#gaspare fossati

[carloskaplan]

Gaspare Fossati: Ricardo Corazón de León comunga en Santa Sofía (1849)

[beammeupplease]

Gaspare Fossati.

[illustratus]

Hagia Sophia

[historyontheorientexpress]

Gaspare Fossati'nin tasarladığı Tanzimat-ı Hayriye anıtı. 

[italianartsociety]

By Jean Marie Carey

A series of earthquakes in 553 and 557 caused significant structural damage to the Hagia Sophia, and during such a tremor on 7 May 558, the dome of the basilica collapsed completely, destroying the ambon, altar, and ciborium. The emperor Justinian I ordered an immediate restoration, entrusting the task to the architect Isidorus the Younger, nephew of Isidore of Miletus. Isidorus used lighter materials, supports, and created rows of windows, and elevated the Hagia Sophia’s dome by 10 meters, giving the building its present form. The renovations were completed in 562 and the basilica reopened.

Then the epitome of Byzantine architecture, the Hagia Sopha was later a mosque, and  is now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, it served as the Greek Patriarchal cathedral of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire. The building was a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931, when it was secularized. It was opened as a museum on 1 February 1935. It was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520.

Reference: Rabun Taylor. “A Literary and Structural Analysis of the First Dome on Justinian's Hagia Sophia, Constantinople.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. Vol. 55, No. 1 (1996), pp. 66-78.

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey: east and west façades. Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, 532-537. Photo: Art Resources, New York City.

Giuseppe Fossati and Gaspare Fossati. Hagia Sophia; one of eight wooden plaques or roundels bearing Arabic calligraphy, 1848. Photo: Art on File.

Hagia Sophia interior. Madonna and Child, flanked by Empress Irene and Emperor John II Komnenos (1118-1134); votive mosaic in the south gallery. Photo: Art Resources, New York City.

Hagia Sophia interior, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, 532-537. Photo: Art Resources, New York City.

Further Reading: Robert S. Nelson. Hagia Sophia, 1850-1950: Holy Wisdom Modern Monument. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. 

Judith Herrin. Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. 

[suyun-rengi]

Ayasofya’nın son büyük tadilatını yapan İtalyan mimar Gaspare Fossati’nin 1852 yılında Sultan Abdülmecid’in yardımıyla İngiltere’de yayınladığı Ayasofya albümü, Ayasofya’nın cami günlerini gösteren gravürleriyle eşsiz bir çalışmadır. Selami Haktan tarafından yüklenen albümü linkten yüksek çözünürlükte tek tıkla indirebilirsiniz.

[ancientidea34]

Gaspare Trajano Fossati

Gaspare Trajano Fossati Gaspare Trajano Fossati He was born on 7 October 1809 in Morcote in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino (Tessin) in Southern Switzerland. He is the son of a family of many architects and painters in his ancestors. Like his relatives, he studied at the Brera Academy in Milan, whose greatest feature was to teach young people how to build buildings in the Neo-Renaissance…

[m1male2]

The Fossati brothers, Gaspare (1809-1883) and Giuseppe (1822-1891, Swiss-Italian architects carried out more than 50 projects in Turkey. Gaspare was a superb draftsman, known for the renovation of the Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, which practically saved the destruction.

[1five1two]

'Nave of Hagia Sophia'. Gaspare Fossati. 1852.

[airship-of-baedoor]

Update: November 2022

I decided to start doing update posts, and I will try to do it once per month or two, condensing everything you would like to know about my project’s progress. This update, however, will be mainly bound to announcement.

NEW PROJECT

Librerian is meant to be open-source, free software designed to be local database for everything you've read, watched, played, bought, whatever you design it to be. You will be able to store any cultural source there, just like you can do on GoodReads, IMDB or Last.fm. Not only that - you will be also able to make your own categories, so if you want to make Librerian store all your live shows you attended, you will be able to.

Additionally, I will do my best to provide API integration between Librerian and most known services to integrate books/movies/etc between your old accounts and the software - this way you won't need to migrate manually, but simply import them over!

SITTING BY THE CAMPFIRE...

I also decided to come back, finally, after all the time of burnouts and resignation. This monthly report will also try to help me with organising projects, at least to some extent.

Additionally, I designed spreadsheet which sums up all my projects and give some insight into their development plan.

There’s a lot of things to come in next month, and I hope I will be able to release most, if not all, of things I’ve planned. Despite my break, I coded a lot in latest months, and some things started getting shape.

...WE WATCH THE STARS

But for now, this is all I wanted to tell you today. I wish you great day/night, dear wanderer, and hopefully you will visit me again, someday. Take care!

——————————————————– Picture: Gaspare Fossati - Vue Centrale de la Nef du Nord (1852)

[gemsofgreece]

Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia, its original full name being Ναός της Αγίας του Θεού Σοφίας (Church of the Holy Wisdom of God) is a Greek Orthodox Church located in Istanbul, present day Turkey.

