Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 306, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1919 — WORKS OF ART PRESERVED [ARTICLE]

WORKS OF ART PRESERVED

Art World Interested in Uncovering of Old Paintings in the Mosque of Saint Sophia. ■-> An *>imporfant,,result that may be looked 'fdr'‘whenever Constantinople and the- mosque'of St. Sophia pass from under the control of the Turks is the verification of a belief, not generally known, that the interior walls of the building still hold in practically perfect condition the ornamentation with which the Byzantine artists decorated them, says a writer in Christian Science Monitor. The statement is made, with convincing detail by the Italian architect, Fossati, who was employed by Sultan Abdu-ul-Mejid to put the piosque in complete repair. To do this work Fossati removed the matting that lined the walls and took down ,the huge disks, covered with Arabic inscriptions, that here and there ornamented them; and behind these coverings he found the work of the ancient Byzantines. -Hagia Saphia, taken by the Turks in 1453, was- converted to their own uses by the addition of minarets and by covering the walls, the religion of its new possessors forbidding them to make of destroy any picture or statue of man. Fossati, with the ancient glories of the Christian edifice temporarily uncovered, made the notes for his book, and painted colored facsimiles of some of the mosaics; then he sealed them from view by replacing the coverings.