The Marble Omphalos of Saint Sophia in Constantinople. An Analysis of an Opus Sectile Pavement of Middle Byzantine Age, in 11th Int. Colloquium. on Ancient Mosaics, ed. by M. Șhain, Istanbul, 2012, pp. 749-768. ISBN 978-605-5607-81-4. (original) (raw)
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The Catapetasma of Hagia Sophia and the Phenomenon of Byzantine Installations
Convivium, 2014
The curtain, or Catapetasma, over the main altar table of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was not only an outstanding and unique art object of Byzantine culture, but also the most important liturgical object of the main cathedral of the Empire. Now lost, it has never been a particular subject of study. This article deals with interconnected topics around its reconstruction and interpretation. It proposes the existence of installations created in the space as a whole image made up of various objects-that is, when considered in terms of modern art. The analysis here shows that the Catapetasma played a critical role in such installations around Hagia Sophia's main altar table, where there was a special system of various crosses, votive crowns, veils, and other liturgical objects. The fact of such spatial compositions, which should not be analyzed in the traditional iconographic way, once again points to the necessity to formulate a new concept of image-paradigm-in this case, of an iconic curtain-that is distinct from one of flat images.
This paper offers a close reading of the passages in the Historia Ekkle-siastike kai Mystike Theoria, a liturgical commentary attributed to Germanos I, patriarch of Constantinople (d. 730), that pertain to the church building. The His-toria's interpretation is highly symbolic, steeped in scripture and dependent on earlier and contemporary theological thought. On occasion, the text sheds light on actual architectural developments, as in the case of the skeuophylakion. On the whole, however, the discussion of architecture is rather vague. I argue that the Historia is part of a long exegetical tradition on the liturgy that disregards the functional aspects of church buildings, a disconnect enabled by the adaptability of Byzantine liturgical rites.