Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in Antiquity and theMiddle AgesFabio Barry

When Hagia Sophia, the vast cathedral of Byzantium, wascompleted and dedicated with great fanlare shortly afterChristmas 537, the cmptror Justinian could rightly say (as alater source claims) that he had outdone Solomon. Such wasits splendor that God Almighty might be tempted to descendamong meti and dwell within it (Fig. 1).'

|iistinian's expenditure on the church was fabled: it wassaid that forty thousand pounds of silver went into the sanc-tuary screen alone, and he did not stint on its constrttction ordecoration with gilt tes.serae, liturgical furuiture, silver lamps,silk hangings, precious chalices and pattens, and acres ofpolychrome revetment. The glaring exception to all this art-istry seemed to he the point where the whole construction offaith met the earth's surface: the floor. Here, there were novermiculated mosaics, no rainbow imbrications, no intricatetessellations. Instead, the floor presented an expanse of Pro-connesian marble flagstones, traversed otily hy four greenstripes, with any eye-catching and multicolored pavingscreened off behind the sanctuary barrier.

Yet visitors to Hagia Sophia were no less impressed by thenave floor and the image it seemed to conjtire. The slabs werebook matched, meaning that the marble blocks had beensawn parallel to their stirface and the "unfolded" panels setedge to edge like the facing leaves of an opened book {Fig.2). Receptive spectators could read latent images into thesymmetrical veining that resulted, btit, while such confectionsoften evoked human or animal figures in the manner ofRorschach's inkblots," in this instance they seemed to figtirea substance: water. In fact, over more than a millennium,observer after observer wotild report that the combined un-dulations of the closely Htted slabs suggested that the entirefloor was a "frozen sea."

The perdurabilit)' of this topos betrays neither flaggingfantasy nor want of itivention. Rather, it reveals the endtiringpropriety of the extraterrestrial image that the faithful couldread into the shifting matter below their feet. As we shall see,by "walking on water," they were reminded of the world'swatery genesis and its apocalyptic destiny in a glacial purity,and also that, from beginning to end, God's throne sat"above the waters," gliding over a celestial sea. Instrumentalin disclosing this concept was the perceived substatice ofmarble, especially the type called Proconnesian. Althoughthe imageless paxing defined no specific narrative, its re-ceived materiality (meaning both the material and the sub-stance that the material represented or embodied) and itsfundanuntal situation virttially dictated a specific range ofreference. In formalist analyses that do not evaluate thematerial image or embodiment of a building, or that consider"ornament" a .subtraciive addendum to "structure," the un-figured floor remains a blank slate on which the "plan" issimply inscribed. A different approach, taken here, is topursue the archaeology of philological, geologic, and cos-

mogonic associations intrinsic to the material, avoiding thecotnmon a.sstunption that costly materials like maible servedonly to patade the prestige and "magnificence" of patronsdetermined to display their wealth and power. Even if we donot rule out "conspicuous consumption" as a motive formarble flooring, we should concede that such display couldrepresent munificence in the semce of society rather than anagent of sovereign insecurity.

The OptionsIhe simplicity of the floor at Hagia Sophia is all the morestriking in that Jtistinian cotild have chosen from an anay ofpaving options, for floors had been venues of artifice andfanta.sy for centuries, and the materials were often as rich asthe illtisions. Domestic doors had long showcased tnosaic"paintings" (embkmata); entirely illusionistic floors had beenknown since the famous Vnswi^)l Hoor of Sosos of Pergamoti(early second centuiy BCE) with its simidated reftise lyingabove the floor surface. Converseiy, floors with scenes ofswimming fish had implied that the surface was only a film ofparticularly clear water.' Even the checkered, geotnetric, andcarpet-weave patterns of aniconic flooi-s might subvert sur-face to imply a plunging abyss below one's feet."*

Early imperial chinch foundations in the West, like St.John in Lateran or St. Peter's, seem to have borrowed theirpaving schemes, like their building type as a whole, from civicor palace basilicas. In Rome, in fact, geonietric patterns werethe almost inviolable rule, tliough even then employing apalette of the choicest marbles.'^ In the eastern empire it wasanother story. Extremely rich floor mosaics are foimd in thefourth-centuiy chtnches of Palestine, Jordan, and Syria,abounding in personified seasons and the creatures of earthand sea. Despite a gradual drift toward piirilanical aniconisinin chtuch floors from the mid-fourth ccntuiy to the early hfthcentury, the divergent tradition of nature imagery enjoyed ameasured levival in the fifth and sixth centuries.'' UnderJustitiian there even seems to have been a full-blown renais-sance of the medium and the whole decorative repertoirethat had been inherited from antiquity, whether the floorswere laid in churches or his own palace.' In this context thetinadorned floor of Hagia Sophia pinposefully renouncesboth figuration and material variety. The large slabs of mar-ble offered a greater shimmei" than would any mosaic: pat-tern, a shimmer that when combined with undulating veiningimmediately evoked a frozen sea.

Floors as "Seas," East and WestWlien the imperial maislial Paul the Silentiary recited hisfamous ekphroiis on the spot in Hagia Sophia in 563, he

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1 Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, view of thenave from the west galleiy (photograph provided by Corbis)

compared the solea and amho, the walled-in proces.sional wayand pulpit that ptished out into tlie nave (Fig. 3), to awave-lashed isthmus in a stormy sea and ventured that thosetraversing the church found a safe harbor only in the litur-gical destination of the synctuary^ (see App. 1). This natiticalmotif recurs in the Diegesis or Narratio, a ninth-century foik-loric account of the Hagia Sophia's construction, which com-mends the pavement its "like the sea or the ttouing waters ofa river," and the ekphrasis of Michael the Deacon (ca. 1140-50) more extravagantly returns to the theme of a sea dottedwith islands, one of which is the ambo (see App. 2).** TheNarratio also describes the paving as traversed by the riversofparadi.se, meaning the bands of Thessalian marble {verde

avtico) that compartmentalize the nave." This parallel tradi-tion was disseminated as far iis England and Russia (althoughit proved comparatively shorter-lived).'" Even Mehmet theConqtieror, on the day of Constantinople's fall (May 29,1453), so admired this "sea in a storm" that he took a swordto a disobedient solider tiying to prise a slab from the floor."Cafer C^lebi's slightly later encomium of the same building(1493-94) also extolled its marble waves, as wotild severalOttoman poets after him,'^ while the Florentine BernardoBonsignori (1498) was the last Westerner to repeat the ob-sei"\'ation, when he compared tlie surface to watered silk,before the pavement was submerged tmder Muslim prayermats.'^ Perhaps the erroneotis tradition that Hagia Sophia sat

C O S M I C F L O O R S IN . \ N T I Q I I T Y AND TMK MIHLH.K AtiF.S

2 Hiigia St)phi;i, nave paving, Proconnesian marble, detail(photograph by the author)

over vast cisterns arose from the same cherished percep-tion,'' or the tradition, reported in the Narratio, that thechurch was flooded durinp; the reconstniction of the dome in563.'-'*

Within Constantinople, the Apostoleion {ca. 536-50), thechurch that contained relics of the Aposlles and the tombs ofthe emperors, had aLi almost identical floor,"' and the rip-pling influence of these Justinianic floors can still be ob-ser\'ed in the "pools" that nostalgically fill later Byzantinechurtlu'S like the Chora (Kariye C ,amii, ca. 1316-iJl; Fig. 4)and the Parekklesion of the Theotokos Pammakaristos(Fethiye Camii. ca. 1310-14).'^ The same may have held forthe eleventh-century Pantanasse church, also in (;on.stanti-nople but now destroyed."^ There were probably others, buttoday the only sni-viving Byzantine church that shares withHagia Sophia the distinction of a floor eniirely fashionedfrom Proconnesian marble slabs is the Acheiropoietos inThessaloniki (F\^. 5). a mid-fifth-centmy structure, but onewhose paving might date from the mid-seventh.'''

However, the "seafloor" had already traveled west to fill thenaves and crossings of Italian churches, in a variety of tech-niques. Highly desciipiive sea scenes had featured in thefloors of the early-fourth-century double basilica of nearbyAquileia (Fig. 6)'^" and in S. Puden/ia, Rome (ca. 384-99).^'Abstracted versions persisted, as in the crypt floor of S. Savino(ca. 1120-30) at Piacenza, where zodiacal roundels bobabout in a zigzag sea populated by leaping fish, mermaids,and siiens (Fig. 7)."~' Mosaic waves also pool in the floors of

3 Hagia Sophia, st^tiional axononietrir showing ihe solffi andambo (adapted Jrom Maiiistone, fiagia Sophia)

4 Chora Church (Kiiriyt- Camii). iinos, ra.(photograph In tlie auihoi)

eleventh- and twelfth-century Venetian churches like S. Zac-caria, and SS. Maria e Donato on Murano (1141; Fig. 8),albeit in the guise of inlerlinked crcsccnt-.sliape(l shields (or/tf irw).-''* This particular ccMivi-ntion had first arrived in Grado(theseat of the Venetian patriarchate until as late as 1451) inthe late sixth centnn,': in the nave of S. Fuphcinia (579),ranks of /W/w stream toward tlie altar, wingti|j-to-\vingtip butfacing in alternate directions (Fig. 9). Overall, these "paintedmarbles concealing the squalid earth""' merge into a rippleefTect so immediate in its e\'ocation of waves tliai one liisto-rian, Sergio Tavani, even compared the pattein with thefurrowed surface of a tide-swept beach.^'' As it hap|)ens, andunbeknownst to Tavani, in 1211 a German visitor to a Cru-

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5 Acheiropoietos Cliurcli, Thcssaloniki. niid-fith cfnuiiT orca. 620 (photograph by the auihor)

sader palace in Beirut had voiced the same thought when headmired "a fine marble pavement that so well feigns waterstirred by a light wind that, whoever steps over it, seems to bewading, since they leave no footprints above the sand de-picted there."^"'

Along with these floors, which differed in materials antltechniques, the Proconnesian "seafloor" itself h;id also mi-grated to occupy the floors of two of the most ambitiouschurches built in Italy during the High Middle Ages, theabbey church of Montecassino and the palatine chapel ofVenice, S. Marco. At Montecassino (1066-71) the "sea" wascovered over in 1725-29 and eradicated by Allied bombing in1944, but even its presence in an eighteenth<entur)' engrav-ing (Fig. 10) has gone unnoticed because two large intarsi-ated panels run across it like a carpet runner (presumably indeference to the longitudinal axis of the Western basilicalliturgy) . ^

The floor of S. Marco, however, survives. Laid sometimebeiwecn 1110 and 1150, it pullulates with tessellated whorlsand quincunxes that figure astral geometries, though eventhese shifting patterns could be considered seas, as a near-contemporary description of a similar pavement observes:"what is spread on the floor, and what clothes the wholespace like a dress worked in colors might at first be called a

6 Uimljle hasilita. Aquilem, detail ui Uuui, tally 4L1I tciituiy(photograph provided by (lorbis)

sea. which, moving on all sides in the gentlest waves, issuddenly petrified."^** Yet the jeweled waves of S. Marco onlyaccentuate the hiatus of massive Proconnesian slabs underthe crossing.'*' These slabs, which were quarried speciall) forthe occasion, have been collectively known as "il mare" (thesea) since at least the seventeenth century, though the tradi-tion must be much older (Fig. 11)/"

The island quarries of Proconnesian marble were withineasy seafaring reach of both Constantinople and Thessalo-niki, on untroubled sea-lanes relatively immune to maraud-ers, and had provisioned these cities and much of the Med-iterranean with architectural marbles for centuries. ' It mightbe argued, therefore, tbat the relatively unadorned floors ofHagia Sophia and the Acheiropoietos were surfaced with thisplentiful stone with little thought other than elegant utility.But this marble, and marbles in general, held far older, fardeeper associations ihat went straight to the heart of thematter. First was the still lively perception that marbles mightbe liquid, and second the more particular kinship betweenmarble and the sea.

Marbles as LiquidsThe theories of geology promulgated by Aristotle and Theo-phrastus had taught that marbles were deposits of purifiedearthy matter suspended in water that percolated downthrough the earth's crust to deep reservoirs, where the wholebrew was frozen or fired solid by earthly humors.'^ Indeed,they held that all stones must retain some measure of waterfor their particles to cohere at all, and this conception ex-plains the curious observation of a rabbi visiting Rome in thefirst century CE that "marble columns were covered withtapestries so that they might not crack during the heat andnot congeal during the cold."' " In late antiquity marbles werestill perceived as congelations of clammy vapors, and so the

COSMK: FI.OOR.S IN ANTlyiJITY .\NI) THE MIDDLE AGES 5 3 ]

7 S. Savino, Piacenza, ca. 1120-30, plan of the crypt floor,watercolor by Bozzini (artwork in the public domain)

fifilxentui-y poet Flavius Merobaudes eulogized a marblefont in a now-vanished baptistery with the words "the jewel,once liquid itself, carries the liquid."" **

During ihe medieval period these geologic perceptionsreceived ((iiiiinucd support from Arab science in the East,while the same texts ma.squeraded as the works of Aristotle inthe West. Thus, in his On the Congelation and Conglutination ofStones (1021-23), the Arab physician Avicenna (980-1037)deduced from obsei-\ation of alhnial formations {conglntino-tion) and the growth of stalactites (congelation) that therenuist exist a lapidifying, "mineral force" that freezes water.^^Such a conclusion would have been considered especiallyauthoritative, because a Latin epitome of Avicenna's treatisewas often appended to Aristotle's MeteoroU}^ 4 as an extrachapter ("De mineralibus"), and therefore attributed to "thePhilosopher" himself. *' Aristode's word was itself sacrosanctbecause his Latin translators had infiltrated proto-Christiannuances into their translations, but the obsen'ations in Demineralitms continued to be disseminated by sainted writerslike Albertus Magnus as well (1220s).^^

Significantly, Avicenna/Aristotle legarded the transforma-tion in question not as a deposition of solids in water butrather as the actual metamorphosis of water itself into stone.Moreover, the widely held and persistent belief that moun-tains were reservoirs of this marble brew and could renewthemselves by sweating it out into their quarry scars seemedto receive fimi confirmation at Hierapolis (Pammiikale), in

** The whole city sat on, and had been built out of, a

8 SS. Maria e Donato, Murano, mosaic floor panel, 1141(photograph bv ilit- autlioi)

huge calcareous mass, and lime-charged water still streamsthrough its ruined streets today in search of long-vanishedbathhoases, depositing time as it goes (Fig, 12). AlthoughHierapolis was abandoned after the tenth centuiy, its mem-ory was sustained in the West by its brief description inVitruvins.^''

Hierapolis's actual fabric wa.s travertine, l>ut tlieie is dra-matic evidence that such genuinely natural formations fedwilder rnmors. As late as 1491. an anonvmous Ottoman writerfount! it necessary to refuie the common bcliet that porphyr)'was a frozen, water-based dye,"*" and Filarete had even cookeda piece of marble from a cohimii in the Roman church of theAracoeli to disprove the common belief that it was a water-based conglomerate.'"

Mar/Marmor/MarmoraThe presence of marine fossils surely encouraged the percep-tion that certain stones were peirified water, but literarytradition also invited the association that was enshiincd inthe word marmor'itseU. This Latin noun from which derive allmodern European equivalents (mami-o. mnrhrf, uuirble, Mar-mor, and so on), itself descended from the Greek verb mar-mairein, meaning "to glisten." MarmairHn in turn was theiterative form of a verb whose Sanskrit root. nun. impliedmotion. Mar had originally indicated the movement of tliewaves, and mar-marthe more agitated stirring (or murmuring)of the sea.'''

In poetry, this assonance proved pregnant with possibility.When Homer had spoken of haia marmara [fUad 14.273), hehad simply meant the "shimmering sea," but when the Latinpoet Ennius wrote, about 184 BCE. of a ship "skinnningthe calm sea's golden marble," a whole new realm of meta-phor entered the poetic consciousness.'^ There Is no equiv-alent in English, but the nearest analogue is perhaps "theglassy sea."

Catullus, Valerius Flaccus, Lucan. Lncretitis, partictilarlyVirgil, and many othei-s all used martnoras a synonym for martime and again to imagine the sea's hard surface and hiddenweight. Virgil fathomed mannor'a depths by describing a calmin which "tides of marble smoothness meet the laboringoar,"'*'* but the metaphor reaches fruition, and water againbecomes stone, in the verses of Ovid. In wintr\' exile on theshores of the Black Sea, he wrote that the chill was so fierce

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mfmuschiWARTYRIS-

v/FEMlAE

9 S. Eiiphcmia. tirado, nave floor, 579(photograph providfd by Corbis)

that "the ships, shut in by the cold, wll stand fast in themarble stirface and no oar will be able lo cleave the stiffenedwaters."" ' ' Eventually this icy association became so much amental habit that tlie emperor Julian, wintering in Paris(358-59 CE), would write home to describe a frozen Seine inImpressionist hues as huge sliding plates of Phiygian marble(or Pavonazzelfo) .^*^

With all this In mind, even ver\' familiar objects begin toaccommodate quite unexpected interpretations. Ajiyoiie whohas visited Rome will know the so-called Bocca della Verita(Fig. 13), or "Mouth of Truth," into whose maw expectanttourists insert tbeir hands and swear to tell tbe truth on painof amputation. This disk is actually a second-century draincover caiTed from a single block of Phrygian marble as aportrait of Oceanus.^^ Geographically, the stream Oceanusencircled the world and marked its limits, but he was also agreat cosmic power, the aboriginal wateiy mass from whichthe Greek world was born. Thus, his disembodied mask withits staring, apotropaic eyes serves as the fulcrum of innumer-able floors (Fig. 14), and on some of these, and many sar-cophagi as well, Ocean's hair and beard materialize out ofpiled waves. Thus, on the Bocca della Verita, the deity's headis contained within the "birthmark" of the marble, so thatwhen he reared liis head in ptiblic it seemed a body of wateritself, the face of the deep. Conversely, this mask must havemade whatever court it once adorned a microcosm acrosswhich the waters streamed back into Ocean just like thosedaily draining off the earth at large.

Likewise, the fourth- or fifth-centuiy sculptor who picked

out an intensely red onyx block with particularly gushingveining for a Christian sarcophagus in Brescia (Fig. 15) un-derstood the material paradox well enough to enlist thismarble as the vehicle par excellence for depicting tlie Cross-ing of the Red Sea. \Mien the Israelites had made theircrossing, the sea had .solidified into "a structure, created by ahanging wall of water, [which] held back the sea and kept itsuspended in tbe air."^^ To complete the allusion, we tnustremember tliat the Red Sea figures recurrently in poetry inassociation with Persian gems, alongside references to bloodand purple dye. '*

Carystian and Proconnesian MarbleEnnius had written of the calm sea's "golden marble," Homerof the "wine-dark sea"; rarely did ancient eyes regard thewaves as "blue." More oftcti than not, they were green, andone marble that regularly impersonated water was C^aiystian(oi Cipollino), from Euboea in Greece. Its marine veining,the poets entbused. "competed wiib the gray-green sea" and"joyed to behold the waves."'"" Even the quariy was "wavy." "'As a result, Caiystian was recurrently employed in bath com-plexes throughout the empire, private or public, and thedesired effects are nowhere more obvious than in the Jrigi.'dmium of the Villa of the Quiniili on the Via Appia (latesecond-early third century CE; Fig. 16).^^ Here, Caiystianrippies under the geometric floor, the columns are of thesame marble, and if the wall revetment originally were, too,one would bave felt stibmerged even before entering theplunge pool. Analogously, the mosaic paxing in the peristyle

C O S M I C F L O O R S IN A N T l y t ' I T V .\ND TIIF. M I D I t l K AGES 6 3 3

10 Engraving of the floor at Monte-cassino, from Erasnio Catlohi, Hi.st(maAbbatuw Ois.%intm.sis per snendonim serienidislribula, Venice: Sebastiano Coleti,1733, vol. 1, pi. VI (artwork in thepublic domain)

itnpluvium in the Maison du Char de Venus (after 317 CE) atThuburbo Maius, Tunisia, imitates a book-matched floor ofCamtian marble just like that in ihe Jngklaria of the nearbypul)lic baths."*^ The floor drains into a cistern below, so onecan only imagine the effects when the drain was plugged (Fig.17). The longevity of Carystian's marine identity was suchthat in tlu- 1490s, Andrea Mantegna capitalized on this samemarble's vciniiig in his design for a fountain (Fig. 18), and inthe 189()s the marble-literate painter Lawrence Aima-Tadema

would knowingly foreground it in his reconstruction of tlu-Baths of Caracalla (Fig. 19).-"'

By the sixth centuiy, however, it was Proconnesian marble,the flooring of Hagia Sophia, that had largely snpplantedC-ar)'stian in its power to epiiomize the sea. (ilisiening whiteblocks of this marble had already been quarried from ihc isleof Proconnesus for centuries, but the Byzantines sought outthe faces streaked with dove gray seams and enhanced tlieir"ripple" veining b) slicing ihe slabs across the bed and culting

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II S. Marco. Venice. // Mtm, 13th^ century (photograph © Camcraphoto

Ai'te. Venice)

ff-

12 Hierapoiis (Pamniukale). Turkey (photograph by theautlior)

columns on the bias (Fig. 20).''^ Finally, by the time of theLatin conquest of Constantinople (1204), the equation ofProconnesian with water was consummated in the knowledgethat the island from which these slabs bailed ("sea-girt Pro-connesus," as Paul the Silentiary says) had given the encom-passing sea its popular name: Marmara. *^

The Cosmie FloorWhy should a marine image have been desirable for a churchfloor to begin uith? A partial answer comes from consideringByzantine floors with marine iconography; a more completeone from considering the implications of the materials them-selves, in Hagia Sophia, Proconnesian marble.

