav^e, until recentl3% believed it to be. The cult- ured inhabitants of Constantinople appreciated these works of art, and took care of them. In giving a list of the more im- portant of the objects which went to the melting-pot, Kicetas again and again urges that these works were destroj'cd by barbarians who were ignorant of their value. Incapable of ^ Fergusson's " Hist, of Arch." vol. ii. p. 321. ^ A most intc'restinf]^ account of the plunder of Ilagia Sophia is given in the " Chronicle of Novgorod." See " Chroniques Greco-Romanes," par Charles Ilopf. The author evidently knew the church well. Another interesting account is given in " Pcregriuus," by Antony, Bishop of Novgorod ; Exuv. Sac." ii. p. 218.