Regards sur Sainte-Sophie (fin XVIIe – début XIXe Siècle): prémices d’une histoire de l’architecture byzantine
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Ludovic Bender
Abstract
In the late 17th century, Guillaume-Joseph Grelot wrote the first comprehensive study on Hagia Sophia. His contribution greatly improved the knowledge of the monument in Western Europe and offered at the same time a critical view on its architecture, which was in strong contrast with the opinion of previous travelers. Grelot’s study marks the starting point of a reflection on Byzantine architecture that developed throughout the Age of Enlightenment, especially in the second half of the 18th century. In their work, the theoreticians and first historians of architecture, such as Julien-David Leroy, picked Byzantine monuments instead of Western buildings as examples of medieval architecture. This choice reflected the importance attributed to the Byzantine dome on square in the history of architecture, and the idea that Byzantine architecture was less degenerate than its counterpart in the West. Despite the new attention paid to Byzantine monuments, there was little progress in the actual knowledge of the buildings, besides Hagia Sophia, San Marco in Venice and San Vitale in Ravenna. By the early 19th century, the idea that the dome of Hagia Sophia was the first of its kind seemed no longer satisfying, and the question of its origin began to arise, for example in the work of Jean-Baptiste Séroux d’Agincourt. This shift is symptomatic of the beginning of a new interest in Byzantine architecture as such, and not merely as the forerunner of «modern» Western churches. The reflection on the origin and significance of different elements of Byzantine architecture, especially vaults, which culminates in the first decades of the 20th century, during the «Orient oder Rom» controversy, was therefore not new. Indeed, it was deeply rooted in this period I call the dawning of Byzantine architecture.
© 2012 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Masthead
- Siglenverzeichnis
- Regards sur Sainte-Sophie (fin XVIIe – début XIXe Siècle): prémices d’une histoire de l’architecture byzantine
- ABTEILUNG I. Icons and minor arts: a neglected aspect of trade between Romania and the crown of Aragon
- Blessing for sale? On the production and distribution of pilgrim mementoes in Byzantium
- Palaephatus and the Progymnasmata
- Ein Schreiben des Konstantinos VII. Poprhyrogennetos an den umayyadischen Prinzen al-Ḥakam in Cordoba
- Synod decrees of the eleventh century (1025–1081). A classification of the documents of the Synodos endemousa
- Editio princeps of an unedited dogmatic discourse against the Barlaamites by the patriarch of Constantinople Kallistos I
- Zu den Szenen aus der Vita des heiligen Demetrios auf dem Einbanddeckel des Neuen Testaments in der British Library (Add. Ms 28815)
- Das Schisma zwischen Anhängern und Gegnern des Patriarchen Arsenios in der orthodoxen Kirche von Byzanz (1265–1310)
- The battle of Prinitsa in 1263
- II. ABTEILUNG
- III. ABTEILUNG. Bibliographische Notizen und Mitteilungen
- TOTENTAFEL
- Tafelanhang
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Masthead
- Siglenverzeichnis
- Regards sur Sainte-Sophie (fin XVIIe – début XIXe Siècle): prémices d’une histoire de l’architecture byzantine
- ABTEILUNG I. Icons and minor arts: a neglected aspect of trade between Romania and the crown of Aragon
- Blessing for sale? On the production and distribution of pilgrim mementoes in Byzantium
- Palaephatus and the Progymnasmata
- Ein Schreiben des Konstantinos VII. Poprhyrogennetos an den umayyadischen Prinzen al-Ḥakam in Cordoba
- Synod decrees of the eleventh century (1025–1081). A classification of the documents of the Synodos endemousa
- Editio princeps of an unedited dogmatic discourse against the Barlaamites by the patriarch of Constantinople Kallistos I
- Zu den Szenen aus der Vita des heiligen Demetrios auf dem Einbanddeckel des Neuen Testaments in der British Library (Add. Ms 28815)
- Das Schisma zwischen Anhängern und Gegnern des Patriarchen Arsenios in der orthodoxen Kirche von Byzanz (1265–1310)
- The battle of Prinitsa in 1263
- II. ABTEILUNG
- III. ABTEILUNG. Bibliographische Notizen und Mitteilungen
- TOTENTAFEL
- Tafelanhang