Numerous late antique and medieval floor mosaics in boththe eastern and western Mediterranean borrowed their tem-plate from the ancient ideogram of the mythical Ocean en-circling the inhabitable world {oikoumene):" In the easternexamples the nave floor (representing the oikoumene) is oftenbounded by a decorative border representing Ocean, but on

one occasion Ocean may even have been simulated in thereal canals that surrounded the great cathedral at Edessa,Syria (ca. 543-54 CE).'''^ in each case, because the devoteefound the world at his feet, the church became a model ofthe universe and assumed a cosmic footing. Moreover, if onepursued the cartographic suggestions of the floor to theirlogical conclusion, then the sancttxary occupied the positionof paradise itself (Fig. 21)/''' For, according to MaximusConfessor (ca. 580-662). the church "has the holy sanctuaryas heaven, but it possesses the fitting appearance of the naveas earth. So likewise the universe is the church. For it has theheaven like a sanctuary and the ordering of the earth like u

nave.As for the materials, to most contemporary eyes, the glit-

tering Cosmati meadows that were strewn across S. Marcoand the church of Monteca.ssino rendered the sanctuary anEden of gems that flashed underfoot like the garden of Goddescribed by Ezekiel (28:13. 14), But a watery flo<)r in theimage of an entire sea, as presented by Proconnesian marble,promised to be the alpha and omega of such premonitorymateriality. For when its shinunering surface lay beneath anoverarching dome of luminous gold, the whole constructbecame a simulacrum of God's separation of the waters inGenesis 1:2-8: "And the Spirit of God moved upon rhe faceof the waters. . . . and God made the firmament, and dividedthe waters which were under the firmament from the waterswhich were above the firmament. . . . And God called thefirmament 'heaven.'" These verses were fundamental for theJudaic view of the universe and, thereafter, the Christian andMuslim versions.*'' Christian depictions of the division of theupper from lower waters range from the ideograms in aneleventh-centurv' manuscript of the sixth<entury Topographyof Cosmas Indicopieustes (Fig. 22)"' to the more evidentevaporations and precipitations of a thirteenth<enturyFrench illuminator (Fig. 23).''"' Moreover, not only had Cloddivided the waters but he would also sit "above the watere"until the end of time. For on judgment Day, Revelation tells

COSMIC KI.OORS IN ANTlQUnV AND THK AfiK.S 5 3 5

13 Bocca della Verita, lst quarter of the 2nd century CE? S.Maria in Cosmedin, Rome (artwork in the public domain;

h l by the author)

as, his apocalyptic throne would finally become visible to allresting on "a sea of glass likt* to Crystal," "a sea of glassmingled wiih fire" (Rev. 4:6, 15:2).""' Indeed, this is exactlyhow we see him. above a shifting sea laced with flame andflanked by horn-blowing apocalyptic angels, on the prosce-nium of S. Michele in Alrici.sco (545), Ravenna, mosaics thatwere installed within a decade of the inauguration of HagiaSophia (Fig. 24).'*'' Another such sea, this one caned, alsosubtends Ciod's supernal tlirone in the tympanum of theportal of'St-Piene in Moissac (ca. 1125), this time contem-poraiy with the paving of S. Marco.*'*'

Atid in S. Marco, observers could find both seas, the Deepand the Celestial. A "sea" of nested chevrons (rather thanwickerwork, as it is normally explained) was inscribed be-twceti the legs of the so-called throne of Saint Mark, theprized relic caI 'ed with cherubim, palms, the Lamb ofGod. and the four rivers of paradise that stood behind theba.silica's high aliar (Fig. 25).''' In S, Marco, Venetians couldalso compare the veined "sea" under the crossing nearby withthe linguine-like waves over which theSpiril of God hovers inthe mosaics of the Genesis ttipola in the atrium (Fig. 26).''"Added to all these musings was, of course, the inescapablefrisson thai Venice was it.self a (it\- founded on water, a factthat became painfully obvious with every seasonal flood, theacqua alta.

In Hagia Sophia the two watei-s essentially compose thebasso projvndo underlying the dancing reflections of the ma-

14 Head of Oceaiuis, uio.saic floor, 2nd half of the 4th centuryGK, Villa of Matcruus, Garranque. uear Toledo. Spain (ai tworkin the public domain; photograph by the author)

15 "Red Sea" sarcophagus, 4th or .'ith century. Museo Civicodi Brescia. MR .f)832 (artwork in the public domain;photograph b) the author)

terials. From I'emotest antiquit\' nntil the seventeenth cen-tUTy, few doubted that i ock ciystal was a form of ice that hadbeen frozen by primordial cold.''^ This suggested that light(the active principle of the Logos) was frozen into its veryfabric. Thus, when marble, which was a more opaque cotisinof crystal, was polished it recovered this original light in asurface slick. The connnon resemblance of shimmer to wet-ness, the "wet look" that mosaics and luarbles alike couldachieve, therefore, pointed beyond the surface to a substra-tum of physical affinities. Taken as a whole, the dome ofHagia Sophia became a "shower of light," tumbling down ina luminous cascade, washing the walls and soaking theflixir. The tenth-century soldicr-jjoet John Geometres vir-tually says as much when he describes the columns of theStoudios church (454-63), Constantinople, melting backinto their watery cradle in the earth and discharging over thefloor in the process:

The polished splendor of these stonesSeems another sea without waves

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16 Frigidarium of ihc Villa of theQiiinlili, Rome, late 2iui-early Srcentui-)' CE (photograph by ihcauthor)

As though just now it has fallen cahri.The light atid luster of the columns.

Their lovely sparkle, resemblesA river glisieniug wilh dissolved

Snow, which, almost another sea, flowsToward the glossy stones of the floor.Silently.^'

All in all. the glossy materials of the domed church couldhe regarded as globally crystalline, tinged by the local color ofearthly generation in the nave walls below or heavenly etherin the dome above. Divine light bleached the church's upper

shell, paradisiacal landscapes (although rainbows or peacockwings, or other images of iridescence and multiplicity woulddojust as well) inhabited its walls, and cosmic waters pressedup against its floor.''^ The symmetry of the whole construct isprefigured by the earlier poet Claudian. who describes acrystal ball, or lens, as a miniature replica of the cosmos in hisepigram "On a Crystal Enclosing Water" (ca. 390-95):

The snow white crystal, fashioned by the hand of man.Showed the variegated image of the peifect universe.

The heaven, clasping within it ihe deep-voiced sea

C O S M I C F L O O R S IN A N T I Q U I T Y AND THK M I D I l l . E AfiES

17 Maison du ( hur df \enLis, aerial view, Thiibiirbu Maias,Tunisia, peristyle impluvium. after 317 CE (from Alcha BenAbed Ben Khadcr. 'nmlnniio Majits. pi. xxvii)

Such liquid and crystalline light was also translated into thedomical water display.s of those Islamic fountains that posedas heavenly models. An eteventh<entury version in an Arabhouse in Cordoba is described thus: "Frotn its head water fellin the form of a dome upon a Moor of alabaster and marble;lights were set inside this 'dome' and were thus covered by it."A celebrator)' poem makes more obvious the microcosmwhen it surreptitiously questions:

Tell me what is the torch upon the lampThat sprouts crystals onto a crystal base?

A stream that will not kill fire in its midst.Its waters sianding like a wall and missiles,

A sky encriisterl with an onyx skinStretched over a ground

The upper waters had been frozen at creation into crystal, afact that one knew because at night one could see the starsthrough the heavenly spheres, and this archetj'pal constmctwas again borne out by the letter of Scripture. As tlie Book ofJob lays out, when God had "divided the waters," his breathhad ciTstallized the sky, and he had "shut in the sea withdoors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of thewomb" (Job 38:8) /^ The simulacmm of the church thereforefixed the image of creation in a material metaphor thatliterally enacted Job's words that "the waters are hid as with astone, and the face of the deep is frozen" (Job 38:30).^''

Therefore, a church floor of frozen water could evoke atone and the same time the Creation and the Apocalypse, byrecalling the ambience of God's throne room beyond hnmantime and out of this world. In the beginning. Cod froze thewaters, and when he renews the universe at the end of time.

18 After Andrea Mantegna, design for a fountain, ca. 1490.British Museum 1910-2-12-32 (artwork in the public domain;photograph © Clopyright the Trustees of the British Museum)

he will restore the earth's original luminosity; its surface willno longer be dark and dull but will become a diaphanousmass as sleek as glass.'' In this light, the brilliant, polishedfloor becomes a mirror of the divine plan, and by stepping onit one enters heaven. Indeed, ihe glacially wliitc floors even-tually recorded in various Constantinopolitan churches prob-ably harbored this ambitioti.'**

Judaic Precursors and Islamic SuccessorsThe patrons, architects, and theologians who thought "sea"when tliey surveyed the floor of Hagia Sophia would recallthe "brazen sea" in the prototypical Temple of Solomon'" orthe waters that flowed from the temple in Ezekiei's vision,and the various pools atid fountains of Hagia Sophia's iong-lost atrium conscionsly prefigured the simulations of theinterior.**" Rabbinical commentaries on the Hetodian Tem-ple make it clear that the visual association between marbleand waterwas very well established in Jndaic lore lotig beforeits explicit Byzantine appropriation.'*' A Babyloniati Talmudof the fotirth century reconnts that Herod 'intended to over-lay [the wall] with gold, but the Rabbis told him, 'Leave italone for it is more beautiful as it is, since it has the appear-ance of the waves of the sea.'"*^^ Furthermore, the identity ofthe marbles en\isioned by the Amoraim (Talmudic scholars)was confirmed by their use of the Greco-Latin word viarmar,and other texts refer to the stones of Perak Onsin, in which

6 3 8 '^•''T BULLETIN DECEMBK.R 2(107 VOLUME LXXXIX NUMBER 1

19 Sir I^wrence Alma-Tadema, iiwrmw Audxiiinuu', lhS»!». oilon canvas. 59% X 37'/i! in. (152.3 X 95.3 cm). Private collec-tion (artwork in the public domain)

can be detected a corruption of the name Proconnesus.Finally, Tziona Grossmark has shown that a cryptic warning,"When ye arrive at the stones of pure marble, say not. Water,water!" derived from a mystical account of ascent to tbeupper spheres in which one of the travelers "stood at theentrance to the sixth palace and saw the splendor of the airof pure marble stones and he opened his mouth two timesand said Water, water. . . "^^ In other words, the materialportended a heavenly vision, and yet another medieval ver-sion of the same story places emphasis on this otherworldlydematerialization by describing the mirage of the "hundredsof thousauds and millions of waves of water [that] stormedagainst [the traveler], and yet there was not a drop of water,only the ethereal glitter of the marble plates with which the(Sixth) Palace was tessellated."**^

Nor were Islamic poets blind to the rainy allure of Procon-nesian marble. Marcus Milwright has adduced a eulogy by theninth-century poet Buhturi on a Samarran palace:

As if the glass walls of its interiorWere waves beating upon the seashore;

20 Great Mosque, Daiinisciis, "Foam of the Sea" (mirhab wall),709-15, restored 1893 (image provided by Barry Flood)

21 Floor plan of the basilica of Thyrsos atTegea, Arcadia, late 5th century

COSMIC FLOORS IN ANTIQlJirV ANI) THF. MIDnLK AMS 639

22 Cross section of the cosmos, from Cosmas Indicopieustes.Topof(raphi(t 4.2, I Uh centu!^. St. Catherine's, Mount Sinai,Codex (Iraecus 1 743, fol, 65v (artwork in the public domain;photograph from Huber, Heili^ Berge, fig. 45)

As if its striped marble, where its patternMeets the opposite prospect, Lthat is, book-match-

ing]Were streaky l ain-clouds arrayed between clouds, dark

ai]d light.And striped, coming together and mingling^^

But these pan-Mediterranean water metaphors had no im-pact on mosque floors, both because they had to be coveredwith matting to accommodate the five daily prostrations to-ward Mecca and because the mosque is essentially an ori-ented prayer hall with no pretensions to housing the divinepiesence nor portraying the end of days. In the GreatMosque at Damascus it is the revetment surrounding themihrab (Fig. 20) that came to be known as "foam of the sea,"not the flocjr.'*'' In Islamic and [udaic lore, in Midrashim, andeven in the Qur^an, the image of the watery lloor is in factmore common in descriptions of palace interiors. BecauseGod's throne stood over a glassy floor, so did Solomon's, andwhen tlie queen of Sheba entered his palace she, too, wasfooled into thinking that its marble floor was a pool ofwater." The crystal walls and watery floor of Solomon's pai-ace would in turn exercise their rule over those sovereignswho aspired to this paragon of god-given kingship. *" A glasspavement was even bnilt, in Syria, in the late eighth or earlyninth century, and the Qur^anic verses describing Solomon's

23 Division oj the Waters, from the Maciejowski Bible, French,13th centuiy. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS 638,fol. 4 (artwork in the public domain)

floor freqtient the walls of medieval palaces with complexillusionistic or vitreous ornament, the Alhambra being a spe-cial case in point.^^ "Glassy seas" and "ocean floors" alsoexisted in Western palaces or, at least, poets imagined thatthey did, as in an early-twelfth-century description of theaudience hall of the comtesse de Blois.^ Likewise, the tenth-oreleventh-centuiT Digenis Akrids, n Byzantine ballad stronglyinfused with Islamic influences, imagine.s a palace floor paved"with onyx that had been so highly polished that onlookersthought it was water frozen into ice."*" The conceit must havebeen widespread much earlier, as a sixth<entuiy poet hadtdso explained the floor in a Carthaginian throne room to aVandal king as ;ui "unclouded pavement [lliat] seems to bethickly spread snow. When your feet stand upon it, you wouldthink they could sink into it."^^

A Qassical Sea: The Temple of Zeus, OlympiaThere were arguably classical precedents for the marine floorof Hagia Sophia, but the most powerful was the cella of theTemple of Zeus at Olympia (Figs. 27, 28), housing the mostfamous chryselephantine statue in Greece, Phidias's en-throned Zeus (ca. 430-420 BCE). On its completion Phidiashad the floor in front of the massive effigy dug out and"paved, not with white, but with black stone, [and] in a circleround the black stone [ran] a raised rim of Parian marble, tokeep in the olive oil that flows out there."''"'' Pausanias, theGreek travel writer who wrote these words six hundred yearsafter the whole ensemble was bnilt, went on to explain thatthe film of oil overlaying the slabs served as a dehiimidifier.

640 ART BlJl.l.KTIN DECEMBER 21)07 VOLUME LXXXIX NUMBER 4

24 S. Michele in Africisco, Ravenna,apse proscenium, 545. Bode Museum,Berlin (artwork in the puhlic domain)

preventing the effigy's wooden armature from warping andthereby slonghing its ivory skin. But this preventative func-tion ot olive oil has no basis in physics, and it is doubtful thatthe Greeks, whose staple crop was olive oil, would ever havebelieved that it did. A trickle of dissenting voices has insteadrecognized that the viscous oil was actually meant to trans-form the black surface into a huge, seamless mirror.**"*

It was said that the Zeus seemed so alive that he almostmoved, that if he stood up he would knock off the templeroof, and his shimmering materials purveyed a hyperreality ofheavenly appearances.^'' The black pool rendered him visiblebut untouchable, and encircling parapets barred access tothe poolside to beat the bounds of the supreme god's pre-cinct. The floor, like the later "black stone" that gave its nameto the ancient monument in the Roman forum, the LapisNiger,^^ became hallowed ground because one literally couldnot step on it. Thus, Zeus occupied his own kingdom, and byreflection resided in a personal abyss of incomparabillty, thematerials bracketing the range of creation from Olympus toTartarus.^' Even the curb of the pool seemed to undercut theinternal columns of the cella, pulling the rug from under thewhole edifice.^^ So Zeus loomed over a great divide, not ofdead blackness {atrr, or ix€\a<;) but the brilliant black ofraven blue reflections {niger, or Kuctveo?) that suggested hid-den depths and even the unformed, bottomless darkness thatall Mediterranean myth associated mth primeval chaos. Theoverall eftect is characterized in the text of yet another age,the Hypnerotomachia (1499), where Polifilo enters tlie amphi-theater and finds that

the whole pavement of the arena . . . seemed to consist ofa single, solid Obsidian stone of extreme blackness andinvincible hardness, so smooth and polished tliat at thefirst step I withdrew my right foot, fearing that I was aboutto fall into the abyss and perish. . . . In this clear stone one

could see the limpid profundity of the sky perfectly re-flected as in a calm and placid sea, and othei^vise ever\'-thing around or above it, much better reflected than inthe shiniest mirror,^"

The tradition was far more ancient still than Olympia. Insome Egyptian temples that predate Phidias by two millennia,black basalt pavements were "associated witli structuring tliespace as a microcosm: a point where contact is possible be-tween earth {the sphere of the living), represented by tlieblack material, and the cele.stial zone represented by the lightcolor of the upper walls and the ceiling which was painted withyellow stars on a blue ground." " ^ At least one of these floors wasactually open to the sky.

Phidias no doubt intended to achieve the same effect aswould the British sculptor Richard Wilson in 1987 when hefilled a whitewashed art gallery- with recycled sump oil tocreate a space "where the internal volume is greater than itsphysical boundaries" (Eig. 29)."" Wilson's illusion was fault-less, the entire space bisected by a horizon of a hair's breadth,and when the spectator ascended the Cor-Ten steel rampexcavated in its midst, the experience was like mounting adiving board.

Wilson's installation was lit only by the soft light from asawtooth roof above. Phidias's statue of Zeus must originallyhave been lit by candelabra and hanging lamps, of whosearrangement we now know nothing except that the oily mir-ror would have reflected them. Neither Zeus nor his fatherpresided over Chaos (which preceded them), and the splen-did isolation so .skillfully engineered was more likely to mirrorthe supreme niler's throne in the heavens. William RichardLethaby, the only observer yet to offer a tnily imaginativealternative to Pau.sanias's explanation, ventured that "it musthave re.semhled the deep still sea, the sea of heaven whichbore the throne of Zeus, and in which the stars floated.""'"'

COSMIC FLOORS IN ANTlyUITY AND TUK MIDDLE ACES

25 "Throne of Saint Mark," S. Marco, Venice, 7th century?(artwork in the public domain)

However much they differ in materials, execntion, andpolish, these Egyptian, Greek, and Byzantine floors, a.s well asRichard Wil.son's equivalent at the Saatchi Galleiy, share acommon premise. Their liquid surfaces dissolve the floor andmake the rock bottom drop out of the world of the spectator,who is then induced to tread a precarious line throughextraterrestrial space. More particularly, in the case of HagiaSophia, the conjunction of marble and sea explicitly collapsesthe antitypes of creation, sea and mountain, into one horizonon which human finitude is set between lucid firmness andtimbrous chao.s.

At Hagia Sophia, the exploitation of book-matching gaverise to a .stony sea that emerged from an inherent ordering.This miracle of art erased the indices of facture and helpedsacralize the interior by assimilating the new creation to theproduct of artful Nature rather tlian man-made artwork. Nofigura! imagery had appeared in Hagla Sophia's mosaics

2 6 t l e n e s i s m p o l a , S . M > u v . . , I . J i l i c c i U i i i y ( i i r i w o r k i n l l i i -public domain; photograph by the author)

before the ninth century; in short, this was an aniconic floorfor an aniconic church.'"*' The floor therefore avoided anyof the pagan connotations of the personiiied "Sea" that was,for example, the focus of the church of the Apostles atMadaba (578-79; Fig. SO).""* But, as I remarked at the ouLset,although the imageless paving of Hagia Sophia preordainedno specific narratives, its received materiality and funda-mental situation virttially predestined a proper range ofreference.

For a start, the worshiper who headed across the waters tothe sanctuar)- in Hagia Sophia, or Grado, for that matter,retraced the steps of Peter in his march of faith across thestormy Sea of Galilee to meet Christ "the rock" (Matthew14.29); Ghrist had quelled the chaotic waves of tlii.s sea just ashis Father had stayed those at Clreation.'"^' To slip beneaththe surface would be to fall from God's favor, to await, likeJonah, reclamation from the depths; in fact, several odes inthe later Byzantine canon call on salvation in paraphrases ofJonah's prayer in the belly of the whale.""* Moreover, it waswith this very biblical event in mind thai a niuth-centuiychronicler would have us believe ihat fialla Placidia. after ashipwreck in 424, built a new church to Saini Jolni theEvangelist in Ravenna. Below mosaics depicting her [>erils onthe open sea she had a pavement laid thai was "eveiywhere awavy sea [undosum undique mare]," as though it were "stirredby the winds, to produce the image of a tempestuousstorm."'"'

In S. Marco, pausing at the crossing is like waiting beforetlie glassy sea of God's throne room. The same was once truefor the abbey church of Monteca.ssino, which hoped to sur-pass Hagia Sophia and whose floor wa.s probably laid byC'onstiuuinopolitan crafLsmen (Fig. 10). As Alfanus of Saler-no's contemporary poem on iLs splend(jr"s sijigs: "Here thegreen and porphyretic stones make the alabasters shine; andat the same time the Proconnesian paving matches these

642 ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 2007 VOLUMt LXXXIX NUMBER A

27 Temple of Zens. Olympia, plan wilh the pool of oil markedin black (redrawn from Curtius et al., Olympia: Die Ergehnisse d£rvon dern Deutschen Reirh veranstalteten Ausgrabung. . . . , Tafilbilder,vol. 1 [1892J, pi. 11)

marbles to each other in such a way that this work maybecome a glassy sea."'""

