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Home , Boukoleon Palace, Chalke, Hagia Sophia

Nigel Westbrook

The Freshfield Folio view of the Hippodrome in and the of St. John Diippion

Abstract The so-called “Freshfield Folio” view of the Hippodrome in Istanbul is a rare sixteenth century drawing, apparently based on direct observation, of Byzantine buildings in /Istanbul. It depicts the Hippodrome, its monuments, including the serpent and two obelisks, and the church of Hagia (Aya Sofya). This paper will focus on a large unidentified structure to the left of the great church, the identity of which has given rise to various interpretations. It has been previously assumed that the drawing is of limited value as a topographical document because of several factors, notably that the well-known obelisks have been placed incorrectly in relation to the other buildings. It will be proposed that the view is not a single, framed representation, but rather constitutes several studies, made over a duration on the same two-dimensional surface. It is furthermore conditioned by the subjective perception of its author, an artist who could hardly be stated to be in control of his view, or to have necessarily understood what he was drawing. Through an analysis of the overlapping viewing cones, the artist’s viewing position will be determined, and the unknown building scaled and spatially located. It is the hypothesis of this paper that the view can be used with certain constraints to reconstruct both the topography and the architectural character and identity of this vanished building, which will be tentatively identified as the church of St. John Diippion. This identification, if secure, will contribute to reconstruction of the topography of the other adjoining monuments in Constantinople, such as the Carceres of the Hippodrome, the , and the Great Palace.

The Freshfield Drawing of the Hippodrome and and the Church of St. John Diippion Despite the information contained in the Book of Ceremonies () on the Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors in Constantinople, any reconstruction of its topography is largely dependent on direct eye-witness accounts, of which there are very few, and the limited number of archaeological surveys that have been carried out in the last century. For eye-witness accounts, we are dependent on a few observers, primarily from the sixteenth century, and several earlier accounts, notably the on Justinian’s buildings by ,1 although this sixth century writer did not supply any information on the Great Palace other than an ekphrastic description of the Gate, and the adjacent buildings of the Senate, Justinian’s column and equestrian in the court to the south of Hagia Sophia, and the great church itself. There are, in addition, also passing mentions in Byzantine-period texts by authors who could have seen the complex in use,

1 Procopius, Aed. I.1: Hagia Sophia, 3–33; I.2: Augusteion, column of Justinian, St. Eirene, 33–39; I.10: Augusteion, Senate house, Chalke gate, 81–87; I.11: Imperial portico and , 91–93; see The Buildings of Procopius, trans. H.B. Dewing (Cambridge, Mass. 1940).

232 The Freshfield Folio View of the Hippodrome in Istanbul such as Malalas and Psellus, and even a few by authors who actually lived there, or used its structures, notably Anna Comnena.2 Modern scholarship begins with Pierre Gilles, who studied the city’s topography between 1544 and 1550 without finding anything of great significance on the Palace. His importance is his contribution to the topography of the Augusteion and Senate building. The anonymous artist accompanying the German Imperial ambassador, Ungnad von Zonneck, during his presence in Istanbul between 1574 and 1578 has, on the other hand, provided us with what is potentially a plausible series of representations of both the urban monuments and the vicinity of the Palace.3 The drawing of the Hippodrome by this artist will be examined below in order to determine the location and identity of the building structure shown to adjoin both Hagia Sophia and the Hippodrome. The remarkable urban panorama by Lorichs, or Lorck, of 1559 does not represent the Palace, but nevertheless depicts several buildings adjacent to it, such as Hagia Sophia, St. Irene and other churches (Fig. 30). An artist made a view of Hagia Sophia for Sir Richard Worseley in 1786 which depicted a then-extant Byzantine church, the Chapel of Our Lord or Church of Christ Chalkitês (then known as Arslanhane), attached to or built onto the Chalke Gate, which enabled to determine its position in plan, and therefore the approximate location of the Chalke Gate, by cross-referring it with the panorama of Istanbul by Cornelius Loos (1710).4 Additionally, there are the excellent drawings made by Curtis, between about 1870 and 1891, and published in two fascicles as Broken Bits of . They depict extant parts of the , to the south, but reveal little of the palace other than the structure referred to by Mamboury and Wiegand as the “Ramp-House” in area B.5 Finally, a note should be made regarding the archaeological studies, of which the major ones were the British Academy excavation directed by Casson of 1927–1928, the German Archaeological Institute survey directed by Mamboury and Wiegand, of about 1912–1918 (published in 1934) and the two St. Andrews excavations of 1935–1938 (under Brett) and 1952–1954 (under Talbot Rice).6 The earlier excavations suffered from a lack of stratigraphical methods. There was also no systematic account of how the excavations were carried out. Therefore, the published accounts are somewhat inadequate descriptions of what was found. It will be necessary to supplement these with the unpublished notes, particularly those of Mamboury. In his paper on the topography of the Palace of Lausos, Jonathan Bardill makes reference to the large building which is shown in the view of the Hippodrome in a drawing held in

2 For , Chronographia, 18.71, trans. E. and M. Jeffreys, R. Scott et al., The Chronicle of John Malalas: A Translation (Byzantina Australiensia 4, Melbourne 1986), 474–477; Psellos, Chronographia, Books 3–7. Psellos’ Chronographia begins with the reign of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer (r. 976–1025) but contains first-hand accounts of events from the reign of Romanus III (1028–1034) to that of Isaac Comnenus. Psellos (3.39) notes, for example, that he saw Romanus III and on occasion talked with him. Nonetheless, there are few references to, and no descriptions of the Great Palace. See also Anna Comnena, Alexiad 6.8; 7.2; 9.15, where, it is striking how small a part the palace played in her narrative. Under the Comnenoi, the court was moved to the Blachernai palace. 3 Freshfield Folio, College Library, Cambridge. 4 C. Mango, The Brazen House: a Study of the Vestibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople (Copenhagen 1959), 161–162. 5 E. Mamboury and Th. Wiegand, Die Kaiserpaläste von Konstantinopel (Berlin-Leipzig 1934), 26 and figs. 53, 55–57. 6 G. Brett, G. Martiny, and R.B.K. Stevenson, The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors ( 1947); D. Talbot Rice (ed.), The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors, Second Report (Edinburgh 1958).