The church was completed in 537 by the orders of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I and it was the most precious and impressive landmark of Constantinople and the entirety of the Byzantine Empire. The basilica was designed by the Greek geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles. Upon setting his eyes on the completed church, it is said that Justinian cried out in Byzantine Greek “Νενίκηκά σέ, Σολομών!” (Neníkiká se, Solomón) which means “I have outdone thee, Solomon!” He was referring to Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, whose majesty had been unparalleled according to the Hebrew Bible. Hagia Sophia remained the largest cathedral in the world for the next  thousand years. Hagia Sophia became the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The basilica suffered a lot of damage due to earthquakes, fires and during the era of Byzantine Iconoclasm, when the use of religious images was prohibited. At that time, Emperor Leo the Isaurian (726) ordered the icons to be destroyed, a damage that Empress Irene of Athens (797 - 802) tried to reprieve as much as possible. The cathedral was repaired after each of its destructions.

In 1204, Constantinople was sacked by the Crusaders. According to Greek historian Niketas Choniates, the crusaders stripped Hagia Sophia of all its gold and silver ornaments and several furnishings. According to Arab historian Ali ibn al-Athir, the crusaders also massacred some of its clerics. During the Latin Occupation of Constantinople (1204-1261) Hagia Sophia functioned as a Roman Catholic Church but its extensive damage was not repaired until its return to Orthodox control.

On 29 May 1453, Constantinople fell to the attacking forces of the Ottoman Turks which marked the end of the Byzantine Empire and the beginning of a several centuries long enslavement of Greek and Slavic people. During the siege of the city, the women, children, elderly and sick seeked refuge inside Hagia Sophia. When the city fell, the Ottoman troops headed to pillage the Church first thing.The sick and elderly they found inside the Church were killed and the children and women were sold as slaves. When Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror came to see the church himself, he immediately ordered it to be converted into a mosque. Mehmed renovated Hagia Sophia and retained its name as Aya Sofya, which became the first imperial mosque in Constantinople, now called Istanbul.

During Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent’s reign (1520-1566), the gorgeous mosaics depicting Jesus, Mary and various Byzantine emperors were covered by whitewash and plaster, which was removed only in 1931.

Until the 20th century, Hagia Sophia had been renovated and modified many times, especially with the addition of structures of the Islamic faith. The most notable example of restoration was by Sultan Abdulmejid (1823 - 1861) who hired the Swiss-Italian architects Gaspare and Giuseppe Fossati for the job. The brothers worked on strengthening the structure in many ways and tried to prevent further damage to the Christian mosaics and decorations.

Gaspare Fossati's 1852 depiction of the Hagia Sophia, which he and his brother renovated. Lithograph by Louis Haghe

In 1931, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, first president of the Republic of Turkey, which is the natural successor of the Ottoman Empire, ordered that Hagia Sophia should be turned into a museum. He was thus trying to make Turkey a secular state and lead it to the path of a more contemporary and tolerant society. For the first time in centuries, the carpets were removed to reveal the marble floor decorations and the plaster was also removed, uncovering many of the worn mosaics. The state of the Church was deteriorating and its restoration was funded by WMF. It was finished in 2006. By 2014, Hagia Sophia was the second most visited museum in Turkey, with 3.3 million visitors annually. In 2006, the Turkish government permitted Christians and Muslims alike to pray in a small room but it was strictly prohibited in the rest of the building.

In 2007, Greek American and Turkish movements started campaigns so that Hagia Sophia would function as a church or a mosque respectively. Since the 2010s, several turkish campaigns and government officials demanded Hagia Sophia to be turned to a mosque again. When Pope Francis acknowledged the Armenian Genocide in 2015, which Turkey officially denies, the Mufti of Ankara threatened that the conversion of Hagia Sophia would be accelerated. In 2016 and ever since, muslim prayers have been held there by various groups but the Association for the Protection of Historic Monuments and the Environment filed a lawsuit and the court decided the monument should remain a museum.

Since 2018, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed his intent to convert Hagia Sophia to a mosque, aiming to ensure the vote of the religious populace. He added that Atatürk’s move to make Hagia Sophia a museum was a “very big mistake”. Inside Hagia Sophia, he dedicated his prayer to all the souls who “left them this work of inheritance” and especially the conqueror of the Church and its city. In May 2020, Turkey celebrated the anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople with an Islamic prayer inside Hagia Sophia. Greece condemned that action and the Turkish goverment called that stance futile.

On 10 July 2020, and in the mid of tense relations of Turkey with many countries, including Greece, the Council of State with Erdogan’s influence decided the turn of Hagia Sophia to a mosque. The decision received secular and global criticism as well as requests to be undone. The decision is supported by the large majority of the politicians in Turkey and the largest part of the public. A few Turk scholars have denounced the decision. With a blatant indifference to the concerns, the Turkish president invited many foreign leaders to the opening of Hagia Sophia as a mosque, including some of those expressing concern and particularly Pope Francis.