For others. Hagia Sophia's floor recalled the words ofJob. The lector who chanted the Kontakion (homiletic an-them) on its second inauguration on Christmas Day 562,from the amboin the middle of the "sea," told the masses that"in the beginning the firmament solidified in the midst of thewaters . .. with a flowing snbstance, as it is believed to be,above i t . . . . But here things are better and utterly wonderful:no flux, for the favor of God is the foundation on which resLsthe temple of God's Wisdom."'"'* The lector sang in lucid,contemporary Greek, but when Paul the Silentiary lecturedto the more select crowd of emperor and patriarch a fewweeks later, from some gallery vantage overlooking the "sea,"he declaimed Homeric hexameters.'^** The linguistic shiftreflected a revived republic of letters and the court culturethat sponsored them, but it was also a timeless, epic voicerising to the heroic ambitions of the edifice, and one thatsimultaneou.sly sought to harmonize Greek and biblical an-tiquity. Homer himself, like Virgil, had already been subject

to intense exegesis by theologians exhuming the proto-Chris-tian allegory supposedly buried in his texts."' Describing thetides of the populace that virtually assault the priest in theirfervor to reach the Word (meaning Scripture, but at theplace of the spoken word, tbe pulpit). Paul the Silentiarydraw.s not only on Homer's figure of waves of Achaiansbesieging Troy but also on the common sermonizing meta-phor of the fertile island of the church as a "rock of faith" ina raging sea of sin. Likewise, when Paul speaks of the voyageof the faithful across the sea to the safe haven of the sanctu-ar)'. he calls on a tradition as old as classical literatnrc itself,referring not only to life's tiavails but even the struggles ofliterary composition.'^"^ It is all the more appropriate thatPaul declaims in the voice of the Odyssey, for this was an epicthat even classical commentators suspected lay beyond thedomain of factuality (exokmnismos), since Odysseus's wander-ings took place on that immense Ocean, which lay beyondearth's limits and touched the heavens. And when the lectorof the Kontakion describes the windows of Hagia Sophia as"spiritual luminaries fixed to the divine firmament," he addsthat they enlighten "in the night of life those drifting abouton the ocean of sin." Paul the Silentiary even claims that thechurch surpasses the Pharos of Alexandria." We have eveiyright to suspect that both authors juxtapose the still waters ofthe church interior with the peripheral tenitoiy of sin asocean in which even the best sailor may lose his course,"''words that reverberated with Hagia Sophia's actual siting, aman-made mountain that dominated the straits of the Bos-porus and the Sea of Marmara.

Coda: English Arehitecture and Neo-ByzantinismBernardo Bonsignori is the ta.st Western traveler to haverecorded the patterns of Hagia Sophia's marine paving, buteveu before it returned to actual view in 19S4 it resurfac ed inthe Western consciousness through Joseph von Hammer-

28 Temple of Zeus, cross section(aiter Curtius et al., Olympia, vol. 1,pi. 9)

COSMIC FLOORS IN ANTIQl.'irY AND THF. MFDDt.E AGKS Q43

29 Richard Wilson, 20:50, 1987(photograph provided by the SaatchiGalleiy, Londou)

Ptirgstail's quotation of Pseudo-Codinus in his 1822 guide toIstanbul and it.s environs. Tbus, wben the British architectGeorge Edmund Street (1824-1881) visited Venice a fewyears later, he remembered the book's passing description ofthe floor of Hagia Sophia as a stormy sea, and took themetaphor as evidence that the rising and falling .surface ofS. Marco's much settled floor was intentional."''

In Venice this idea was nothing new. Since at least themid-«ighteenth century ciceroni had been telling GrandTourists that sea legs were needed to cross S. Marco's shiftingfloor.'"' But Street became so infatuated with the notion thatVenetian masons had crafted the undulatious of this pavingtliat he lectured publicly on the subject in 1859, and by 1879his unwavering faith in its authenticit\' led him to lobby theItalian government against proposals to re-lay the floor. Hewas too late to save the left aisle, which is noticeablysmoother, and the controversy raged beyond his deatb intothe late 1880s."^ It was in the eye of this political storm,according to Richard Ormond's new dating, that John SingerSargent painted an internal view of S. Marco and devotedovei half the canvas to a moist and rolling floor (Fig. 31).""

"Instead of being laid level and even," Street says, the floor"swells up and down as thotigh its stirface were tlie petrifiedwaves of the sea, ou which those who embark in the ship ofthe church may kneel in prayer with safety, the undulatingsurface serving only to remind them of the stormy sea oflife.""^ It was for the same stated symbolism diatjohn FrancisBentley (1839-1902), architect of London's neo-ByzantineWestminster Caihedral (begtm 1895), catne to design itsfloor as a Proconnesian pool darting with every variety of fishthat was, he said, "promised to St. Peter's net" (Fig. 32).'^"Besides the heritage of mmmma. Street and Bentley werereckoning with another etymology, the nave as "navis" {ship)

3 0 ( . i l u u t h 1)1 l l i c A j x i s i l c s . M i u l . i l K i . J n L ( i . i i L ( c i i l i ; ! !

Abyssos, 578-79 (artwork in the public domain)of

and its cargo of souls on life's sea of troubles. Whether theyknew it or not, the meaning they imputed to the floor wentback many centuries, appealing in tlie writings of manychurch fathers, including Chromatius, who was bishop ofAquileia around the ttn n of the fifth century and thereforedelivered his elaborate sermons on the theme overlookingthe cavorting fish and fishermen in that nave.'^'

Bentley himself drew his ideas directly from Lethaby(1857-1931), who had quoted Street's opinion, though crit-

544 BULLETIN DECEMBER 2007 VOLUME t.XXXIX NUMBER 4

31 John Singer Sargent, Interior ofS. Mari-fi, ca. 1880-82, oil on canvas,21 X 28'/^ in. Piivale collection(artwork in the public domain;pholograph provided by RichardOrmond)

32 John Francis Bentley, designs for the paving of WestminsterCathedral, 1901. Private collection

ically, on the floor of S. Marco. Strangely, the watery floorfigures only in passing in Lethaby's Sancta Saphia in Constanti-nople (1894), but it had been a prime example in the chapter"On Pavements as Seas" in his Architecture, Mysticism and Mythof 1891.'^^ Because Lethaby's book was intended to prosely-tize architects and general public alike, it was devoid offootnotes, but it assembled what biblical, ClassicaJ, Byzantine,

33 Robert Weir Schtiltz, paving plan, Hosios Lukas. BritishSchool at Athens (artwork in the public domain)

COSMIC FLOORS I.N ANTIQUITY AND THF, MIDDLE AOES

34 Robiri VV'cii Sthultz (st'alcti) and Sitintv liai iisk-y,1888-89 (photogTaph in the public domain, provided by theWarburg Institute, London)

and Arabic sources he knew or were translated for him byfriends to argue that floors had often been conceived as"seas." l^thaby's academic colleagues paid no attention to his

obsenations, and they have languished in the doldrnms eversince. But they succeeded in catalyzing a band of youngerarchitects at the close of the century to seek some exit fromthe sterility of Victorian historicism by plumbing the mysticpotential latent in architectural representation.'""^' Some ofthese younger men were in.spired to seek out the arts andcrafts of the Byzantine mason in situ. William Sykes George(1881-1962), for example, pnjduced under the patronage ofthe fourth Marquess of Bute a meticulous suivey of HagiosDemetrios in Thessaloniki before it was consumed by fire in1917.''-* Robert Weir Schult/ (1860-1951) published severaltexts on Byzantine art at ilie turn of the centui7 (Fig. 33) andengaged in an extensive photographic survey of Byzantinemonimients of Greece, whose plates have only recently cometo light (Fig. 34).' ' ' ' Schultz in particular became an aficio-nado of Lethaby and later wrote that the latter's book"opened up to us younger men a hitherto undreamed ofworld of romance in architecture. . . . I was about to do asmall private chapel, into it went a pavement like the sea anda ceiling like the sky, as an accepted tradition."'^* Schultz, infact, designed and executed at least two marine pavements{both for the Butes), one of which sumves in WestminsterCathedral (Fig. 35 ) . ' "

Most of this chapel's floor is taken up by book-matchedpaneling with runny veining, but this paneling is skirted by aninlaid meander—signifying the ocean as the stream that en-circles the earth and marks its limiLs—through which marblefish and crabs zodiacally swim to clinch tlie particular aquaticnuance of the chapel, its dedication to Saint Andrew as"fisher of souls." The design may now seem an overly literalreclamation of tradition, somewhat cartoonish, even a bit ofa "cold shower," as the critic of the London Timfs put it on itsunveiling in 1915. But inlaid marble fish had once orna-mented the pavement of the Pantokrator in Istanbul, and tlu-

35 Weir Schultz, Chapel of St.Andrew. Westminster Cathedral,1910-15 (photograph by tbe author)

5 4 6 '^^^ BUI,I,F,T1N DI'ICF-MBKR 2007 VOLUME LXXXIX NLIMBFR 4

36 Basilica of Doumctios {HagiosDemetrios), NikopoHs (Actiuni),mosaic in the north wing of" thetransept, ca. 5*25-50 (from A.Philadelphius. "AnaskaphaiNikopoleos," Archaiolo^ke Ephemeris,1916: figs. 6-14 after p. 72)

37 Maya Lin, Vietnam Memorial, Washington, D.C., 1982(photograph provided by Justin Watt, justinsomnia.org)

year in which the Westminster floor was inaugurated wit-nessed the unearthing of an unforeseen prototype at Niko-polis (Actiuni) in western Greece (Fig. 36).'"^^ The transeptfloor of the basilica of Doumetios (ca. 525-50) is also encir-cled by highly realistic, mosaic stream.s with fish, waterbJrds,and even fishermen, and the inscription conveniently spellsout, "Here you see the immense and splendid ocean thatliolds in its gtasp the earth."'^^

TransmissionsAlthough it is only coincidence, there is a certain poeticjustice in the fact that after the closing of the temples, Phidi-as's statue of Zeus came to be transferred to the palace ofLausus in Constantinople only a few stteets away from HagiaSophia.' "^ The effigy was destroyed by fire in 475 CE, half acentuiy before the memor)' of its original location could havehad any influence ou the articulation of the Hagia Sophia,but the effigy had already infiltrated Byzantine consciousnessby becoming the most popular tnodel for the Pantokrator,the colossal face or half-length figure tliat once looked downfrom the domes of all Byzantine churches.^^^

The phantom of Phidia.s's stattie also hatmts Wash-ington, U.C, since at the end of the National Mall. AbrahamLincoln sits enthroned in a Greek temple at the head of areflecting pool btiilt to the scale of the city. The LincolnMemorial was an intellectual recollection of a great liistoricalmodel, but to one side stretches a monument that providesan unconscious example of the transmissions explored here,of materiality, the ideas that materials cany with them, tliesubstances they represent, and the sensations they provoke.The Vietnam Memorial by Maya Lin (Fig. 37) is dedicated tt)all Vietnam veterans, living and dead, and in its sepulchralaspect makes the most direct claims on the earth, becominga coal face as it were. Bttt its high polish also dis.solves mate-

COSMIC FLOORS IN ANTIQUITY AND THF. MIDOI.F. AdES

rial boundaries to create a virtual wall and literally provide aplace for reflection.'^^ It is an experience accessible to allvisitors to the memorial, who feel that somehow they gazethrough its surface back into the past, or laterally into aparallel world.

Fabio Batry (PliD, Columbia University) is lecturer in art history althe University of St. Andrews. He has published studies ranging fromthe Baroque dome and (he metaph\sics of light lo the urbanisticalienation of the Roman ghettos, from architecture and liturgy to thearchitecture and painting of deiiotional solitude [School of Art His-tory, University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland KY16 9AR, fmbWst-andrews. ac. uk}.

with the beauty of the craft.sman's art. Yet, it does not standaltogether cut off in the central space, like a sea-girt i.sland, butit rather resembles some wave-lashed land, extended throughthe while-capped billows by an islhmus into the middle of thesea, and beingjoined fast at one point il cannot be a true island.Projecting into the watery deep, it is still joined to the mainlandcoast by the isthmus, as by a cable. . . .

Here tbe priest who brings (be good tidings passes along uponhis return from tlic ambo, holding aloll tlie golden b(«»k; andwhile the crowd strives in honor oC the immaculate God to touchthe sacred book with their lips and hands, the coundess waves ofthe surging people break around. Thus like an isthmus beaten bywaves on eithei" side, does this space strctc h out, and it leads tbepriest who descends from the lofty crags of this vantage point tothe shrine of the holy table.

Appendix 1 Appendix 2

Paul the Silentiary on the ambo of Hagia Sophia (563)Paul le Silentiaire: Description de Sainte-Sophie de Constnnlinoj)le, ed.Marie-Christine Fayant and Pierre Chuvin (Die; A Die, 1997),146-49:

224 'Q5 &e 9aXacraL0taLV iv225 8aL6aXtr| ajax'cv^aai Kai duTreXoev'Tt KopLi|ipw

Kal SaXepip Xet ioii L Kai evSevSpOLatv epiTTuatS'Tr|y 8e TrapaTrXwoyTe? k-noX^iCdvavv oSiTat,dXyea pouKoXeoi'Te? aXiKjiiiToto (iepi(ii'Ti5*ouTOj ciTTetpeaLoio KOT' €v6ta p.€CTaa jieXdQpou

230 Xdeat TTupYwfleis avabm&aUos \€i\iiJiui XiQuiv Kai KdXXet TeNal lr|p ou8' oye trdiXwpoi aXiCwwoiati' onoitog fj6eai I'TJdXX' dpa pdWou eoiKei' dXippo9i(}) TLVL yaLT),

235 ni' TToXiou TTpopXfiTa St' oi6(iaTO? laSjiog eXa|itaaaTioL>? TTtXdytaoL, \iiT)'5 6' diTo Se

r) 8e QaXaoaioiOLv CTTLTTpoOeouaa pee9poLg239 laG iLtH' dyxLdXoio247 "EvQev UTTOTpoTTd6r|i

SioL-iaaeTOt. 'IeM.ev'Tjg Se9eoi)

250 x i tf^ io'* iraXdnas Upfji' TTepi pipXov epeToai,KiinQTa Ki\'V\i€vii)U TTeptdyyuTaL daTTCTa Siijitiiv.Kai p" 6 lief diict iTrXfiyi TiTaiveTai tLKeXo? iXwpos, dinQwbiV TTpo? dvaKTopa aejii'd

254 dvBpa KaTa9pa)aK0VTa

(Translation adapted from Cyril A. Mango, The Art of the Byzan-tine Empire, 312-1453: Sources and Documents [Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1972], 95-96):

And as an island rises amidst the waves of the sea, adorned withcornfields, and vineyards, and blossoming meadows, andwooded heights, while tbe travelers who sail by are gladdened byit and are .soothed of tlie anxieties and exertions of tbe sea; so intbe midst of the boundless temple rises upright tbe tower-likeambo of stone adorned widi its meadows of marble, wrougbt

Michael the Deacon (ca. 1140-50)(Vril Mango andjohn Parker, "A Twelfth-Cfntury Description ofSt. Sopbia," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 4 (1960): 237. 239:

TO 8dTTe5oi' 66 TreXayos oXov KOL T^) TrXaTei Kal Trj'fi* Kudveat ydp Tii^es Sivai Tots XiBois i

, ws et Kal XiBoy KaGfjKas e l sav€K{vx\aas. TOOTO TO TreXayos di'e'

KOXTTOV ei? di^apaivovTa fiXioy, Kaleyou TI J TTpoXapowTi, Kal aXXou eir'

(ouTto ydp Kam TWV e-mKuaewv yiveTai |ir|auyxwpou|i€you e^ di^TtTTvoia? TOO delKujiOTos pT^yi'uaeai), r\ tepd Q^^vb6v\\Kal dXXri pa9|ils CTT' dXXri tieTewpiCeTaf Tatg 5'dycDTdTOJ pa9|XLat KUpToufxevats KupaTcaSuis Kaldpyupou

The floor is like the sea, both in its width and in its form; forcertain blue waves are raised up against ibe sione, just asthough you had cast a pebble into waier and had disturbed itscalm. This sea has broken out into a gulf to eastward, and onewave having been, LUS it were, piled up ag-ainst iLs prede<es.sor,and another against tlie next (for tluis also docs it liappenduring floods, the ever-approaching wave never allowing itself tobe broken by the contraiy wind), ihe sacred Sphendone hasbeen formed into steps, and one step is raised up above another,and the highest steps which curve in billows have been fl(x>dedover by an eflftision of silver worth many talents.

NotesThis article is based on chapter fi nf my PhD disseriation "Painiing in Stone;The Symbolism of Colored Marbk's in the Visiuil Aris and I.itrramic fromAnliqihty until lhc F.nlighiennK'ni.- siibmiiicd lo the Deparimciu ol" ArtHistoiT and Archaeology ai OiliiinbJH Uiiivci.siiy (^007) and sn|icr\isfcl byProfessor Joseph C;onnors. Research cm the (hnjXiT tn'^an as a telUiw ai theSummer Instiiuif in liumaniiies. Venicf IniernationHl Univci-siiy ('J(H)2). andwas completed as David E. Fiiilfy Fellow at ihe Onier lor Adraiui'd Siudy inthe- Visual Arts (^1)02-3) and as (Iraduytf Clniaiorial hitern in ihe Dcparimentof Sculpture at ihe National Gallen' ol Art, WiLshinKlon, D.C ('.J(IOS-4). Itcould not have been completed wiihmit the rcsoiiices of Ihe I.ihran andInlcr-Lihrary Loan offict- of the National (lallfiy. where I benelited Irom theresourcefulness of Ted Dal/iell and Tom Maj ill. Tlianks also RO lo Dor<iihy

648 ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 2007 VOt.UME LXXXIX NrMBF.R 4

Bosomworth, Faya Causey, Roben C'oates-Stcvens, Barry' Flood, Peter Gatadza,Meg Rosier. Marcus Milwrighi. Nicholas Penny, and Gavin Siamp for everysort of assistance. I am especially indebted to Robin Middleton and RichardWittman, who independently recommended I read W. R. Leihaby. Versions ofthe paper were given (iii 200.S-4) at the National Gallery of Art, the BritishSchool at Rome, the Medieval Studies Conference ai Kalamazoo, Michigan,and Duinbarton Oaks, where I profited from the response of Eunice Daugh-temian Maguire and Henry Maguire. Richard Brilliant and Caroline Elamcommented on early drafts, and, as ever, its scope was enriched by continuale-mail exchanges with Peter Carl.

Unless otherwise indicated, translations are mine.

1. The literature on Hagia Sophia is vast, btit see mainly Rowland Main-stone, Hap^a Sitphia: Archilefture. Structure and Liturgy ofjustivian s GreatChurch (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988); and \V. Eugene Klein-bauer, Snint Sofihia at ('.onstantinoplp: Sin^iUiriter in Mundo (Dublin,N.H.: William L. Bauhaii. 1999). For older Uteraiure, see Lioba Theis,"Zur Geschichie der wissenschaftlichen Eiforschting der HagiaSophia," in Dii- Haf^a S<yphi<i in Islanlml: BiliUn- axis \eclis jahrhundertenund (iosparf Fossalis Itestauriming drrjnhre 1847 his 1849, ed. VolkerHoffmann (Bern: Peter Lang, 1999), 55-80. For the building's afler-life, see Gulru Necipoglii, "Tlie Life of an Imperial Monument: HagtaSophia after Byzaniitim." in Hngia Si>j>hia from the A^ of jiistiniiin to thePresmt, ed. Ahmel S. ( akmak and Robert Mark (Cambridge: Clam-bridge University Press, 1992), 195-225; and Robert S. Nelson, HagiaSophia, IS^0-l9'>0: Holy Wisdom. Moderr) Monutnent (Chicago: Univer-sity of Chicago Press, 2004). The ninth-century jVorrflto asserts thatJustinian claimed that he had "outdone Solomon," but the compari-son is also implicit in the Kntitakion of .'jfi2 (for both, see below).

2. John Onians, "Abstraction and Imagination in l^te Antiquity." ArtHistory 3 (1980): 1-23; and James Trilling, "The Image Not Made byHands and tbr Byzantine Way of Seeing," in T/i^ Holy Fare atid the Par-adox of Rffyrfsmtaiiori: Papers from a CoUoijuium Hel4 at the BihliuthfcaHtniziana. Rome and the VilUi Spelman. Florence. 1996. ed. Herbert L.Kfssler and Gerhardt Wolf (Bologna: Nuowi Alfa, 1998), 109-28.Onians (8-9) cites Paul the Silentiary and the Narratio on the wateryfloor.

S. Pliny, Histmia Naturalis {HN} 36.184. For the techniques, see Vitru-\dus, De archiUrtura {De arch.) 1.7.

4. For a provocative outline, see Richard Brilliant, Roman Arl: From theRepublic to QmsUintirtp (London: Phaidon, 1974), 135-48; evocativelydeveloped in Norman Brj'son, Looking at the Ovnlitoked: Four Essays cmSlill Life Painting (London: Reaktion, 1990), 33-34. For a magisterialsurvey, see Katherine M. D. Diinbabin, Mosaics of the Greek and RomanW'nrld (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

5. Federico Guidobaldi and Alessandra Guiglia Guidobaldi, Pavimenlimarmorri di Rtimn. dal A'' cil IX seroh (Vatican City: Pontificio Istituto diArcheologia Cristiana, 1983), passim, esp. 19-58. The only exceptionseems to be S. Puden^iana (see below at n. 21).

6. Henry Magtiire, "Christians, Pagans, and the Representation of Na-ture." in Bege^ng von Heidentum und Christentum in spiitantiken Agfptcn:Riggisberger Berichte 1, ed. Dietrich Willers (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftimg,1993), 131-60, esp. 132-53.

