Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 248, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1918 — GLORY OF TURKISH CAPITAL [ARTICLE]

GLORY OF TURKISH CAPITAL

Jreat Mosque of Sants Sofia a Marvel In Beauty of Architecture and f Rich Decoration. The great mosque of Santa -Sofia towers majestically over Constantinople, dominating Its surroundings by sheer thick-set ponderousness. - Itifi bulky dome and tacked-on minarets are, however, only the shell which covers a vast cathedral justly famed for beauty of line and rich ornament. From the outer court you pass through a heavy bronze door and stand within a hall of such cavernous proportions that it seems, impossible that even the exterior, that seemed so massive, could contain it. Above, the dome rises in a sweeping curve. Once mosaic figures of Christian saints adorned these higher regions of the hall, but the vandal Turks long ago covered the saints with plaster through which in certain places they still can be seen smiling dimly but serenely The mosque has not always been a Mohammedan temple. The .origlal Santa Sofia, a Christian cathedral erected by Constantine, was destroyed by fire. It was Justinian who rebuilt it in the sixth century, decorating it with such lavish magnificence that he was.himself surprised at the result and cried out: “Solomon, I have surpassed thee!” In Justinian’s day the new temple was a veritable Aladdin’s cave. Its walls and columns were of marble brought from, foreign quarries and from other temples. Famous shrines of Diana, ApoHo and even the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek contributed tbeir statues and jewels, willingly or not, to the glory of Justinian’s cathedral. Into this treasure vault in 1463 burst the Conquering Turks, wrecking, plundering and claiming possession. From that time on Santa Sofia, Church of the Divine Wisdom, has been a Turkish mosque, with minarets added and the crescent over all. —Chicago Daily News %