On 22 July, the ancient marble floor was covered once again with carpets. The Christian mosaics will be once again hidden with curtains and lasers, with the promise that they won’t be further destroyed.

As Hagia Sophia is a UNESCO World Heritage Monument, this decision needed the official agreement of its committee. This step was ignored and UNESCO announced its deep regret for this decision.  The World Council of Churches, Pope Francis, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople and the Russian Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Kirill of Moscow have denounced the conversion. Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative of the foreign affairs, Greek culture Minister Lina Mendoni, the spokesperson of the USA Morgan Ortagus, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the foreign minister of France, Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy head of the foreign affairs committee of the Russian Federation Council have all criticised the move. The former deputy prime minister of Italy Mario Salvini led a protest against the decision, calling for all plans of a future accession of Turkey in the EU to be terminated once and for all. Greece and Cyprus called for EU sanctions on Turkey. A protest was held in East Jerusalem, Israel, during which a Turkish flag was burned and a Greek and a Greek Orthodox Church flag were displayed.

From the other side, Ersin Tatar, the prime minister of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”, congratulated the decision. This state is globally recognised only by Turkey, as the rest of the world acknowledges it as occupation of the northern part of Cyprus since the Turkish invasion in 1974. The foreign ministry of Iran, the Arab Maghreb Union, the grand Mufti of Oman and the Pakistani politician Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi supported the decision. The Muslim Judicial Council in South Africa celebrated by sacrificing a camel.  On the other hand, Shawki Allam, grand Mufti of Egypt, ruled that conversion of the Hagia Sophia to a mosque is "impermissible".

Hagia Sophia opened as a mosque for Friday prayers on 24 July amongst celebrations and even songs with lyrics such as “you were always ours and we’ll always be yours”. In Greece, bells tolled and flags flew at half-staff at hundreds of churches across the country in protest. It is the fourth Byzantine Greek church converted from museum to a mosque during Erdoğan's rule. 

And that is the story of Hagia Sophia.

*All information is from Wikipedia and various news sites.

[steliosagapitos]

             Depiction of Hagia Sophia of Constantinople, by Gaspare Fossati in 1849.

[arthistoryfeed]

In 1847, Ottoman Sultan Abdulmejid employed Gaspare & Guiseppe Fossati brothers to restorate and design Hagia Sophia. They decorated the walls with Justinianic patterns, flowers, geometric shape and a Gothic style rosette which they designed to be able to hide them. 

[historyontheorientexpress]

Hagia Sophia's interior in 1852 from watercolors by Gaspare Trajano Fossati, from https://www.watercolourworld.org/map-search

[sehanursonmezid126-s01-2021-2]

From Istanbul to Byzantium: Paths to Rediscovery, 1800–1955

Archaeological artifacts, illustrated rare books, prints, and maps, original archive photographs, documents, and paintings between 1800 and 1855 are exhibited in the exhibition. Drawing detail of the archangel in Hagia Sophia welcomes us at the first entrance of the exhibition. In the exhibition, we see the maps of the sea routes and railways that developed in the 19th century. The Istanbul poster of Orient Express is also on display. This trip was a very popular one among the socialites and rich people of those times. There is a corner where the sultans of the period and special events during their reign are mentioned. For example, during the reign of Sultan Abdulaziz, Sultan Abdulaziz was the first sultan to travel to Europe for purposes other than conquest and war. The exhibition also features special gifts to Sultan Abdülmecid by the architect brothers Gaspare and Giuseppe Fossati, who undertook the repair of Hagia Sophia. In another corner, there is a photograph from the opening of the famous German Fountain in Sultan Ahmet in 1901. Next to it is a photograph of German Marashels visiting the archaeological museum. An architectural work from the Church of John the Baptist is also on display in the exhibition. The exhibition includes a piece from the Boukoleon palace excavation. Early maps of Istanbul are also exhibited in the museum. Istanbul Dimitriadis Efendi city walls map, 1881 map. Archaeological artifacts found during the excavations around Istanbul in the late 19th century and 20th century are on display. Later, there is a book that was gifted to Osman Hamdi from Russia. Afterward, the exhibition moves on to the Republican period. There are photos taken after natural disasters in Istanbul. For example, the Aksaray fires of 1911. The vacant areas as a result of these natural disasters create an archaeological opportunity. The exhibition continues with photographs of the half-destroyed coastal walls. There is also a photograph of the Firuz Ağa Mosque. The exhibition also includes architectural drawings made at the beginning of the 20th century. Stamps printed for the 1955 Byzantine Congress are also on display. The exhibition ends with photographs taken from the repairs made at the Hagia Sophia and Karya Mosques in the 1940s.

[puredamien]

An illustration of the nave of the then mosque Hagia Sophia (1852) - Gaspare Fossati [2,106 × 2,846]