7. Ernst Kitzinger, "Mosaic Pavements in the Greek East and the Ques-tion of a 'Renaissance' under Justinian," in Actes dit Vie Congrks Inter-ntitioncd d't'.tuiies Byzantines, Paris, 27 juillfl-2 aoUl 1948 (Paris: ComiteFranfais dcs Etudes Byzantines. 1950), vol. 2, 209-23. On Byzantinemarble (not mosaic) floors, see Semai Eyice, "Two Mosaic [sic] Pave-menLs from Bithynia," Dumhartcm Ocihs Papers 17 (1963): 373-83; Ales-sandra Guigiia Guidobaldi, "Note preliminari per inia definizionedell'arte pa\imentale costantinopolitana dei primi secoli," in XV7. In-tematimialiv Hyiatitinhtenkcingrex.'i, Wien, 4—9. Oklnber }98l: Akten, ed.Herbert Hunger (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie derWissetischaften, 1981), 403-13; Urs Peschlow, "Zum byzantinischenopus sectile-Boden," in Bfilrage zur Allertumskunde Klrinaxims: Featschriftfin Kurt Bittel, ed. Rainer M. Boehmer and Harald Haupimann(Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1983), 435-77, pis. 89-93; GuigliaGuidobaldi. "Tradizione locale c influenze bii'antlne nei pavimenticosmate.scbi." Bolletlino d'Arte^in (1984): 57-72; idem, "VOpus Seclilepavinientale in area bizantina," in Aiti del II colUupiio dell'AssociaziimeItalinna per lo Studio e la Consenmiione del Monaico, Rai'eima. 29 aprile-3 maggio 1993. ed. Raffaella Farioli Campanati (Ravenna: Edizioni delGirasole, 1994), ti43-63; idem, "La decorazione pavinientale bizantinain eta paleologa," in L'lirtf di liisanzio e I'ltalia al tempo del PnkaUigi,126I-M53. ed. ,Ajitonio Iacobini and Mauro Della V'alle (Rome: Ar-gos. 1999), 321-58; Henry Maguire, "The Medieval Flooi-s of theGi eat Palace," in Byzimtine Constantinoplt-: Monuments, Trtfmgraphy. andEveryday Life, ed. Nevra Necipoglu (Leiden: Brill .Academic Ptiblishei-s,2001), L53-74: and Yildiz Demiriz, f>i^i/il hizam dfiseme mozuikleri [In-terlaced Byzantine Mosaic Pavements] (Istanbul: Yonim, 2002). Themosaic floor in the Great Palace of C^onstantinople probably dates lo

abotit 500-550. For a summary of the controversy over its dating, seeDunbabin, Mosaics, 232-35.

8. Cyril Mango and John Parker, "A Twelfth-Onmry Description iifSt. Sophia," Dumbarton OciMs Papers 14 (1960): 243: and George P.Majeska, "Notes on the Archaeology of St. Sophia at CJonstantinople:The Cireeii Marble Bands on the Fluor," Dumbartcm Oaks I'apm 32(1978): 299. For a meticulous record of ihe paving, see Robert L. \'anNice, Saint Siyphia in Istanbul: An Architectural Surrey. 2 vols. (Washing-ton, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1965-86), vol. 2, pi. 10. The best aerialphotograph is in Mainstiine, Hagia Sophia. 226, fig. 50.

9. When tlie church was refurbished (.558-62), "for the lloor [Jtisiinian]was unable to find slabs of sucb greai size and variety, and so he sentManasses [or Narses] . . . to Proconnesus to cut slabs chat would de-note tbe earth, while ibe green ones signify the rivers that How intothe sea." The same text asserts earlier thai the whole lloor is a seacrossed by the rivers, which is not incompatible with the topographyof Cosmas Indicoplenstes and olhers, who thought the rivers of para-dise poured across the Ocean like aqueducts (cf. Psalms 23:2: "For itwas He who founded ii upon ihe seas / and planied il upon the riv-ers beneatb"). The pavement strips are also called pfiinin, wliich inthis context might well be Iranslated as "yard lines."

Tlie Nanatio is in Tbeodor Preger, Scriplores ori^num Constantinofioli-tanarum. (1901-7: reprint. New York: Amo Pre.ss, 1975), 74-108; trans.Gilbei t Dagron, Constantimypb imciginaire.: Etucks sur If recufil des "I'a-tria" (Paris: Pres.ses Universitaires dc France, 1984), 207. Commentaryin Majeska, "Notes," 299-308; partial trans, in Cyril A. Mango, The ArtoJ the Btzantine Empire. 312-1453: Sources and Documents (Toronto:Ptentice-Hall, 1972), 96-102. For redactions of the text, see EvangeliaVitti, ed.. Die Erz&hlung Ulier den Ban der Hagici Sophia in Konstantinopel:Krituche Edition mehrerer Veisionen (Amsterdam: A. M. Hakker, 1986),462.10-16. 67.5-8 (a): 486.2-4, 487.7-11 (k); 303.16-20 (f); 561.1-5(n): 578.23-28 (x): .598.14-21 {<[); 616.23-25 (y). The other conspicu-ous exception to Proconnesian in tbe nave is the huge roia (oromphalion) with orbiting loiae inserted possibly about 1200; see AlfonsM. Schneider, Byzanz: Vomrbeiten zur Topographic ttncl ArrhAolngie derStudt (Berlin: Archaologisches instiiut des Deutschen Reiches, 1936),34-37.

10. Rachdji de Direto decani Lundoniensis ofmra histmica / The Historical Worksof Master Ralph de Diceto. Dean of London, ed. William Stubhs, 2 vnls.(London: Longtiian, 1876), vol. I, 9.3-94: "quatttior aiitcin venas viH-des quas posuit in pavimento tetnpli nomina\it iii'"". Flumina quaeexeunt de Paradiso." The Nanatio wds known to another Englishchronicler, Ralph Niger, though he does not cite the section on therivers: Radulfi Nigri Chnmica: The Chronicles of Ralph Nign\ ed. RobertAnstrnther (London:J. Russell Smith, 1851). De Diceto could not un-derstand phinai. which he rendered venas. Rene Marichal, " 1 ^ con-struction de Sainte-Sophia de Constantinople dans l'anonyme grec(xe siecle?) et les versions vieux-nisses," Byzanlinoslavica 21 (1960):257, 259.

11. "They paved the earth with a raw marble of many coloui-s. in such away that, if one looks at the Einpyretmi [dome] it .seems to be a skyfull of stars and, if one looks at the pavement from the Empyreum, [itseems] a sea in a storm. .. . [Mehmet] decided to ascend lo the con-vex plane . . . from the apertures wbich opened into the galleries ofthe intermediate Onors he stopped to admire the pavement whichresembles a petrified sea." Beg Tursiin, Tarih-i Eblfetli (Istanbul: Ah-met Ihsan ve Surekasi, 1330 [1962]), .56; transliterated texi in latincharacters in A. Mertol Tnlum, 'I'ursun Bey: Tarihi FJ)U'l-feth (Istanbul:Baha Matbaas. 1977), 63-64; Italian trans. Agostino Pertusi, La cadutadi Costaniinopoli, 2 vols. (Milan: Arnaldo Mondadori, 1976), vol. 1,329-30, lines 666-719.

12. .•Vgah Sirri Levend, ed., Tiirk Edebiyatinda Sehr-Engizler ve Sehr-EnpzlerdeIstanbul (Istanbul: Istanbul Felhi Dernegi, 1958), 76-78; cited in Neci-poglu, "Life of an Imperial Monument," 202 n. 15.

13. "Tile pavement is completely made from marble slabsjust like St. Pe-ter's in Rome, but these are sawn and then bedded and placed insuch a way that tlie whole floor seems covered with ciambellcitti, so welldoes it display those waves [el pavimento f tutto di Icipide di mnnno chomeHan Hero di Rvma, ma seghate e poi muratr et adaptate in modo che tuttopare coperto di ciambelhtti tanto l>ene dimostra qiii'lle onrle]": Bernardo Bon-signori to Niccolo Michelowi, September 1498, Biblioteca NazionaleCentrale Firenzf, MS Mag!. Xui, 93. fol. 18r. See also Eve Boi-sook."The Travel of Bernardo Michelozzi and Bonsignore Bonsigiiuri inthe I.evant (1497-1498)."yoMnirt/ of the Warhurg and Courtauld Institutes36 (1973): 173 n. 95. CiamMlotto is defined as "cloth made from goat-skin [or hide]; some call it in I^tin rapripilium, and it's made wave-like. An tmtiulating cloth"; in Vocabolario degli Airad-emici delict Crusca(Venice: CJiovanni Giacomo Hertz, 1686), 192. The term is also fre-quently used about silks: Achille Vitali, IM. modct a Venezici attraverso isecoli: Uisico ragionato (Venice: Filippi, 1992), 109-11.

14. William R. Lethaby and Harold Swainson, The Church o/Sancta Sophia,Constantinople: A Study of Byzantine Building (London: Macmitlan.

COSMrC FLOORS IN ANTIQIMTY .AND TEIK MtllDI.F Af.KS 5 4 9

1894). 196-97; and George P. Majeska. Russian Travelera lo Cmistanti-nof)lf in the thurleenlh nntl Fijifrnth C^ituries (Washinfijton, D.C: Dtun-barton Oaks, 1984), 234. Some visitors evfii claimed 10 have visitedthem: Dagron, (.Umstantinople imaginaitr, 282^8,'!.

15. Mango, Art of the ByzatUine Empire, 102; and William Richard I^tliaby,Arcliiteclure. Mystieism ami Myth (l.ondon: Pt-rcival, 1891), 176-77.

16. Cniistatiiinc Rhodius (931/944) lecords ihat "Procoiiiicstis has .sent. . . the slabs ihat you see set in (he floor" (TzKaKwi 8e FlpoLKovTjwos TJy^i-nav <}>cp€v !*•; et? JTQTOV, y' 'ifrrpuxraf 01 Atflo^oot); Df.inipiiim desormtres d'art ft de V{-^i$e des .Seiinls Apdlm ilf Conslantinopte: Pohtw im vmiiimhiijueM par ('.im.stantin le Rhodin}, puhliP d'aprH k matiusnil du Mmil-Athos. cd. Emilc Lcgrand and Theodore Rcinach (Paris: E. Lt-roux,1896), 56. lines 670-71. Nikolaos Mesarites (1198/1203) commentsthat "the whole lloor of the church is drawn tip in four sqtiares [tliefour arms of the church], which are separated from one another by 3curved outline, and is paved with white marble"; CUanvilk" Downey,"Nikolaos Mesarites: Description of the Church of the Holy Apostlesat (. o II Stan tin opt e," Traiuaitiitris 0/ the Ammcan PhilmopbimI Society 47,no. 6 (1957): 890, 914.

Hagia Eiiphemia en to Hippodromo was paved with large slabsprobably divided by transverse strips like Hagia .Sopbia: Rtidolf Nau-matin and Hans Bt-lting. Die Eupkrmin-Kirriw am Hiftfrndnnn ;u Istanbulund ihre Fresken (Berlin: Gebruder Mann, 1966), 36-37, 46-47, andplan; and Guiglia Citiidnbaldi. "Note preliuiiiiari," 404-6, 407.

17. Paul \. LIndei-wood, Tiie Kariye Pjfimi, 4 vols. (London: Pantheonliooks, 1967-75), vol. 1, 17-20, pi. 9; Robert G. Ousterhout, The Arrhi-tertUTf of the Kariyr Cnmii in Isinnhtit (WashiiigtOTi, D.C: DumbartonOaks, 1987), 39-45, 66, 137-39. figs. SO-M; Giilglia Guidobaldi,"Decorazione pavimentale," 322-24 and nn. 18-19. Hans Belting,Cyril A. Mango, and Doiila Moiiriki, The MoMtics and Fmcors of St.Alary Pnmmakaiistos (Irthiye Cnmii) at hlanhut (Wasbingloii, D.C:Dumbarton Oaks. I97S), 20-21, figs. 6. 7. 9.

18. Tbe .Anonymous .Vmenian Pilgrim (1375-1434) noted ihat "therhurrh is beautiliil, sii is the Lburch's floor; iLs name is Pantan;issa. Amarble Jarel is made like ibf w;ives of the sea"; Sebastian Brock, "AMedieval Aimeiiian Pilgrim s Description of Constantinople." Rn-iirde.\ f.ludes Armhiiennes 4 (1967): 87, 90, 95. "Facet" is not Armenian.but Maje.ska. Russian Travelfrs, 377, asstimes tbe iloor must be in-tended. Howevtr. "facet" may be a loan word derived from "facade."

19. Charles Diehl. Marcel Le Tourneau, and Henri Saladln. /.c! T/wnunumtnchrfitiens lie Sabnie/tte (Paris: E. Leroiix. 1918), 3.'>-rj8, pis. 3-12. Synop-sis of the dating is in ERychia Kourkoutidoii-Nikolaidoii. Ailmn>f>oieltK:The Great Cliutrh of Ihf Mother of O)d (Tbessaloniki: Institute for BalkanStudies. 1989). The remodeling (ca. 620) is thought to have bei'n lim-ited to the superstrtKinrc. The Proconnesian slabs. 39% by 94'// in.(100 by 240 cnil. were ronlined to the nave, a.s opits .(pcdfcpaving sur-vives in the sotith aisle: W. Eugene Kleinbauer. "Remarks on tbeBuilding Histon' of tbe Acheiro[X)ietos Church at Thessaloniki," inArte.\ du Xe (hnf>rfs Intmiatiotial d'.Arehfiotoffe Ckrftienne, Thfssnhmiqiie,2Ssef>tr'm/fte-4 ortohre I9H0, 2 vols. (Vatican City: Pontificio Istituto diArcbeologia Cristiana. 1984), vol. 2, 241-57, esp. 43.

20. Cf. the Oratorio della Pesca at Aquileia: Fabrizio Bisconti, "Considera-lioni iconologiche sulla decorazione musiva dei cosidetti 'oratori' diAqtiileia." in Atti det III rolhqitio detrAssociazione Italiana f>n- lo Studio ela Omseni/izione ilel Mosaiai, Hordi^hern, 6-10 dirrmlire 1993, ed. Fede-rko Guidobaldi and Alcssaiidra Guiglia Gtiidobaldi (Bordighera: Isli-tiito Internazionale di Stiidi Liguri, 1996). 273-86, with bibliography.

21. Cblor photograph in Antonio Petrignani, IM Basitira di S. Pudentiannin Roma sectrndo gti sravi rermtemente eseguili (\'atican City: PonlilicioIsiituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1934), 46, also figs. 26, 27. The pave-ment is attributed to tbe church foundation (and the campaign ofSiricitis. 384-99): Federico Guidobaldi, "Osservazioni sugli edifici ro-mani in cui si insedio VErrlfsitt Vrlris." in lurle.siae Uriiis: Alii det Om-grraso Inlenmzifynale di Studi suite C.hiese di Rnma, Roma. 4-10 settemhreKHXi, ed. Guidobaldi and /Vlessandra Guiglia Cluidobaldi (VaticanCity: Pontificio Istituto di Archeotogia Cdstiaiia. 2002). 1067-69, figs.17, 18.

22. Arthur Kingsley Poner, "San Savino at Piacenza: L History and Struc-ture." and "San Savino at Piacenza: IL Ornament. Conclusions," Anteri-am Joumal of Archaeology 16. no. 3 (1912): 350-67, arid no. 4 (1912):49.5-517; and Enrichetta ('ecchi Gattolin. "1 tes.sellati romanici dellabasilica (ti San Savino." in La b/isilira di Sun .Savino e tf oriffrii del Roma-nico a Piaienza. ed. Roberto Salviiii (Modena: Artloli, 1978), 115-51.For iLs dating, see Francesca L. Valla, "Per la cronologia dei mosaicidi San Savino a Piacenza," Rotleltinn Sloriro Piacentiito 87. no. I (1992):77-98. For its inscriptions, see Giordana Trovabene. "Poesia musivamedievale: Epigrafi didascalicbe in versi nei pavimenti a mosaico." inAtti del VII rolhx/uio deirAssoeiazionf Itatinna per lo Studio e In C-onaervazi-one dei Mosaico, Pompei, 22-23 mano 2000, ed. Andrea Paribeni(Ravenna: F.di/ioni del Girasole. 2001). 353-66.

Tlie sea motif lecui's in tlie contemporary apse mosaic of S. Michele

in Pavia. flanking a central panel of a labyrinth: Adriaiio Peroni. "IImosaico pavimentale di San Mithele Maggiore a Pavia: Materiali pernn'edizione." Studi Mi-dirvali 18. no. 2 (1977): 718. Medalliiiiis alsofloated against wixvy backgrounds in the rontemporai-y church i>f S.Tomaso at Reggio: Trovabene, "II miisaico pavimentaie della cluesa dlSan Tomaso a Reggio Emilia." in Guidobaldi and (iuiglia Giiidohaldi,Atti del Itt rolto'juio, liordjghera, 38;{-400. Tbe wavy tessellations on thethirteenth-ccnturv' floor under the crossing at Osinio may also evttkewaves: Claudia Bars;uiti, "11 pa\iniento inedievale del duomii diOsimo," in ibid.. 445-55.

23. Xavier Barral i Altet, I^s mosiiiques de pavmu-rit ntfdih'atfs de Vrnise, Mu-rano. Torrelh (Paris: Picard. UWi), 78. hi terms iif morpbological ge-nealogy, tbe floor at S. Zaccaria is mosaic imitating opus .\frtitf. imitat-ing jiellaf, imitating v*-aves. A mosaic apse with the same nuitifuncovered in a late antiqtie villa near Forii possibly plays on the sameresemblance, as atiotJier apse mosaic tbere depicts marine scenes:Maria Gra/ia Maioli. "La villa teodoriciana di Meldola: Nuovi linveni-menii nitisivi." iti Guidobaldi and Guiglia Guidobaldi. Atli del 111 rolti>-quid, Bordighera, 327-34.

24. Tbe pavement inscription begins; "Atria quae cemis vario formatadecore / squalida sub picto caelattir mannore tellus / longa vetustatissenio fuscaverat aetas. . . ." (llie hall you .see adorned wiih variegateddecoration, [and] below tbe painted marble is hidden tlie squalidearth, long time had obscured [ii] wiih tlie dc<re])inide <if i»!d ;ige;QnpuA insrriptiovum Latinarxim |, (•'//.], 17 viils. | Berlin: De Gruyter.1863-1. vol. 5. pt. 1, 149). See also Andrea Cariini. "Nutasull iscri/i(ine musiv~a eliana nella bitsilica di Sant"Eufemia." in (hadonfltii storiu p netl'arte (L'dine; Ani Grafiche Friulane. 1980). 351-.54.This pa.ssage is normally interpreted to refer to a preexisting ten-a-cotta floor, but "tellm" must refer to the earth itself,

25. Sergio Tarani, Aquileia e (Wado: StorithArte-Cuttum. 3rd Pd. (Trieste:Lint Editoriale .-Vssociati. ]999), 330. Tbe motif is dubbed "onda sub-acqiiea' in f;orrado Ricci. ".^ppunii per la sioria del miisaico." liollei-tiiio d'ArteH, no. 9 (1914): 274. Mario Mirabella R»)berti identifiesotber examples in tbe early-filth-ceiitur\' baptisteiy in Saloiia. theatrium of the "post-Attiia" basilica in Aquileia. and tbe nave of ibebasilica of Via Madonna in Trieste, hypothesi/iiig a now-lost arrange-ment identical to that of Grado in tbe Basilica Eiiphrasiana at Pcirec:Mirabella Roberti, "Motivi aquileicsi nei mosaici delta val Padana." inLa momi'que grfifo-rnmninf, vol. 2. Aries dti lie Co/tDt/ne hileriifilion/il pourI'Etude df ta Mosfuque Antique, Vienne, 30 aout-A septemhre 1971, eA.Henri Stern and Marcel Le day (Pads; A. et ]. Picard, 1975). 199-200.

26. Description of tbe piUate <if John I of lln-lin at Beirut by William ofOldenburg, in Joliann C. M. Uiurent, ed.. Prrripinatorfs iiiedii tievi qna-tuor: Burrhnrdtm df Movtr Sion, Riroltlus de Montr Cmm, Odnriius lU- h'orofiitii, \Vilhrat)dus dr OMmlxn^ (l^ip/lg: J. C llinrichs Bibliopiila. 1864).167: "Pavimentum habci siibiile maniioieiim, siniulaiia aqiiam levivento agitatam. ita lit. qiii super illud inresseiit. vadare piitetur, cumtamen areiie illic depicte suinma vestigia mm irnpressedt." Fur tbeconceit of untr()d sands, see .Ausoniiis, Mnsfllti 1(1.53-54.

27. Ironically, mosi of the floor except this area was biought to ligbt bythe bouibiiig: Aiigein Pantoni. / j ' incenrle detla hrisilirit di Montfreix\inoattraverso In dorumenltizione fircheotof[ica (Moiitecassinit: Badia di Monte-cassinit. 1973), 101-37. 80-93. .See also Herbert BInth. Monte (casinoin Ihe Middle Ages, 3 vols. (C:ambiidRe, Mass.: HaiA'ard Lliiiveiiiity Press,1986). vol. I. 44-52. According to K. J. Conant s recotistniction of theinterior (in ibid., vol. 3. fig. 27), the "sea" would bave lain betweentlie choir screen and the high altar.

28. Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos (ca. I256-ca. 1335) on a floor intbe palace of .\ndronikos Palailogos the elder (1282-1328), Constanti-nople: Jean-Paul Ri<:hter. Quetlrri der Iryzantinisrlwn Kunstgesthiihte: Aiis-grwafdle 'I'exte Uher die Kinlten, KtMer, Palaste, StdnispMude und andrteBnntrv von KonstantinopH (Vienna: C. Graeser. 1897), 368, no. 9H0.Nikephoros was a close associate of Theodore Meteochites. author ofthe "sea" in the Chora tburch: Maiy Cunningham. Jeffrey Feather-stone, and Sophia Georgiupoulou. "Theodore Meteothites' Poem toNikephoros K illistos Xanthopoulos." in Okeunos: l-j,snys I-^eserited to IhorSnuenko on His Sixtieth Birthday l>y Hii Colleagues and Stuiients, ed. CXrilMango et al. (Cambridge. Mass.: Ukrainian Research Institute, Har-vard Universily. 1983). !(H)-116.

29. For loosely comparable paving at Hosios Lukas. tbe (liiircb of Sag-mata (ca. 1105). and of the Donnition at Nicea (after 1065). .see Raf-faella Fadoli Campanati, "II pavimento di San Marco a Vene/ia e isiioi rapponi con I'Oriente.' in Stinia dell'iirte mimiana: I mosaici, ed.Renato Polacco (Venice: Marsilio, 1997). 12. A Proconnesian fieldluidei' a crossing is juxtaposed with more intricate opus seitile patternsin the south chiurh at Koiitsovendis (ca. 1090): Cyril A. Mango,Ernest J. VV. Hawkins, and .Susan Boyd. "The Mona.stei-y of St. Chrysos-tomos at Koutsovendis (C.yprus) and lis Wall Paintings; Part 1: De-scription." ihiinltarion Oaks Pajins 44 (1990): (iH. Liuge I'locoTinesianslabs also adorned tbe crossing of the church built by Alexius Apocau-

650 ART BULLETIN DECKMlitlk 'J(H)7 VOLUME I.XXXIX NUMBER 4

cus at Selymbda (Siliviri). ca. 1325: Semai Eyice. "Alexis Apocauque etI'eglise byzantine de Selymbria." Byzavtion 34 (1964): 77-104; OttoFeld, "Nocb elnmai Atexios Apokaukos und die byzantinische Kirchevon Selymbria." Byzavtion 37 (1967): 57-65; and Eyice. "Encore unefois I'eglise d'Alexis .\pocauqtie a Selymbda," Byzantion 48 (1978):406-16. See also Demiriz. Orgulu, 73-83, for tbe poorly recorded ba-silica excavated on the slopes of Yakacik in 1962-63.

30. "Vi e in niezo <il Tempio iiii gran qiiadrone di lastre di marmo finis-simo, e bianchissimo; (che e chiamato anco il Mare; per esser ie vene.che vi si scorgono, alia .similitudine a ptmto d'un'ondeggiante mare)."Giovanni Stiiiiga, La Chiesa di San Marco; Cafiella del S(renissimo hinripedi Venezia (Venice: Francesco Rampazetto. 1610). 19. The area mea-sures 30 by 26 ft. (9.16 by 7.96 m) and consisLs of twelve slabs (eachaveraging (iOW by I56^i in., or 153 by 398 cm). Tbe extent of maich-ing suggests that these slabs were not spolia but quarded fx nmiir.Lorenzo Lazzarini. review of Mai-mi antiihi, ed. G. Borghini. Bollettiriodi Arclieoltigia 5-6 (1990): 261. The fundamental histoiy of tlie overalldoor remains Giovanni Maria Urbani de Gbeltof, "II pavimento," inLa Basitica di San Marco in Vmezin: lltustmta ndtti .itniia e neU'nrte dascrittm veneziana, ed. Camillo Boiio. 5 vols. (Venice: Ferdinando On-gania, 1888-92). vol. 2, 227-34. For a recent but unconvincing at-tempt to link tlie floor geometries with ibe scenes on the wails andvaults, see Raffaele Paier, "II mistero delle sacre 'rotae' dei pavimentodella basilica di San Marco,' Studi Kcnrnwui 29 (1995): 15-49. NoTieof these authors pays any attention to tlie man. For seductive photo-graphs, see Andre Bruyere. Vennia, San Marco, pavimtmti (Rome: Isti-tuto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Staio. 1993).

31. Proconnesian was used in tbe palace of Mausoleus, Halicamasstis: Vi-tnivius. De arrh. 2.8.10; Pliny, HNQ.'M. On quarrying and export, seeClaudia Barsanti. "1. esportazione di niarmi dal Proconneso nelle re-gioni pontkhe diirante il I\'-VT secnlo." tiivista detl'lstituto Naziovaled'ArchroUigia e Storia ileirAite 12 (1989): 91-220; Nusin .Asgad. "Obser-vations on Two Types of Quarry-liems from Proconnesus: Column-Shafts and Column-Bases." in Ancient Storm: Qiinrrying, Trade and Pntv-enance, ed. Marc Waelkens et at. (Loiiv-ain: Leuven University Press,1992), 73-80; idem. "Tbe Proconnesian Production of ArchitecturalElements in Late .Antiquity. Based on Evidence from tbc MarbleQuarries." in Co7istantirio/)k and Us Hinterland ed. Cyril A. Man^o, Gil-bert Dagron. and tieoffrey Greatrex (.\ldersboE, L'.K.: Vadonim,1995), 263-88; and James (i. Haqjer. "Tbe Provisioning of Marble fortbe Sixth-Century Churcbes of Ravenna: A Reconstructive .-Vnalysis." inPreitum Romanum: Richard Kmuthrimtr zum 100. Geburtatag, ed. RenateL. Colella et al. (Wie.sbaden; Dr. L. Reichert. 1997). 131-48. See alsoJean-Pierre Sodini, "Le commerce des marbres a l'epoqiie protoby/an-tine," in Hommes et rirhe.sses dans I'Empirc byzanlin, ed. Catherine Aba-die-Reynal (Paiis: P. Uthielleux, 1989). 163-86.

32. Adsiotle. Meteorologica [Metf.) 1.34r'ff.. 3.378-15ff.; David E. Eicbholz."Aristotle's Theory of the Formation of Metals and Minerals," CliissicatQuarterly 43, nos. 3-4 (1949): 141-46; idem. "References to a Theoryof the Formation of Stones." in Ptiny: Natural History, IJIiri XXM't-XXXVIt (London: William Heinemann. 1962). x-xv; idem, Theiyfihrtis-tus: De Lapidibu.% (Oxford: Clarendon Piess, 1965), L">-47; and RobertHalleuK. Le pwbl^e des mitaux dans la science antiqiw (Pai is: Societc-d'Edition "Les Belles Lettres," 1974). 97-128. Adstotle's and Theo-pbrastus's findings were augmented by several Greek autliors. andRoman figures like Posidonitis (ca. 135-ca. 51 BCE) and Papidus Fa-bianas (iate first century BCE). and more or less parroted in Pliny'sNatural History (ca. 77/79 CE).

33. Eicbholz, Thmphrastiis, 36-37. Seneca states that "in rbe eartb alsotbere are several kinds of moisture . . . which change from liquid tostone [in terra quoque unit unwiis geneia c.omptura . . . quar in Uipideni exliqumv vtrrtuntiirY'; Quaestiones Naturales 3.15.2—3). Rabbi Josbua barHanania. rabbinical Midrasb of Leviticus Rabbah 22, 27. quoted inTziona Grossmark, "'Sbayisb' (Marble) in Rabbinic Literature," inMartiU Studies: Ronum Palestine and tlie Marble Tratle, ed. Moshe L. Fi-scher (Konstanz: L'\'K Universi tats verlag Konstanz, 1998), 281.

34. Flavitis Merobaudes, ed. and trans. Frank M. Clover (Philadelphia:American Philosopbical Society, 1971). 11, 60, Carmi?ta 2.8 (ca. 43.5-446 CE): "gemma vebit laticem. quae ftiit ante latex." Merobaudesmay refer to ibe baptism of Valentinian III in the baptistery of S.Croce, Ravenna: Alessandro Tesd-Rasponi. "Frammenti poetici di Me-robaude," Ei'lix Ravi-nna 31 (1926): 4.5-46.

35. EdcJ. Holmyard and Desmond C. Mandeville, eds., Avicennae deGmgel-alione et Cttnf^utivatiime Ijipidum, Being Sections of the Kitcib al-Shifa(Paris: Paul t^eutbner, 1927). 46.

36. Fernand Dusaussay De Mely and Cbarles Emile Ruelle, Les lapidaires deVantiquiti'H du Moyen Age, 3 vols. (Paris: E. Leroux, 1896-1902), vol.3, XXX iv.

37. Albertus Magnus, De mineratibus 1.1.3; and Dorotby Wyckoff. ed.. Atim-tus Magnus, Book of Miverats (Oxford: Clarendon. 1967), 14-17.

38. Strabo, 5.2.6; Robert Halteux. "Fecondite des mines et sexualite des

pierres dans I'antiquiie greco-romaine," Reinie Beige c/c Phitologie etd'Hlstoire, 1970: 20. Pliny, ///V 36.24.125, cites Papirius Fabianus as an-thodty tbat marble grew in tlie quarries and also that the quarrynienthemselves asserted "that the scars on the mouniain till np of theirown accord [exemptore.\ qtuique adftmiant rompteri spontr ilia motitium ut-cera]," According to Restoro d'Arezzo (1282), "There are also nionn-tains wbicb are all white like snow, these also owe tbeir origin to wa-ter wbicb is making stone. A proof of tbis is that tbe water welling outfrom the summit of tbese mountains and spi eading itself over theslopes of the mountains becomes dissipated leaving stone bebind, andtlius these mountains are growing continually"; Restojo d'Arezzo: Lacomposizione de! mondo, ed. Alberto Mfirint) (Panna: Fondazione PietroBembo / Ugo Gtianda, 1997). bk. 6, chap. 8.

39. Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum naturale 5,49. ca. 1250, closely followsVitruvius, De arrh. 8.3.10: Stefan Schuler, Vitruv im Mittelaltfr: Die Re-zeption von "De anhitecturu" von itn Antike bis in diefi-fihe Neuze.it (C-o-logne: Hermann Bohlaus, 1999). 178. Hierapoiis was in seriotis de-cline by the tenth centuiy and was ruined and abandoned by 119(1:Paolo Verzone, in Reallexikori zur byziintinischen Kiinst, ed. Klaus Wesseland Marcell Restle (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, I963-). vol. 2, 1203-23;and Tullia Ritti. Eonti letterarie ed efngrafichc (Rome: Bretschneider.1985).

40. "And since no person has seen the marble quarry, cei tain people saythat the one called Porphyry is artificially made. Tbey say that duringancient times, according to the quantity of columns required, theymade moulds and channeled water into them. Afteiwards tbey addedthe desired color to tlie water, and then, they had a plant, and theyalso added this plant to tbe water and the water soliditied and be-came marble, it is said. Nov\\ ii this weie true, one would l>e able tofind someone today to practice tliis art. since, for all the arts elalxi-iTited in ancient times one can find someone to practice tbem today,but there is nobody who knows bow to fabricate marble. Tberefore itseems tbese are empty words. Moreover, if it applied to a single color.one might find grounds for believing it. But since tbere exist marblesof three or four colors, it is impossible to add one color to water andobtain three or four colors and veining; reason cannot accept such athing"; addendum to the ninib-centiiry(?) (Ireek Chmnide of the Hi.\toryof Constantinifplf from Its Beginning until the End (1491): Die altosmanis-chen anommj'n Chnmiken \Tmvarihi-fili-()tnuin\. ed. Friedrith (iiese(Breslau: Im Selbstverlage Breslau XVI, 1922), 93; my translation,from tbe French trans, in Stefanos Yerasimos, La fondation de Con-stantinopte et de Sainte-Sophie dans les traditions tutqu£s: E^gendes d'Empire(Istanbul: histitut Francais d'Ettides Anatoliennes d'Istanbul. 1990),27. The poipbyry columns in question are those in Hagia Sophia.The refuted claim resembles a garbled memory of a purple-dye fac-tory. Tbe best-preseived in the eastern Meditenaneaii is at Dor inIsrael, where shallow rock<ut tanks can still l>e seen.

41. John R. Spenter , Filarete's Treatise on Architrctuie: Being the Treatise byAntonio di Piero Avnlino, Known as EiUirelf. 2 vols. (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press. 1965). vol. I. 31-32; bk. 3. fols. 17v-18r. Speaking oftbe marbles of the Great Mosque at Dam;iscus. the writer Ibn 'Asakir(d. 1176) remarks tbat "il is claimed tbat marble is a substance wbicbbas been petrified; it is alleged thai the proof is in the fact that mar-ble dissolves in fire"; qtioted in Finbarr Bany Flood, "Palaces of Cm-tal. Sanctuaries of Light: Windows, Jewels and Glass in Medieval Is-lamic Architeciure" (PbD, University of Edinbiirgb, 199!^), 213.

42. Erkiiiger Scbwarzenberg, "Colour. Light and Transparency in theCreek World," in Medieval Mosaics: Eight, Color, Materials, ed. Eve Bor-s<M>k. Fiorella Gioffredi Superbi, and Giovanni Pagliarulo (Florence:Silvana. 2000), 22.

43. "In describing the diversity of tbe coUnir flavus you have made meunderstand ibese beautiful lines fi<ini the foiirtecnih book of En-nius's Annah, which before I did not in the least comprehend: Tliecalm sea's goUim inarlite mnv they skim: Ploughed Iry the throning crafi. tliegreen seas foam [ Verrunt extemplo plaiide mare marvuire flai'o / Caeruletim,spmnat sale confnta rate pulsum]; for 'the green seas' did not seem tocorrespond with 'golden marble." But since, as you bave said, Jlavus isa colour containing an admixture of green and white, Enniiis withthe utmost elegance called the foam of tlie green sea 'golden mar-ble'"; Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 2.26.21-23 [Ennuis, AnnaUs 384-85]; Loeb ed.. trans. John C. Rolfe.

Ennius (239-ca. 169 BCE) was a Hellenophone C^labdan. A recentcommentator has tberefore aigued that "mare mannore" is simply aGrecism following Homer's halii mannareen and signifies tmly "thegleaming, shimmering sea"; Otto SkuLscb, The Annals of Q. Entiius(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985). 543. But ii is equally reasonable loa.ssume tbat Ennius had tbe actual material in mind, as Aulus Gelliusthought be did. Likewise, Ptiny, HA'36.5.46. assumed tbat Homermeant "marble" wben he used marmaros {Iliad [//.] 12.380, 16.735,and Odyssey [Orf.] 9.499).

44. Virgil. Aeneid {Am.) 7.27: "In ktitu luctantur marmore tonsae." Vii^Ialso uses the phrase "marmoreiim aequor" {Aen. 6.729) and "infiduiu

COSMIC FLOORS IN . AND THF. MIDDLE AGES

remia inpellere mannor" to mean "rnwing through ihe faithlesswaves" Ideorfpcs 1.254)—a paraphrase of Ennius {see n. 43 atKive).See also Aen. 7.718: "qiiam miilii I.ibyco volvuntiii- iiiarmore flucius"(as many as the waves ihal (hiini ihe Libyan sea) and 10.208: "spu-mant v-dda marmorc vei-so' (ihe waves foam as the sea is upturned).Sei-vius globes the latter two quolations "marmore man" ("marble =sea"); Sen-ii Grammatiri (jui jenmtur in Veigilii C^rmina Commeniarii, ed.Cieorg Tliilo and Hermann Hagen, 3 vols, (l^ip^ig: B. G. Teubner,1881), vol. 2, 188, 41-4. See also Lucretius 2.7«(i-767: "ut mare, cummagni commoriint aequora venti / vertitiir in canos candenli mar-more niicius" (like the sea, when greai winds have stirred up the sur-face, turns into hoary waves wiih a white sheen). Lucretins com-pounds ihe metaphor by exploiting another sea word, "aequor," thatrefers equally to the polished surface of marble and a placid sea.

45. Ovid, Trktia ex Panto (Tr.) 3.10.47-48: "inclusaeque gelu stabunt ininarmore puppes / nee potent rigidas lindere remus aqii;us." The Fla-vian poet Valerius Flacrus probably had this passage in mind when healluded to the frozen surface of the sea by speaking of "slaying hindson the marble surface of mid-ocean \in medio tTuncantem mcirinorecentos]": Argonautica 6.5(18. See also Ltican 9.349; Catullus 63.88. Theusage persists in medieval poetry: s.v. "marmor," Novum C.lossariumMediae iMinitatis: Ab Anno DCCC ust/ue ad Annum MCC (Hafnia:Munksg-aard, 11)57-). Of these glossary examples, "nigosi investiga-biles niarmoris venis iam let siilcantes," in the ninth-tenth-centuryVita S. WillibaUli episcopi Eichstetensh deserves special mention.

46. Julian, Misopngfn .34IB. Late antique poets continued to match marand marmor. Avienus, Periegesis seu Descriptio Chhis Terrarum 5fi, 137,\m. 187, 206, 230, 245. 429. 492, 552, 635, 709, 714, 751, 775, 82H.1310.

47. For the identi6cation of the Bocca della Verita and ihe significance ofOceanus, .see Fabio Barry. "The "Mouth of Truth' and ihc F<)rumBoarium," forthcoming.

48. A\itus, De transitu Maris Rulni, 5.592-93: "Ma< hina. pendentis siruxitquam scaena liqiioris, / Frenatas celso suspenderai aere lymphas."See also Prudentius, Cathe-merina (Cath.) 5.67-68. Avittis (ca. 450-ca.518/.'i26) Ixrarne bisltop of Vienne in 494. The earty-fifth-centuryHeptateuch of Cyptiaiius Gallus actually uses "Marmor Rubnim"(Exod. 434). Tlie "Red Sea" sarcophagus (Museo Civico di Brescia,MR .^8.'i2). possibly of Milanese manufacture, became ihe frontal ofthe high altar of S. Afra (now S. Angela Merici), Brescia. The scene inthe other register is probably Moses striking the rock.

49. Tibulhis, 2.4..3(), 3.8.19; Horace, (kimtina 1.35.32; Propertius, L14.12(as the breeding ground of coral): Seneca. Oedipus 120, Hnrules Oe-tiirm 660, Tliyestes 373; Petionius, Satyrifon. fragment 31. See alsoJacques Andre. Etude sur le.s tennes de coulfurs dans In Icmgtte latine(Paris: C. Klincksierk, 1949), 359.

.10, StiUius, .VfViw 4.2.28 ("giaucae certatuia Doridi saxa"), 2.2.92 ("gau-dens Ihictus spcctare Carysios"). Statius also indicates Carystian witb"the veined stone the same color as the sea [romolor alto vencs man]";Sih. 1.2.149-50. See al.so Pliny. W.V37.17.66. on tbe best emeralds:"their merit lies in their color which is clear without being weak, butlimpid and rich, resembling, wherever it is transparent, the transpar-ency of tbe sea [dos eorum est in colore liquido nee dilutu, verum ex umidciping^ti quaquepirripiiitur imitante tralucidum mttria]." The prevalent per-ception that the sea was green also explains a garbled notion of Isi-dore; "Ihe Greek word 'marble' is called after its greenness [marm/rsenno graecus est a viriditate vocatus]"; Isidoi'us, Etymologiae 16.5.].

51, .Siiiiius. Silv. 1.5.19: "undo.sa Carystos." Tbe quariy actually took itsname from ihe river {Car>-stos) that ran by the quariy.

52. Rita Paris, ed,. Via Af>fiia: La Villa dei Quintili (Milan: Electa. 2000),76-79. For ihe quarries, see .-\nna Lamhraki, "I^ Cipolin de laKaiysiie: Conuibutlou a I'etude des marbres de la Grece exploites auxcpoques romaine et paleochretienne," Rnnie Archhilogiqw I (1980):31-62; and Doris Vanhove et al., Roman Mcirble Qu/irries in SouthernEuboea and the Associated Road SystimK (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995).

53, .Aicha Ben Abed Ben Kliader, Thuburho Majits: Les mosaiques dans lequartietouest (Tunis: Institut National d'.Arcbeologie et d'.\rt, 1987).61-91. esp. 70, pi. xxvii. For ihe Winter Baths (199 CE). see idem elal., Thubuiho Maim: I^,s momiques tie la rf'gion des grands thermes (Ttmis:Institut National d'Archeologie ct d'Art, 1985), 72-73, pis. xxvii, xxx,xxxil, See also the frigidcirium of tlie public baths at Maktar.

54. A. E. Popham and Philip Pouncey. Italian !}rawing\ in the Depaiiment ofhints and Draxmngs in the British Mmeum: The Fourieenth and FifteenthCnituries, 2 vols. (London: Trtistees of the British Museum, 1950). vol.1. 103. 64, vol. 2, pi. (:i,i; and jane Martineau. Andrea Mante^ia (Lon-don: Roy-a! .Vademy of Arts, 1992). 463-64 (cat. tio. 152). Anothercopy is in the Galleria degli UtH/i, Florence: Giovanni ;\gosti and An-namaria I'etrioli Tofani, IMsegni del linascimento in Vcitpadana (Flor-ence: L. S. Olscliki, 2001), 134-38 n. 17. Mantegna's design for thefigure was copied from a gutter spotii on the facade of S. Marco,

Venice: Michael Hirsr. "Review of the Mantegna Kxhibiiion, RoyalAcademy, ixjndoTi," Burlington Magazine 134, no. 1071 (Jtine 1992):320, figs. 43, 44. The trough is ba.sed on antique Oceanus sarcojihagi;Andreas Rumpf, Die Meeruvsen auf cten antiken Sarkoj)lmgieliejs (Berlin;G. Giote, 1939). 11-19, pis. 8, K), 11. 13. 15. It remains to add tbat inthe baptistery of S, Marc(). Matitegna could also have obsened a tombin Carystian marble, thai of the Doge Giov-.inni Soran/o (1312-28),for which see Debra Pincu.i, The I'omhs o( the Doges of Venice (Cam-bridge: Cambridge I'niversity Press, 2000), 88-104. See also the tombof Melchior Trevisan, ca. 1.500. iti the Frari, Venice, with prominentpanels of wavy veined ttiarbte. According to tbe epigiaph. Trevisan.the rapitano geneiale dri men, died as "commander over tlic three seas."and tritons stippon ihe disk with the lion ul Sairic Mark at the top ofthe tomb: L'rsula Mebler, Au/erstanden in Stein: Vrnezianische (.Wahmdlnlies sphten Qtuittmcento (Cologne: Bohlau. 2001), 103. 19-23.

Rosemary' Barrow, Lau<rence Alma-I'adrma (l.ondi.in: Phaidoii, 2001),177, fig. 75. Foi Alma-Tadetna"s faux-marblcs. see Patricia .\. But/."Marble for Inscriptions: Facsimile Representation in the Paintings ofSii' Uiwrence .Alma-Tadema," in Interdisciplinary Studies on AncientStone: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of ASMOSA. Venice,June 15-IH, 2IHK), ed. l.oren/o La//ariiii (Padua; Bottega d'Erasmo,2002), 531-36. Alma-Tadema clad otie of his studios wiih Carystianslabs. Carystian is also used to repiesent the Mediterranean Sea in ttielarge marble maps that Antonio MurHw erected on the retaining wallof the basilica of Maxentius, facing onto tbe Via dell'ImpiTo (Via deiFori Imperiali) in the 1930s.

55. The earliest relerenci.- known lo me is Procopiiis. /Jc urdi/irii', 1.10.19;"most of them |the pa\ing slabs in (he palace of jtistinian] are whitein color, yet the white is not plain, but is sei ofl with wa\T lines (»fblue which mingle with the white" (AenKoc 6e ruii' irAciiii'iui' TO eiSo<;.ov AiTOi' ctToi, tiKK' imoKVfiaivei Kixtrctvy^ iml>yfypa^l^JLil'Ol'^ieTa^;Cptu^ian). Patil the Silentiaiy (Desrriptio S. Siifihitu-et ambonii153-.')4) also commends the "Bospoiiis stone" curb of the amho in Ha-gia Sophia that "gleams while but on whose white skin a blue veinwinds a scattered path" (AevKcV 8' aTrcurrpccTnovcri. KOI ei u-nopiibeaaiKfktvQoi'i / {TKi&vaTi apyivbfirri irepi xp'fi' Kixtt'eif ((lAet/'): Paul alsosay's (Descriptiii S. Sophi.ae6M-ft1), "covering the entire llo(jr the hillof Proconnesus gladly oflers its back lo ihe life-giving Queen [HagiaSophia]. .Xnd (he glow of the Bospoius shimmers gently, black witlian admixture ol wbiie" ([liiv ReTreSov iTToimrairu ]1fHiK(ii'i'T}iriii,oKoAwi'T) / ufTTravitDt; imefliiKe ^i«pK6t I'lSroi' ai'atrirxi- / T}pena Hi</)pitriroiwa Si€TTp€TTe B

56. Tbe Sea of Marmora is an inland circular sea of about eigbt leaguesacross, and they call it Mainiora because frotu it came all the marblefor Con.stjuitinople. both lor the walls ;is well as for the city"; Pero Ta-fur. Traveh and Adventures H3'>-I4'i9. trans. Malcolm Lett.s (t.ondon;Roudedge, 1926). 114. "MamiOra" (classical name: Proponiis) is alsospelled "MarmAnt" and "MaLmara." .\ndreas Kuel/ei has kindly pro-vided me the earliest suiTivhig references to ilns toponym: PatrickGautier Dalche. C^irte marine et pvrtulan an Xlle siirle: Le "Liber de exis-tencia Hivriarum et forma muris nostii Meditertanei" tl\te, circa l2<Kt)(Rome; £cole Franfaise de Rome, 1995): Edmond Faral, ed., Villehar-douin: IM rimqufte de Constantimifile. 2 vols. (Paris: "Les Belles Lettres,"1939), vol. 2. 292 (ca. 1212 CE).

57. This cosmography was still championed by Cosmas Indicopleustes inthe sixth centtiry. Ernst Kiuinger, "Studies on Late Antique and FarlyBy^^antine Floor Mosaics. I: Mosaics al Nikopolis," Dumbarton Oaks Pa-pers 6 (1951): 102-3: Henry Maguire. "The Mantle of the Earth." Illi-nois Classical Studies 12 (1987): 221-28; and idem. Earth and Ocean: TheTerrestrial World in Early Byzantine Art (University Park: PennsylvaniaState University Press, 1987), 21.

58. The sixtb-centuiT hynniist on the cathedral of Ede.ssa remarks thai itwas "an admirable thing that in it.s smallness it should resemble thegreai world, not in si/e btit in type, watere smround it as the sea Isur-rounds tbe earth]." For Mango and McVey this simply means that thecaihedr.ll stood Ix'tween two lakes, and that the river Skinos ranaround it: Mango, .\rt of tlie Byzantine Empire. 5H; and Kathleen E.McVey, "The Domed Church as Miciocosm; Liter.uy Roots of an Ar-chitectural Symlx>l," Dumfmrton Oaks Papers 37 (1983): 98-99. But An-drew Palmer suggests that water channels were cut around the church"a.s pai t of a conscious mimesis of the created world,'" atid this seemsconfirmed by the fact that when a baptistery' was built elsewhere inEdessa toward the end of tbe seventh century, it bad "w-aier-t hannelslike those . . . made in the Old Church": Palmer and l.ynu Rodley,"The Inatig\iraiion Atitheni of Hagia Sophia in Edessa; . New Editionand Tnuislation with Historical and .\rcliitectural Notes and a Com-parison with a Contetnporaiy Constantino))[^liian Koiuakion," Byzan-tine and Creek Studies 12 (1988): 127. 134. Talmttdic scholars had alsoremarked that the couri of the Tetiiple in Jcnisaletti s»nr()unded tbeTemple "just as the sea suriounds the world": Raphael Patai, Man and'Temple in Ancient fmiish Myth and Ritual (I.ondon: Thomas Nelson andSons, 1947). 107-8.

652 ART BULLETIN DECKMBER 2007 VOLUMF- LXXXIX NUMBER 4

59. For example, the basilica of Thyrsos at Tegea (,\rcadia, late fifth cen-tury); church at Khalde (Lebanon, ca. 450-500); SS. Cosmas andDamian at Gerasa (Jarash, Jordan, 533); the basilica at HeracleaLynkestis (Bitola. fonner Ytigoslav Republic of Macedonia, late fifth-early sixth centur)'): Maguire, Earth and Ocean, 24-26. 33-40. Otherexamples include tbe basilica at Hadjeb-el-Amun near Kairouan (Jor-dan, sixth cenltiiy), and St. Stephen ai Umm al-Rasas Mayfa'ah (inantiqtiity. Kastron Mefaa, Jordan, ca. 760), where the stream repre-sents the Nile: Michele Piccirillo and Eugenio .-Mliata, Umm al-Rasas,Mnyfa'ah I: CUi scavi del complesso di Santo Stejano (Jerusalem: StudiumBiblicum Franciscum, 1994), 141fT. In tbe narthex of the Large Basil-ica ai Heraclea Lynkestis. the border is in the process of transitionfrom a naturally descriptive band to a geometric interlace motif. Thelong central panel is filled with trees and cavotting animals, borderedby hexagonal panels witli various fisb and waterfowl interlinked by aconcentric swastika meander; G. C. Tomasevic. "Mosaiqties paleochre-tiennes recettitnent decouvertes a Heraclea Lynkestis," in Stem andLe Glay, IM mosaique grPro-romaine II. 385-99. For textiles that repealthe image, see Maguire, "Mantle of the Earth." 221-28.

a. the transept floor in the basilica of Doimietios (ca. .'J25-.5O) atNikopolis (see below). For a Western example, see the mosaic floor(late twelfth-early tliirteenth century) of the chaticel of S. .Salvatore.Turin, where various roundels are enclosed by an orbital Ocean: Pi-etro Toesca, "Vicende di un'antica chlesa di Torino." Bollettino d'Arte4, no. 1 (1910); 1-16; and .Vthur Kingsley Porter, Lombard Architecture,3 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press; London: Oxford UniversityPress, 1915),voL3, 442.

60. Maximus Confessor. Patrilogia Creca (,PG), vol. 91. col. 672; .Ajidre Gra-bar, "Le lemoinage d'une bymne syriaque sur Tarchitecture de la ca-tbedrale d'Edesse au Vie siecle et sur la symbolique de I'edifice cbre-tien," Cahiers Arcliiologiques 2 (1947): 57; and Maguire. liarth andOcean. 26. See also Mauro Delia Valle, "La cartografia bizantina, le suefonti classicbe e il suo rapporto con le arti figurative," in Arte profana earte scura a Bisanzio. ed. Antonio Iacobini and Enrico Zanini (Rome:Argos. 1995). 339-60.

61. All biblical quotations are from the Kingjames Version. Tbe Judaictradition held that the Earth rose on four pillars above the oceans, itsoverarching \"ault supporting another sea of rain and snow, abovewhich God sat enthroned and transcendent. Muslim commentatorseven saw tbe tlirone as the first body that God produced, and waterthe second, but anticipating the creation proper: "It is He Who cre-ated the heavens and tlie eartli in six days and His throne was upotithe water" (Qur^an 11:7-9. derived from Psalms 29:10), trans. ThomasJ. O'Shaugnessy, SJ, "Cold's Throne and the Biblical Symbolism of tlieQur'an," Nunwn 20 (1973); 212.

62. In tnid-sixth-ceiUtiry Alexandria, the Nestorian Cosmas Indicopleustesdefended tbe biblical cosmology and Antiocbene theology against tbeMonopbysite John Pliiloponos, who advocaied the Ptolemaic cosmol-ogy and by extensioti the Alexandrian tradition: Wanda Wolska-Co-nus. La topographie chrHienne de Cosmas Indicopleiates: Thhjtogie et sciencesau \7e si^cU (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 1962), 147-92.Costnas used Revelation and the Psaltns to anathematize the Ptole-maic system, quoting. "Wlio layeth the beams of his upper chambersin tbe waters" (Ps. 104.3) atid "the waters that are above the firma-ment" (Ps. 148:4); 7.275. 296-97; J. W. McCrindle, ed.. The ChristianTopography of Cosmas, an Egyptian Monk (London; Hakluyi Society,1897), 265. 298-99, pi. 3.

63. Consensus holds that the manuscript is Parisian, ca. 1250. For furtherexamples, ."iee Pamela Z. Blum. "The Cryptic Creation ('ycle in Ms.Jtmiusxi," C^sta 15, nos. i-2 (1976): 211-26.

64. OocXatTcrct \xt\ivt] otio'ia KfrnrraWw ("mare \itreutn simile crysiallo"),dahaauav iiaAti^J' ^e/it^ii.ei'Tii' -rrvpl ("mare vitreum mistuni igne").Even when Moses had seen God on Sinai "there was tinder His feel asit were a paved work of sapphire stone" (Exod. 24;10).

65. Peter Grossmann, .V. Michfle in Africisco zu Ravenna: BaugeschichtlicheVntersurhungm (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1973); Friedrich W.Deichmann. Ravenna: Haupt>tadt des ^mtantiken Abendlandes, 5 vols.(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1969-89), vol. 1. 220-25. fig. 211, vol. 2,pt. 2, 35-46, esp. 40-43; and Arne Eflenberger, Dtis Mosaik aus derKirche San Michele in Africisco zu Ravenna. 2nd ed. (Berlin; Evange-liscbe Verlagsanstalt. 1989). esp. 60-64 and n. 114. The mosaic(545) was transferred to Berlin in 1850, but not installed in the Kai-serfriedrichsmuseutTi (now tbe Bode) until 1904. Although it wasbutchered by the restorations of Giovanni Moro, tbe sea is alreadyclearly recorded in a watercolor of 1843: Irene Andreescti-Treadgold,"Tbe Wall Mosaics of San Michele in Africisco, Ravenna Rediscov-ered." in 37. Corxo di cultura sull'arte ravennate e Inzantina: Seininario in-temazionaU- di studi sul tema "I. 'Italia meridionale fra Goti e Longobardi, "Ravenna. 30 mano~4 aprile I99<) (Ravenna; Edizioni del Girasole.1990). I3-.57.

66. Meyer Scbapiro. The Romanesque Sculpture o/Momac (New York;George Bra/ilier, 1985), 78-79; and Thorsten Droste, Alben Hirmer,

and Irmgard Emstmeier-Hirmer, Die Shulpturen. vm. Moissac: Gestnltund Funktion romanisther Bauplastik (Munich: Hirtner, 1996), 172-73.In a snmmary of an unptiblished paper Andre Grabar retnarked onthe dilTusioii of "la mer de glace" in W'estern medieval frescoes: Gra-bar. "La mer celeste dans I'iconographic carolitigienne et romane,"Bulletin dtt la SociHf Nationale des Antiquaires de France, 1957: 98-100. Insome eastern cases, like tbe frescoes (1191) in the cburch of St.George at Kurbinovo (former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia).God's tiiandorla is shown as fish-infested for the same reasons; LydieHadermann-Misgiiich, "Les eaux vives de t'Ascension dans le contexlevisionnaire des theophanies de Kurbinovo," ByzarUion 38 (1968): 381-83,

67. -Ajidre Grabar, "La 'sedia di S. Marco" a Venise," Cahiers Archhilogiques7 (1954): 19-34: and Patricia Fortini Brown, Venire Cr" Antiquity: TheVenetian Sense of the Past (New Haven: Yale Univei-sity Press. 1996). 41.Legend beld tbat Emperor Heracllus (r. 610-4!) had donated thisartifact, of Syrian or Egyptian origin, to the cathedral of Grado in rec-ognition of Saint Marks role in founding the patriarchate there. It isworth adding that the pendentives of S. Marco's dome above ihe"mare" contain personifications of the fotir rivers of paradise—Gyon,Euphrates. Phison, and Tigris—that stand below the Evangelists andare shown emptying their amphorae toward dieir feet (and so ihefloor): Otto Demus, Tlie Mosaics of San Marco in Venice. w\. I, The Elev-enth and Tioelfth Centuries. 2 vols. (Chicago; University of ChicagoPress, 1984), vol. 1 (text). 194-95, vol. 2 (plates), figs. 234, 327-29,

68. Otto Demus, The Mosaics of San Marco in Venice. \'ol. 2, The ThirteenthCentury, 2 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), vol. 2(plates), figs. 107-11. The sea as depicted in some Byzantine manu-scripts often resembles Proconnesian marble, as in, for example, theColossus of Rhodes and. Mausoleum of Halicamassus in the eleventb-cen-tur\' Homilies of Saint Gregory, Jenisaletn Cod. Taphou 14. fol. 3Uv,for which, see Paul Huber, Heilige Beige: Sinai. Athos, Golgot/i; Ikonen,Freshen, Miniaturen (Zurich: Benziger. 1982), 223. fig. 196.

69. Erkinger Schwarzenberg, "Cristallo," in Vitrum: Vetrofra arte e scienzanel mondo romano. ed. Marco Beretta and Giovanni Di Pasquale (Flor-ence: Giunti, 2004), 61-70. Tbe Byzantines even inscribed verses tothis effect on rock-crystal ornaments, such as the poem by ManuelPhiles (ca. 127.5-ca. 1345) on a rock<rystal relief of ('hrist, "Thisstone is w^ter, not really stone; / He who freezes flowing water intoice / Also freezes this into the nature of stone / l^st ihe rock meltand flow away"; trans. Alice-Mary Talbot, "Epigrams in C^ontext: Metri-cal Inscriptions on Art and Architecture of the Palaiologan Era."Dutnlmrton Oaks Papers 53 (1999): 88; and Cannina 86 in E. Miller,Manuelis Philcie Carmina, ex roelicibus Etcuricilm-sis, I-hrentinis, Parisinis etVaticanis, 2 vols. (Paris: Typographeum Itiipeiiale, 1855-57). vol. 1.38.

70. Nicholaos Mesarites {Ekphrcisis 37.4) describes tbe shimmer of the glis-tening marbles in the Apostoleion by using tbe word huf^otes (wet-ness): Downey. "Nikolaos Mesarites," 890, 914. Nikctas Magister saysthat "the glitter of the marble" revetment in tbe chtirch of the VirginKatapiloiane on Paros "exhibited sucb liquid refulgence as to surpasstbe brilliance of pearls"; Vita S. TlieortiUae I^slnae, chap. 3, ASS Nov.rv, 226; trans. Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 104. Already Posei-dippos (ca. 225-200 BCE) celebrates "a stone that if wettened, [l<ioksas thotighl its entire mass is surrounded by light, a mangel of" illusion"{ \ i ^ S \ \ \ f j / \ i \ ' A

); Posidippo di Pella: Epigramtni (P.Mil.Vogl.VIll 309), ed. Guido Bastianitii et al. (Milan: Led, 2001), 37. 122-23.On Hagia Sopbia. Michael tbe Deacon .says. "How iLs countenanceflashes forth like liquid through gold wbicb is everywhere. . . . " "thebrightness of the gold almost makes the gold appear to drip down;for by its refulgence making waves to arise, as it were, in eyes tbat aremoist, it canses their moisture to appear in tbe gold which is seen,and it seems to be flowing in a molten stream"; trans. Matigo andParker, "Twelftb-Centur)' Description." 235, 237. John Gage has per-ceived this commonality as based in an aestbetic of "gentle but cease-less movement" that unites shifting floor and resdess mosaics: JohnGage, Coltrur and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstrae-licin (London: Thatnes and Htidson. 1993), 57.

71. John Geometres, in PG 106. col. 943; John A. Cramer, ed.. Anecdotagrieca e rodd. mciniLsrriptis Bibliothecae Regicie Parisiensis. 4 vols. (OxJbrd: Ty-pograpbeum .\cadeinicum. 1841). vol. 4. 306: kiHuyv Si Toimof T]SiayTjc AeioTTj / aAAij 5OK^ OaKatrira Kviiarwi' avev / ais ei'•ynAT|i'T| Uvv KaTtirropecriJ.ii'-r}. / avyi} 6e Toirnov wtorcuv KalAeuKOTTjs / Kai OTJ^WV atTTpavroiKra xpoia-i 7epTT0Tq<;. / u); O I QpcTBpHc eKT«Ket(fT)<; xioi'oi? / Xafi-nphv. StfiSes. ai^o^-r]7i 7rw? peov. /w<; irpbt; OaXacrtjav a\\T}f €/x^dAAei xctTtD, / nfft c^a JTW rri A poutrn'kv TrnWij) Aiflow. The Slottdios columns are actually Thessalian tiiarble(veide antieo). but Paul the Silentiary calls even this marble "freshgreen as the sea." John Geometres must describe an earlier (Procon-nesian?) floor, as the present opus jcrtfTc vei sion seems to date frotnthe twelfth century.

COSMIC FLOORS IN ANTIQUITY AN1> TIIK MIIHH K .AGES 5 5 3

72. Paul [he Si!enli:iry. Descr. S. .Sophiae2Sm.. 549-50. 617fr., read flower-hLiiikcd sircams and "whcatfiplds and sheltering woods, playful flocks(»f sherp and giiarlcd olive trees, spreading vines" iti ihe nave revft-liient and ihe n.i^e culiimns as a giove; Procupius, A«/. 1.1.59(1'.. saw"a meadow in lull hloom," Such perceptions are common to otherfkf)kTfisfii\ Latin and (Ireck. '["his theme is treated ai length in FabioBarry, "Hagia St)phia and By/antiuni," chap. 4 of "Painting in Stone:The Symbolism of Colored Marbles."

73. (llaiidian, Arnlwhf^ii Priltiliva 9.7.'i3: F.i? KpixTTaWof evdov vSwp

aKt]patrioi.a irai'aioKof etKoi'w Kwr^iov, / ovpavbi/ ayKas ej^oi^a

74. Samuel han-Naghidh. in S. M. Habtrrmann, Knl .shirty Rnhbi Sht-mu'ethmi-Sii^hidh (Tel Aviv, 1947), vol. I, see. 3, 41, quoted in Frederick P.Bargehuhi, "Tlic .\lhambi-a Palace in the Eleverilh Ck-ntun," /rmiwj/ ofllif Wtirliurf; and Cmrlauld lustUutfs 19 (]95fi): 2! 1-12 and n. 60. Tbesewere als<i materials of paradise: "a tiver flowed from Edt-ii to waieribe garden . . . 1>ede1liiini [crystal] and onyx stone arc found there"(Ceil. 2:ll)-li?). Sonif alabasters were also compared to water, likeibat from Hierapolis on ibf amho of Hagia Sophia (which Paul theSilentiarv' exlolsl: Mango, .^rt of tlif Byzanlinf Empirf, 92. For the latteralabaster, see Maiihias Bruno, ".Viabasier Quarries near HierapoHs(Turkey)." in L'i//arini, Inlnrli.viplinnry Sititlips <iii Aiuifnl Stone, 19-24,

75. Jt)b .' 8;8: "Ei^pa^a fi* (^aXatrtrav TriiAai?, OTe e^wt^tao'crei' IK KoiAia;TjTfXK rtiniii; ^K-nnpfvoiiki-j] ("quis conciusit osiiis mare, qiiando

eriimpebat quasi de vulva proceclens"). Cf. Job 9:8, 37:10, 37:18: God"alone spreadetb out the heavens, and !reiid( th upon the waves of thesea," "by the brcaib of (k)d frosi is given: and the breadth of ibe wa-ters is siraigbiened." bui also ihe "sky which is strong, and a.s a mol-ten looking gla.ss." Job is generally considered a lexi of Hellenisticdale.

76. Job 38:30: "H Kara^aivn. nurirep vSwp peov, TTpcronrov otre^tn^ TUCTTTTj^ti' ("III sitniiiiudinem lapidis aquae durantur, ei superficiesabyssi consiringiiur").

77. Cosma.s liidicopleustes, 7.290-91, explains that "the heavens being on[ire shall be dissolved, and tbe elements shall melt with fen'ent heatbut [we look for] new beaven.s and tlie new earth" (Heb. 6.20; I Pet.3.12), meaning "tbat witb a great noist*, as in tbe twinkling of an eye,all tile elemenis being on fire as in a furnace and being thu.s purified,undergo ihe change for tbe better," tram, McCriiidle, ('.brhtinn Topog-mphy of Cosma.s, L*S7-H9. Tbe ciysialliiie transformation appears also inThomas Aquinas, Summa thfobi^ra, 91:;i-4, based on Isaiah 30:26.

78. The while floor in S. .\kakios, buill by Consiaiitine and restored byJiisiinian, gave the impres.sion "ibat tbe whole chiircb is coaled witiisnow": Procopius, .\eii. 1.4.23. Leo the Wise (886-911^) says ibai ihecbiircb of the Kiuileiis monastery was "paved wiih while slabs [fbim-ing] a continuous transhueni [surfact-]. uninterrupted by any othercolour"; t.eo, VI Seniimi 2H. trans. Mango, Art of the Byziinlinr Empitr.202. I bave been imable 10 read ihe original text in HieromonacbosAkakios, ed., Ij^irilos lou Sofikou pnnf^uiikni hffii (Athens: NicliolaosRotLsopoulos, 1868), 245ff. Robert de Clari say's of the Pharos (Chapel(880) in the Boukoleon Palace ilial "ibe chapel's pavemeni was of awhile marble so sinooih and clear thai it seemed lo be of cryMal [Et lipavemrnts de la ihii/u'lli' estoit d'un litanr mmitrf si lisae ft si cUrr qu'il sftn-liiiiil i/ii'il fiLSt df iriMtril]': Itohni dv Clnri: The (Jmijunt of Constantinopli;ed. and trans. Kdgar H. McNeal (Toronto: University of TorontoPiess, 1997), 103. A flo()r "in reciangular slabs ofwbiie marble witbblack framing" was discovered in ibc excavation of "Basilica A" aiBaya/tt, Istanbul, in 1946 and immediately destroyed along wiib theentire complex: Ne/ih Firatii, "Decoiiverte de irois eglises bpantines aIstanbul," Cnhieii Arrhf-ologitfuea 4 (1951): 167, fig. 1; and Ernesl Mam-boury, "Les fouilles byzantines a Istanbul," Byzanlion 27 (1951); 435-37.

79. 1 Kings 7:23; EzckicI 47:1-12. The appeal to Solomon's "brazen sea"is noted in Oorg Scheja, "Hagia Sophia und Templum Salamonis,"hliinhitlry Milli'ilitngi-ti 12 (1962): .'il. Tbe Nairatin (19) claims thaljus-liniati origitially wanted to slieaihe the nave Huor in silver and call.sthe door below ihe altar, which did receive ibis sbcatbing, a "sea"(KaAairtra): Dagron, Constnnlinopk imafpnnirr, 205, 243 n. 142. C.on-sianiine Porphyrogenitos calls ibe altar a "litile sea" (flaAocrtrtSLoi').The Nairalio ahi} claims that Ju.siinian tnade a fountain in imitation of.Solomon's in the airium.

80. More difficult to locate and interpret is the "sea' he made "on tberight side of ihe Guuaikitis . . . in which waier collected to ibe depthof one span, and a gangway for the priests lo walk over the pool": L)i-egtsis narratio. in Mango, Arl oftlu- Hyzanline i'.mpiri', 101; see redactionsof tbis passage in Vitii, Enilhlung. Sucb immersion pools, and tbeirJudaic aud Classical precedents, are analyzed in Demetrios I. Pallas,hii^ Thala.ua ton l-^klesidn: Sumlwli' ns irti isUrrimi ton CJmstianikmt bomoukai ten morf/kologUin tfs leilotir^tis (Aibens: Inslitul Frantais d'Aibenes,1932), esp. 39-40. 146-56. Cf. Paul Lemerle, review of Pallas in By-

zantinische Zntschri/i 46 (1953): 402-4. Lethaby, in U'tbaby and Swain-son, SaHcta Sofihia, 191-92. argues thai the atrium was a "paradise"wiib flowing streams.

81. Grossmark, "'Shayish' (Marble)." 274-83. esp. 277-78. Mosl of tliefollowing Talmudic references were cited there.

82. 7'A/' Ita/ryloTiian Tnlmud. irans. and ed. Isidore Epsieiii and MauriceSimon (London: Soncino Press, 1948), Sukbib 5!b, Baba Bathra 4a.

83. Epstein and Simon, Babyloniav Talmud. Hagigah 14b: Jacob Neuxner,Thf Tosrfta: Tramlated from thr Hi-liritu (.Allania: S(b<ilars Press, 1999),Hagigah 2. 2-4; Ralicl Elior, ed., Hi'khalol '/.utiirh (Jerusalem: l'nivei-si-tall ba-'Ivrii, 1982). 31. In anolber version, a rabbi wains his listenersnot to confuse the alabaster pavemeni before l.od's ihrone wilh wa-ter: Hermann Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommcnltir uim Witm Tr^ta-went aus Tahnxtd und Midritsch, 3 vols, (Munich: Oskar Beck, 1922-28),vol. X 798-99 on Revelation 4:6.

84. Ciershtim G. Scbolem, Major Trrnds in Jnvish Mystirism (Jerusalem:Scbocken. 1941), .''>2-53. This passage is from ibe IIMialoth genre, socalled because ibese tests coniain descri])iions of ibc seven bcavenlypalaces (llfkha/oih) ihrougb whicb ilic \isionaiT pa,s,ses to reach ihevision of the thr<)ni' of giory. Myriam Ro'.eii-.'Xyalon cites this pa.ssagelo argue tliai the Proconnesian cladding within the Domr of the Rockwas mean) to provide a suitable ambience for the Throne of (iod.which ai the end of lime will come to rest on the rock: Rosen-Ayaloii,Thf Early hl/iniic Monumriit'i oj al-Hornm alShnrif: An konogritphic Study(Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1989). 55.

85. Kamil Sayrafi Hasan, ed., Al-Walid i/m Uhayd Huhturi: Ihwan nl-BuhXuri(Cairo: Dar al-Ma^arif bi-Misr, 1978). no. 641, coiipteis 20-2:i; trans.Julie ScfHi-Meisami, "The Palace-t^oniplex as Flmblem: Some Samar-ran Qasidas," in .-t Medinml Islamic City lii-fonsidered: An Intrrdisri/ilinary.Apfiniarh to Samarrn, ed. Cbase F. Robinson (Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press. 2001), 73, quoted in Marcus Milwrigln, "'Wave.s of the Sea':Responses 10 Marble in Written Soiitces (9th-l3ih (Vniun)," in Ihelionogiafihy of IsUxmic Art and /Srihiterlurr: Sliidri-K in Hiinour of liolmtHillenhrmul, ed. Bernard O'KiUie (Edinbnrgh: Edinburgh I'nivcrsiiyPre^s, 2003), 211-22.

See also the Winter Winds on the altar of Priapus in ihe flyfrnrrolo-marhia, for which "this consummate ariisi bad caiefuily chosen a mar-ble that, beside its whiteness, was veined wilh black (in ihe appropii-aie places) su<h its 10 depict the dark, ligbtless •in<i iloiidy sky wiib iisfalling hail [H/nni:\tantf artifui: rkcto .solfrlrmrnlr rl maniumi havea. (heoUra Iti tandidfria aua na veiiato (al rrqiiisilo Imo) df ni(!;ro. tui rxpri'iurre flteni^vso aerv ilhim.ino. C7° rifhnloso rum catlrnti'grandifw]"; GiovaiuiiPoz/i and L.ucia A. C'iapponi. eds., Hypmrotomafhia I'oliphili. 2 vols.(Padua: Antenore. 1964), vol. 2, 188.

86. Ibn Sasra Muhammnd ibn. Muhmiimad: A ('hrmtirk nfDamiivu.-, IJSf-1397: The Uniqiw Bodleian Library Manu.snifil of al-Durrith til-miuli'ah fiat-tlawUih al-Zahiriyali (iMud (>r. MS 112). ed. William M. Biinner, 2vols. (Betkeley: University of California Press, 1963), vol. 1, 160;qiRiled in FinbaiT B. Flood, The (ireat Mosque of liamasrus: Sludie.i onthf MakinfTi of an Umayyad Visual Culture (l^iden: Brill, 2001), 07 n.46.

87. Grossmark, "'Shayisb' (Marble)," 278; Eli Yassif, Sifmnt Ren Sira hi-YevuhaJHtiayim: Mahadnruh bikirrtil ii-/irhe mehka [The Tales ol Ben Sira inihe Middle .-Vges] (lerusalem: Hotsaal sefarim al sbem V. L. Magnes,ha-IJniversitah ha-Ivrii, 1982), 50-56; and the Ma'tue Malkah Sheha bySaadya ben Yosef (1702), quoted in Lon H. Silberman, "The Quetnof Sheba in Judaic Tradition," in Snlomori lif Slifhu. ed. James B. PHl-cbard (New York: Phaidon, 1974), 70-71. Tbe slory is echoed in iheQur^an, Sxira 27:44-46 ("sbe tbougbt ii a pool and uncovered herlegs. [Solomon] said, 'li is a palace paved witb ghuss'"). The seventh-centuiT Arabic travelogue The City nf Bin\s describes a palace hall"made of gleaming niarble inlaid witb precions stones, so thai thespectator gol the impression the floor was streaming waier, and who-ever walked upon it slipped. Bui tbe etiiir lold the sheik to slrewsomething on the floor, so they could cross it"; Mia liene Gerhardt,The All of Stoiy-Tellinf;: A l.iteraiy Study of 'Thr Thomund and (hifNil^hl.s'' (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963), 48-49. I am indebted to T/ionaGrossmark for supplying these additional references.

88. See \'alerie Gonzalez, [j- pi^g^e de Salomon: La fietis/^f lU i'nrt dam U Co-ran (Paris: .-Mbin Michel, 2002). esp. 2fi, 30-48. For the afterlife ofSolomon's "ci-ystal palace," see R<»seniarie Haag Blelier, "The Inier-pretaiion of the Glass Dream—Exprissionist Atchiteclure and ibe His-toiy of the Ci"ysial Metaphor," jimnial oj Ihe Society oj Arrhiteitiiral HLsto-riam 50, no. I (1981): 20-43.

89. Green glass paving liles were recovered in one of ibe public rooms ofthe Islamic Palace B at Raqqiia-R;iliqna, in Syria: Harvey Weiss, ed.,El)tii to l)ama.\ctis: Art and Archiij-ol/i)^ of .A'lcinil Syria; .^n l.xhihitlon froml.lir Dirfctiiratr-Cienrral of A nil quit ir\ and ,Musfiim.\. Sytian Aiiih lielnihlii-(Washington, D.C: Smiibsonian lustiUition, 1985), 517, cal. no. 262.A plan is in Nassib Saliby, "Rapport preliminaire sur la deuxicmecampagne de touilles a Raqqua (Automne 1952)," f^s Annates At-

654 ART BULLETIN DF.CEMBFR 2nO7 VOLUME LXXXIX NLMBER 4

chiologiques cle Syrie: Hnnie d'Archiologie et d'Hhtoire Syrifnius 4 (1954):205-12. Eor the iiilluence of Solomon's ciyslal palace on Islamic pal-aces, see Flood, "Palaces of Crystal," 184-242.

90. Poem written by Baiidri de Bourgueil (1045/46-1130), archbishop ofDol, to Adele, comtesse de Blois: "it was completely covered by aglassy surface: tbt- surface itself was called 'the glassy sea,' and it.s ma-terial was as clear as if noi clearer than glass; lesi the hostile feet ofvisitors crush it, it was supported by tnarble set below. The work wasgirdled by a fluid and green color, thai you wo\tld think it the workof the sea in movement. Tbis work look ihe name and the form ofthe ocean [ Tota fuit nitrea tecta superfine: / ipsa superfiries vitreum mttremnnen hahehcU, / liirida mciteriea luddiorqtw vitro; / hanc ne proMeret pesinvidus ingredientum, / sustpntnhalur mamiore uipposito. Cingehcitur opiLtJluido viriditjue colore, / ut mnris e.ssft opm i/uod Jluitcirr pule.'.. / Hoc opusOceani nomev fimnamijue ^clmlY; Cam. 134.728—35); lirmdri de liour-guril: Poi'mfs, ed. [eati-Yves Tillietie, 2 vois. (Pads: Les Belles Letires,1998), vol. 2, 23; and Xavier Barral i .Aliei, "Poesie ei iconographie:Un pavemeni du Xlle siecle decril par Baiidri de Bourgiieil." Dtiml/ui-ton Oaks J'afim'II (1987): 42. The Ihrone toom that William of Old-enburg witnessed in iJie afotementioned Crusader palace in Beinit(see n. 26 above) was probably anotiier materializaiion of this idea.

91. Digntii; Akritu: The GroUaffrrata and Escorial Versions, ed. Elizabeth M.Jeffreys (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 204-5.

92. Luxorius (480/490-ca. 534), Carmina 90.3-6: "Hie sine nube solum;nix iuncta et sparsa putatur. / Dum steterint, credas mergere possepedes." Nubis means eitber "cloud" or "blemish" (Pliny, W,V 37.10.28,describes flawed crystal as "macuEosa nube"). The poem is addressedto King Hilderic (r. 523-30). See Morris Rosenblum, Luxoriiis: A LatinPoet among the Vandah (New York: ("olumbia University Press, 1961),164-65. 250-.51.

93. Pausanias 5.11.10 (174-75 CE). The curb is actually Pentelic marble.

94. Olive oil can act as an air but not a bumidity barrier. The stone'sblack color is irrelevant. Tesis ai San Jose Slate University (1989) dis-claimed the passive-conductor issue: William M. Gaugler and PatrickHamiti, "Possible Effects of Open Pools of Oil and Water on Cbrysele-phantine Statues," Amrrican Jmimal of Archcieology 9^, no. 2 (1989):251. It is also unclear why ihe oil would have lo drain onto the (dinfloor raiber iban inio the statue's pedestal. Recent commentalorshave recognized that the oily floor would have acted as a mirror:Charles H. Morgan, "Pheidias and Olympia," Heiperia 21 (1952): 316-18; J. W. Graham, "Acropolis and Parthenos: New Models in ihe RoyalOntario Museum," in Parlhenos and Parihenon. ed. G. T. W. Hooker(Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1963), 80-81;Jobii Boardman, "Waier inthe Parthenon?" Cymnasium 74 (1967): .509; and Kenneth D. S. I^pa-tin, ('.hryseU^)han(ine Statuary in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2001), 79, 85-86, and n. 239. Pansanias simi-larly explains that ibe waier pool frontitig the chryselephantine statueof Athena in ibe Parthenon funciioned as a humidifier because "theAcropolis, owing to its great height, is over-dry." Again, ibis reflectingpool presumably increased the impact or illumitialion of the sliitue.The pools of Olympia and Athens seem almost gendered, with differ-ent properties for "dark-browed" Zeus and "gniy-eyed" Athena.

95. Strabo, 8.3.30. The stalue, at aboui 42 feet (13 m), w:is seven timeslifesize.

96. The floor of the Litpis Niger is "palombino" limestone from Tolfa;Mario Foniaseri et a!., "Lapis Niger' aud Oiher Black LimestonesUsed in .Antiquily," in The Study oj Marbk and Other Stones Used in An-tiijuity., ed. Yannis Maniatis, Norman Hcrir, and Yannis Basiakos (Lon-don: Archetype Books, I99.'i), 235-42. It is thought to date from ei-ther Caesar's or Sulla's time and wa.s surrounded by a marble barrier.It is not clear whether the black stone indicated thai the site was nffa.s(not lawful) or sepulchral (for example, ibe totub of Romulus): Fi-lippo Coareiti, // foro Romano: Frriodo n^iubldirnno e augusteo (Rome:Quasar, 1985), 195-98.

97. Mnesicles bad used the same slone as thai used for ihe Temple ofZeus (Eleusinian marble) in tbe Propylaeon on ihe Acropolis, for aninternal dado that makes up Ibe difTerence between the level of theAcropolis proper and tbe external ramp, so tJiat crossing tbis space isvisually like wading througb a pool. Lucy T. Shoe's hypothesis thatilie dark stone step within the Propylaeon was a "warning sign," toprevent visitors daz/led by sunlight from tripping up, is as improbableas it is much repeated: Shoe, "Dark Stone in Greek Aicbilecture," Hes-peria, Supplevient 8 (Commrm<yrative Studie.s in Honor of Theodore Ij^slieShear)8 (1949): 341-52.

98. The lemple was begun about 470 BCE, the shell complete by 457.Tbe original door bad lo be removed lo make way for the shallowpool. Tbe oil surface was probably nearly Mush wilh the surroundingwhile curb, which was cut to give the illusion of underlying the col-umns. The barrier ran across Ihe cclla between the second pair of col-umns. An exacting sui"vey is in Fred Forbat. "Der Fussbodcn im Inne-ren des Zeus Tempels und seine Veninderungen bei Aufstellung des

gold-elfenbein-Bildes," in AU-Olympia: Untnsuchun^n und .^usgrabungenzur Cexchiihtf des attested! Heili^ums von Olymjiici und dn liUerrn grirrhi-scheii Kunst, ed. Wilhelm Dorpfeld, 2 vols. (Berlin: E. S. Miiiler undSohn, 1935), vol. 1, 226-47, vol. 2, pis. 18-22, plans 18-21. The .sec-tion and plan are taken from Ernsl Curtius et al., Olympia: Die Krgeb-nisse der von dern Deutschen. Reich veranstalteten Ausgrahung, im Aujtragedes KSniglich preuaischen Ministers der geistlichen, unterri(hts- und media-nal-Angelegenhrilen, 5 vols. (Berlin: A. Asher, 1890), TafeUnlder., vol. 1(1892), pis. 9, 11.

99. "Tutlo il pavimento dil spatio dilla mediana area dil consepto dillacavea dil theatro, silicato il vidi di una soUda et integra petra obsidi-ana di extrenia nigritia et di duritudine indomabile, lersa et lanioillusire che io abstracto sopra di quella nei primo ponere dil mio dex-iro pede, in qnello insianie in abysso inconsideramente . . . veramentemoribondo dubitai precipiiare. . . . Nella quale petra chiaro vedevascel perfectamente cemivasi, quale in placido el fUisiro maie la lynipi-ludine dil profundo caelo, ei similmenle lutee le cose quivi in gyroexistenie refleciavano niolto piii di mundissimo speculo, ei cusi lasoprasiante," Pozzi and Ciappoui, Hypnerotomachia PoUphili, vol. I,346-47.

100. Kiite Spence, "Red, While and Black: Colour in Building Stone in An-cient Egypl," Ccimhridge Archaeological journal 9. no. I (1999): 115; andJames K. Hoffmeier, "The Use of Basalt in Floors of Old KingdomINTamid Temples," Journal of tlw Amtriran Research Crtitrr in ligyf". 30(i993): 117-23.

101. Richard Wilson, interview. Guardian, April 4, 2003. Tbe work, 20:50,was first installed ai Malt's Gallery, London, 1987; reinstalled in iheSaaichi Gallery, Si. John's Wood (1991), and again in ihe Saauhi (ial-lery, South Bank (2003): Michael Archer, Simon Morrissey, and HarryStocks, Richard mison (London: Merrell, 2001), 40-47.

102. Lethaby, Architecture, 179.

103. A!t the Hgural imagerN' that we now see (or know from ()ld descrii>lions) was noi added uuiil the niuih ceuiuty: .Alessatidra Guiglia(iuidobaldi, "1 mosaici aniconici di S. Sofia di Costaniinopoli nell'etadi Giusliniano," in La mosaicjuegrl-co-romaine VII: Tunis. 3-7 ortolne,1994; \7le Collof/ue International pour I'Etude de la Mosaique Antique, ed.Mongi Ennaifer and Alain Rcbourg (Tunis: Inslitut National du Patri-moine, 1999), 691—702. If the giant cberubim in the dome pendcn-lives are Juslinianic, they must stress tbe cburch's Solomonic identity(see I Kings 6:27).

104. The floor is even labeled 0 , \ J \ A 1 S A ("Sea"): I'. Lux, "Die Aposlel-Kircbe in Madaba," Zeitschrijt des DeuLscheti Palastina-Vmeins 84 (1968):106-29, pis. 14-35; Michele Piccirillo and Eugcnio .A.iliala, Madaba: Lechiese e i mo.Kaici (Cinisello Balsamo; Edizioni Paoline, 1989), 96-107:and Micbele Picciiillo, Patricia Maynor Bikai, and Tbomas A. Dailey,The Mosciics of/a-rdan (Amman: ,\merican Center of Oriental Research.1993), 106-7,'Hgs. 78-95. In the middle of ibe (loor of ihe cburcb

of Bishop Sergius (lale sixtb cenUii-y) at Umm al-Ra.sas, Jordan, ibereis instead a marine animal labeled ABYSSt)2 (".Abyss"): BasemaHamarneb, "I mosaici del complesso di S. Stefano: Proposta di let-tura," in Picciriilo and Alliata, t'mm al-Ruias, 231-40; and EdoardoGaulier di Confiengo, "La catecbesi figurata del mosaici della chiesadel vescovo Sergio ad Umm al-Rasas di Giordania," Studium BiblicumFranciscanum 50 (2000): 430-31.

105. In fulfillment of Job 9.8: "Wbo ireadelb upon ibe waves of ibe sea."Cf. ihe inscription in the oraiory of Trasaric in Gaul (Venantius Eor-tunaliis, Carmina 2.13.3-4): "This is the hall of Peter wbo locks thebeavens witb a key and under whose steps the sea siood firm as astone {Haec est auta Petri cueUis qui clave catenat / suhstitit et fieUigtis quogiadiente lapis]"; Venance Fortunat: Pohiies (Tome I, Livres l-f\'), ed. MarcReydellet, 2 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Leitres, 1994), 69. Ai line 10 Ve-nantius writes ihat ibe church "melts the shadows of ihe world andgiasps ibe siai s [tenehrcu muudi liquit et astra terift]."

106. Ode fi. Tone 3, oikos 1, ortbros on Sunday morning: "Enveloped byihe bottomless ilepihs of my sins, I sense my life ebbing away. O Mas-ter, lift np Your liand and stretch it over to me; save me as Yttu oncesaved Peter. O You who walk upon ihe waves." Ode 6, Tone 3, oikoi 1and 3, orthros on Tuesday morning: "I am drowning in ihe depib ofsin. The sea of life is passing over me. But as Jonah came forth frotnibe wbale, so bring me up from the abyss of the pa.isions and save me,O Lord. . . ." "I am tossed on a storm of passions: bui as You once or-dered the waves to be calm of old and saved Your holy Disciples, ()Christ Jesus, so extend Your hand lo uie :uid s;ur me." Sec also Ode 6,Tone 6, orthros on Sunday morning; all in I'he Crecit Octocchos, 4 vols.(Boston: Sophia Press, 1999), vol, 1, 23-24, 230-31, vol. 3, 192-93.Tbese prayers date between the ninth and twelfth centuries.

107. Trnttatits rtedifi cation is ft constmrtionis Er.clmaesanct.ijoh.amm Evangelh-tae df liavfiuiafi. in Anonymi MeilioUinrnsi.s Lilielltt.\ lU situ dvitatis Medio-lani: / > advcntu liamalie Apo\toU ft de vitis pHcirinn potitifirum Mediolanen-sium, ed. Alessandro Colombo and (Giuseppe Colombo (Bologtia: N.Zanichelli, 1942), 567-72: "iubet Augusia ubiquc naufragii sui prae-

COSMIC FLOORS IN ANTIQUITY ANI) THF. MinDI.K ACE.S 555

!)enuri fomiam ut qtiodanimodo tola op -Hs fades reginae peritulaloquLTCltir. l';iviniiiitmii imdusimi imdiquc mare, quod, quasi vciuisagiiatum, prott-Hosar (crnpcstatis Rcril im;iginciii." On S. CiiuvaiiniEvangclisla. set' Dcii liiniuin. llaveiinti, vol. 2, pi. I. 93-124, wiih cnni-p;ir;ilivc [cxts al 107-24. Ntosaics 011 tlic prosceniiiiTi arrh showed(iaila I'Uiririia in her siorni-losscfl galley (nn ihr "iiiaie vitieum." prc-siiiniilily a mosair sea. bnl siill an odd rlioirt' of word.s). and inscrip-linns recorded llie ex-vom dediratinn. The lloor may have resembledthat at Grado. although iliis iiimh<eiitur)' chronicler might also bedescribing a later, Proconnesian replacement. No (races are now visi-ble.

Scf also Psalms 65:5. 7: "O Clod of our salvalioii: who an tJie confi-dence ot all the ends of the eai th. and of (hem that are afar off uponthe sea . . . which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of theirwaves."

lUH. Alfaniis of Salerno, De .situ, construclione ac renovatione coenobil Casirwnsis(Cann. 32), lines 150-54. in I'atrologia Eatina {PE), vol. 147, col.12S7(;: "Hie alahastra nilere lapis / porphyrciis viridisque facit / hisPrnconissa paviia simul / sic sibi niarmora conveniuni / u( lahnr hiemare sit \itreum "; Anselmo txntini and Faustino Avagliano. eds., /carrni di Alfiitio I ardvescmm di Salerno (Monlecassint): Badia cli Monte-cassinu. H)74). 171). Lines 188-89 claim, "Jiistinian's church [HagiaSophia] WfHild [irrler to trade places wiih you [Atria lustiniana \ilum /hunc sibi diligerent satius]'

109. Oikos 7: 'AIT' apj^ffi 'yeyoTOS TO orepedi^ia TQV VHOTSV ev fi€iT<t)etrayi} . .. Kai eiraiw QUTOU iryfta (Jjixrtq <w<;>e iwn 7ru7Tei«Tai...aAA' finOWa TO fj.ei(oi>a Kai TrpoSfjAws imepBoiifiatna'yap evdoKia HfoV TeHtfieAiioTai '<> wios rijq <fte(n?>

Cireek lexi in Consiantiiie A. Tiypanis, EourWen Early Byzantine Can-tiia (Vienna: Bohlau. 19(i8), 141-47 (no. 12): amended according (oPalmer ;uid Rodley, "Inauguraiion Aniliem." \?n ai n. 22, 140-44; seealso Andrew Palmer, "The Inauguraiion An(hem of Hagia SophiaAgain," Hyzanthie rind Modem Greek Studies 14 (1990): 247-48. This an-them is frequenily atlributcd to Romanos Melodios, ihe master of ihegenre, slill living in 555. Conlemporary Synian exegesis proposed thesame model qtiite forcefully: for example, Narsai (late fifth-early sixthcentury), "The Clreaior consimcied a great building for humankind /And He placed its foundaiions on liquid water which He made solid /He stretched over it a roof of liquid water / and above it He piled upthe water as in a reservoir"; trans. MtVey. "Dotiied Churtli as Micro-cosm," 114-15,

110. PauKs fkphra.w of Hagia Sophia was likely given ar Kpiphany (jantiaryti) .")(i3. ihat ol tbe atnlio some days later. (Ibrist's bapiism in the [or-dau was comnit'iiioraled on the same day: Mary Wiiiiby. "The Occa-sion of Paul the Sileniiary's Ekphrasis of S. Sophia." CMssical Qiiarteily35, no. I (1985): 217 and n. 18. December 31. b&l. has also been sug-gested: Ruth Macrides and Paul Magdalino, "The .Architecture of Ek-phrasis: Constniction atid Context of Paul the Sileiuiary's Poem onHaghia Sophia," liyzantive and Modem (-reek Studies 12 (1988): fi3-67.Although the lemma specifies thai the descriptive section of the ora-tion (and the later ekphrasis on the amho) were given in ihe patriarch-ate, (his include<l chambei^s in tbe upper stories of Hagia Sophia:Robin Cormack and Ernest J. W. Hawkins, "The Mosaics of Si. Sophiaat Isianbnl: The Rooms above the Southwest Vestibule and Ramp."Ihiinharton (),ik% I'afms M (1977): 199-202. Paul Friediander also ar-gued ihai ihe audience nuist have Ix-en located within ihc chiucb:Friedland<'r, /()A«/mci nov Crua und I'aulus Silevtaiius: Kunstlieschrerhungfustinianhchn '/At (Leipzig: George Teubner, 1912), 109-10.

111. Robert LamberHm. Homifr the 'Eheologian: NeopUUonist Allegorical Reatlingand the (Winoth af the Epic Tradition (Berkeley: Llniversiiy of CaliforniaPress, 1986), 78-8'2. 144-232.

112. ('arnpbcll Bonner, "Desired Haven," Haniaiil Theohgiial RnJieiv'M, no.I (1911): 49-67: and Sebasiian Brock, "Tbe Scribe Reaches Hai-boiu," ill Itasphorit\: Kssays in Honour of Cyril Mango, ed. Stephanos Ef-thvmiadis. Claudia Rapp. and Dimitris Tsougaimkis (Amsierdatn: AdolfM. Hakkert. 199. 0. 195-202.

113. Pan! the Silentiaiy. Desn: S. Sophiae 92l~$S.

114. Oikos 9: NoTjTois'; (MjS' fv t-VKri row en; TO vekayo^

irXoi'tuixet'om; rfj.; a/j-opruc;. The expression "sea of troubles"{Ehalassa [or pelagos] kakon) exists also in classical Greek: Aeschylus,theliaii 7'i8: and I'enai 433.

115. Joseph vf>n Hannner-Purgstall. C.onstantinopolis und diilitispiiros. iirtlichund gesfhichtlich Ueschriehen. 2 vols. (Vienna: Anton Strauss. 1822). Ilake it on Le(haby's word that Hanitnei-Purgs(all quoted Psendo-Codi-nns. l.ethabv claims tha( Street was inspired by Von Hammer, al-ibough I have Iwen unable to fuid (he exact passage. In 1934 HagiaS<iphia became a naiinnal museum. ;U which poiiU the carpetingcame up. See the nineteenih<entuiy photographs of the interior inHortmann. Die Hagia Sophia in hiaiiliul, 222. 234-35. Tbe invisibility ofHagia Sophia's floor explains Jerome Maurand s claim that "the floor

is made from great circles and flowei> of serpentine and porphyiTand from a cerlain black sione (hat shines like a minor 11/ salrgato ffatti) a tondi gtiindi e puri di seTfimtini, por/idi, el tie una certa pivdu negraluiente como eifnrhio\": /nonw Maunind: Itineraire d'Antilii's ft (.onstnnti-nople, I3H, ed. Leon Dore/ (Paris: E. tx.-roux. 1901), 244.

1 lfi. Giovanni Meschineilo, l.a Chiesa l>urale di S. Marco colle notizif del suninnahamento, 2 vols. (Venice. I75;^54). vol. 2, 35: "a bella pos(a cosifabbricalo, per imitare I'onda del mare, e significari' il tXuninin chela Serenissima Repubblica conser\av"d sopra di es.so." One irod ihefloor "withoin remorse, but not wiihoui a very odd sensaiion, whenyou find tbe grotind undulated beneath (hem, (o repiesen( ihe wavesof the sea, and perpeiuaie marine i<ieas, which prevail in eveiytbingat Venice." Hesier t.ynch Pio//i, Obsematiiins and liiflections Made in tlurCourse of a Jimmry tlmmgh Erance, Italy, and (Germany, 2 vols. (lxtndon:A. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1789), vol. 1, I.'i2. John Rtiskin approvedthis pas.sage in his Journal on November 24, 1851: The Works of Johnlitiskin, ed. Edward T. ('00k and Alexander I). O. Wedderburn, '^^)vols. (London: George Allen, 1904-12). vol. 10. 464. The idea is re-pealed in Theophile Gautier, Italia (Paris: V. Ix-coii, 1852), 12. .

117. Street lectured to the Architectural Photographic Association (Febru-ary 15. 18.")9), and Ruskin. Woriis, vol. 16, 464, applauded his idea Ihatthe floor had Ijeen ptir|K)sely laid in undulations. For Ruskin s pan inthe reslonition debate (ihough no meniioii ol the floor), see JohnI'nrati, liuskin and St. Mark's (I.ondon: Thames and Hudson. I9H4),191-210; andjohn Pemble, Venice liedisciwered (Oxiord: ClarendonPress, 1995), 148-53. Arthur E. Sireet, Memoir of (.eorg,' Edmund .Street,li.A. IH24--!fiNI (London: John Murray, 1S8H), 248-54. (;. F.. Sireeipublished a column in ibe Times, reaffirming his titidulating-IUior ihe-on. This was contested by a ceriain Mr. Fowler, who olwer^ed (hat (helloor had simply stibsided. In 1886 the quesiion of ilie paving resur-faced wben (he secretary of the Society Un (he Piiitectioti of AncientBuildings once more protested its restoration.

118. Pavement of St. Mark's, Vmire. in Patricia Hills, cd.. John .Singer Snrgmt(New^'ork: Harry N. Abrams. 1986). 68. fig. 43. The painiing is nor-mally dated to 1898, but Richard Orm<md {Comfdete Paintings, vol. 4,Eigiiin and Enndsca/u-s IH74-IHH2 [New Haven: ^'ale I'niversiiy Press,for the Paul Meltoti Centre lor Studies in British .Art. 2006], 357, no.812) redates ihe painting to alxiin 1880-82. My ihank.s lo Ted IJal-/iell for bringing this painiing and tbe following passage lo niv atten-tion: -What I remember chiefly is the siraigbtening out ol thai darkand rtigged old pavement—those deep undulations of priiTiiiive tno-saic in which ihe Ibnd spectator was thought to perceive ati intendedresemblanie 10 (he w-aves of the <icean. Wliether intended or noi theimage was an image the more in a treastue-house of images; bul froma considerable portion of the church il has now disappeared"; HenryJames, Italian Hours (London: W. Heinemann, 1909), 9.

119. Cieotge Kdmimd Siret-i, lirick and Marlde in llw Middle Ages: Xotei ofTours iv thf North of Italy (London: John MuiTay, 185.'>), 159-60.

120. Winefride de t.'Hopital. West-minstn Cathedral and Its Arrhitert, 2 vols.(London: Hulchinson, 1919), vol. I. l26-'29. In (lit- event. lieniley's1901 design was considered too frigid for noriliern climes and a par-(|uel flour went down instead. Bentley's design would also have cosi£I8,()(H). The tnatbles may bave already been (tideied and. if so, mayhave ended up in Surrey House, Norwich (1901-4): Patrick Rogers,Westmiiister CMhedral: Emm Darkness to Eight (London: Kturis and Oates.2003), 7-9. Bentley and his ma.';()n Williarti Brindley applied the term"Cipollino" 10 Proconnesian and Caiystian alike. (ITI ihe cathedral'smarbles, see Rogers, 43-76.

121. Joseph Lemaire, "Sytiibolisme de la mer, du naviie, du pecheur ei dela peche chei Chromace d'Aquilc-e,' in .Aquileia e I'Altn Adiiatico(Udine: Arti Grafiche FHuiane, 1972). 141-52, esp. 114. Chromatitisbecame a priest ai Aquileia in .387/388 CE and died in 4OtV4O7. S<-ealso Lois Drewer, "Fisherman and Fish Pond: From ihe Sea of Sin 10the Living Waters," An liullrtin 63. no. 4 (1981): .'>33-47. Sireet knewof Galia Placidia's stormy floi>r, as be qnittes the passage in his tellerto ihe Times.

122. 1-ethaby, Architecture. I (T8-83; and Leihabv an<l Swainson. SinutnSofjhia, 79-80. I.,ethaby cotild noi see ihe lloor of Hagia .Sophia butbiLsed his observaiions on the floor in the g-alleiy over ibe narihex.Bentley spent five months in Italy (1894-95). evolving his designbased on the "lialo-By/atitine" style of ibe sixth centuiy. He did notreach Onsiantinople because of an outbreak of cholera Itiu re-marked Ihat "San Vitale. Ravenna, and Lethaby's Book told tne all Iwanted."

123. J. Holder, "Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth and lis Inlluence." in VV Ii.Ijttliaby IN57-I'^3I: Architecture. De.sign and Education, ed. Sylvia B;icke-meyer and Theresa (ironberg (London: Lund Hiunphries, 1984), 56-63: and Godfrey Rtil>ens, Willifim liichnrd Utlialn: His Life and Wi>rk,IS57~I93} (London: Archiu'citiral Press, 1986), 80-97. A less sympa-thetic acconiu is in David Watkin, The liisf uf Architectural History (Lon-don: Architectural Press, 1980), 87-93. In the 1975 reprini of Archilec-

656 ART Blil.LETlN CEt:F.MBER 2007 VOI.UMF. l.XXXIX NLIMBF.R 4

ture, Myttkism and Myth (New York: George Brazilter, 1975), 273-80.Riiben.s compiled an introductory biblio^aphy of l-ethaby'.s principalsources, including ;i handftil used for the chapter "Floors as Seas." OnLethaby and Hagia Sophia, see al.so Nelson, Hn^n Stifjhia, 112-19.

124. W. S. George's drawings of Hagios Demetrios were discovered anddiscussed in Robin ("oniiack. "Thf Mosaic Decoration of S. Deme-trios, Thessalnniki: A Re-exa mi nation in the Lighl of the Drawings ofW. S. George," Annual of llw Brili.'.li Srbool (it Albrm t)4 (1969): 17-.52;and idem, 77n" Church of Saint Demftrior. llw WaUn-roUniTs and DrawingsofW. S. Ciforge (Thessaloniki: Demos Thessalonikcs, 1985).

125. Schiili/ w-as a member of the British Archaeological School in Athensfrom 1888 to 1891. He collaborated with Ernest A. Gardner on Exca-vations at Megaliypolis. 1890-1891 (London: Macmillan, 1892); withSidney H. Bamsley on The Monaslrry ofSriint Luke of Slim, in Fhoris,and the DepemUtnt Moniistery of Saint Nicolas in the FieUh, near Sknpmi. inBtjeotia (London: Macmillan, 1901); wrote "Byzantine Art" In the Archi-tfcturnl Review (1897); antl edited The Churrh of the Natwity at Bethlehem(London; B. T. Batsford, 1910). Schultz and B.trnsley's photographicplates went missing after World War II but were fortuiUitisly redi.scov-ered through e-mail correspondence between myself and Dr. PaulTaylor of (he Warburg Institute (2003), in whose pholographic ar-chive the plates had remained unnoticed for fifty yeai s.

126. Robert S. Weir, IV. R. Lcthaln: A Paper Read hefore the Art W/irkm' Guild22 April 1932 (London; Printed ai ilie Central School of Ait. 1938),11. quoted in Ckidfrey Rubens, intr<iduction to Arrhiterture, \975. xiv.Lelhaby thanked Schultz in the acknowledgments of Architertum My.sti-cism and Myth for supplying him with a sketch of the floor of the Flor-ence Baptistery.

127. The first chapel was built in 1H93 for ihe third Marqiifss of Riitt- inthe grotinds of his town housf. Sl. [obn's Lodge, Regents Park, Lon-don, but destroyed in 1939. The Clhapel of St. ^\ndrew, WesiiniiisterCathedral, was buili in K)10-L5 ai the expense of the fourth mar-qtiess: L"H6pltal. Westminster Cathfdral., vol. 1, 163-67; David Ottewiil,"Robert Weir Schuliz (1860-19.51); .An Arts and Crafts Architect," Ar-chitedural Hist/ny 22 (1979): 92, 93; and Gavin Stamp. Holmi WeirSthultz, Architect, and His Winit for the Marquesses of Bute: An K^say(Rothessay, [sic of Btite: Mount Stuart. 1981). 19-20, 60-63. See thecommemorative issue oi Architectural AssocJatioti Journal. 7^ (Juno1957). The floor symbolism w-as reported in Btiiltier. December 10,1915. 422-23; and William Curtis Green, "Recent Decorations at theRoman Catholic Cathedral Westminster." Archilertuial Review 40. no.236 (1916); 7-12. Builder \v\c\\.\AeA :t watercolor plan of tlie Westmin-ster pavement, republished in Backemeyer and Cironberg. W. R.iMhafry, 83, cat. no. 9.''>. A floor plan is in Building News, December 1.1915, 615. Most reviews of the work were highly favorable, but ihereviewer for the 7Vww.? compared entering the chapel to being in abathroom and "up to the neck in cold water."

128. Arthur H. S. Mcgaw. "Notes on Recent Work of the Byzantine Insti-tute in Istanbul," Dumbarton Otih Papers 17 (1965): 337. The Pantokra-tor floor was not tmcovered until 1954; Paul .\. l'ndei-wood. "Noteson the Work <if the By/.antine Itisiitiitt- in Istanbul: 1954." DumbartonOaks Papers 9-10 (19.56): 299-300. On Nikopolis, see Kitzingcr, "Mo-saics at Nikopolis," 84-108, with earlier bibliography. Schuliz hadprobably also noticed the publication of the monochrome mosaicfloor (late twelfth or eariy thirteenth ceniury) of the chancel of S.Salvatore. Turin, excavated in 1909, on which v-.irioiis roundels arcenclosed by an orbital Ocean: Toesca. "Vicende," 1-16; and Porter,Lombard Ardiitecture, vol. 3, 442. Note also that Kingsiey Porter's 1912article on the floor al S. Savino. Piacenza ("San Savino," pt. 2. 503-4},cites Saint Ambrose's Hexameron lo sec in the floor's "ocean and itsfinny iniiabitiints . . . a complete image of the Churcli of God and ofhuman life."

129. 'ilK^avhv TT^pii^avjov avipijov ei-fla SeSopKa? / yoCCtxv pLkoaove;foi/Ta (Toilxfi^ (Kitzinger, "Mo.saics al Nikopoiis." 84-108). Sec Ma-guire, EartJi and Oiran, 21; and idem, "Mantle of the Earth," 221-28.

130. Cyril Mango, Michael Vickers, and E. D. Francis, "The Palace of Lau-siis at Constantinople and Its Collection of Ancient Statties." Journal ofthf Histtny of Collertions 4. no. I (1992): 89-98. Their identification ofthe palace of l^usos is overturned by Sarah Otibcrti Bassctt, "'Extt-l-Icnl Offerings': The l,atisos Collection in Constantinople." Art Hull-tin82, no. 1 (2000); 6-25. Ii is tinknown whether l.atisos made any at-tempt to reprodtice the black pool.

131. James D. Breckcnridgc, The Numismatic Ironof/raphy of Jiv>tinian II (68^-695. 705-711 A.D.) (New York: American Ninnismaiic Society. 195"J),57-59; Mango et al.. "Palace of Latisns," 95; l^patin, CkiyseliiphantineStatuary, 137: Michael Vickers, "Phidias' Oiympia Zeus and Its For-tima," in Ivory in (.Weeee and the Eastern Mediterranean Jrnm the Himize Ageto the Hell/^iistir Period, ed. J. Lesley Fitton (London; British Miisetini.1992), 217-16; and Thomas F. Malhcws, The CUtsh of Codv. A Rrinterfnr-tation of Early Christian Art (Prlnteton: Priricfton University Press,1993), 108-9.

132. The variotis meanings imputed to the moniirtu-nt are snmmarizfd inNicholas Capa.sso, "Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Washington. D.C.,Designer: Maya Lin, Architects of Record; The ("oopcr-I.ccky Partner-ship," in The Critical Edge: Controversy in Recent American Architecture, ed.Tod Marder (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), 189-202; andCharles L. Griswold. "The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Wash-ington Mall; Philosophical Thoughts on Political Iconography," in Ariand the Public Spliere, cd. William J. T. Mitchell (Chicago; University ofChicago Press, 1986), 79-112. On the Lincoln Memorial, sec Christo-pher A. Thomas, Tlie IMiohi Metnorial and Its Architect. Henry Bruon(1866-1924), 2 vols. (Ann Arbor: UMi, 1991).