Free Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City by John Freely, Hilary Sumner-Boyd Page A

western gallery, from whence we can orient ourselves and enjoy a splendid view of the nave. Just next to the balustrade at the centre of this gallery we see the spot where the throne of the Empress was located; it is marked by a disc of green Thessalian marble set into the pavement and framed by a pair of coupled columns in green marble. Although Procopius and the Silentiary tell us that in their time the entire gallery was used as the women’s quarter, or gynaeceum, it appears that in later centuries most of the southern gallery was reserved for the use of the royal family, and, on occasion, for synods of the Orthodox Church.
    Let us now return to the northern gallery, where the earliest of the visible mosaics is located. This mosaic, the last of those in the church to be uncovered and restored, is found high on the east face of the north-west pier. This panel represents the Emperor Alexander, who came to the throne in May of the year 912, succeeding his elder brother, Leo VI. “Here comes the man of thirteen months,” said Leo with his dying breath, as he saw his despised brother coming to pay his last respects. This cynical prophecy was fulfilled in June of the following year, when Alexander died of apoplexy during a drunken game of polo. This mosaic portrait must surely have been done during Alexander’s brief reign, for so incompetent and corrupt was this mad and alcoholic despot that no one would have honoured him other than in the single year when he was sole ruler. Alexander’s portrait shows him standing full length, wearing the gorgeous ceremonial costume of a Byzantine emperor: crowned with a camelaucum, a conical, helmet-shaped coronet of gold with pendant pearls; draped in a loros, a long, gold-embroidered scarf set with jewels; and shod in gem-studded crimson boots. Four medallions flanking the imperial figure bear this legend: “Lord help thy servant, the orthodox and faithful Emperor Alexander.”
    On the west face of the same pier we find one of the most elaborate of the many graffiti which are carved on the walls of Haghia Sophia; it shows a medieval galleon under full sail. Anyone who has ever sat through the whole of a long Greek Orthodox service can appreciate how the artist had plenty of time to complete this sketch. Most of the other graffiti consist merely of names and dates, many of them carved on the marble balustrade. On the inner balustrade of the north gallery we find this inscription: “Place of the most noble Patrician, Lady Theodora.” A short distance farther along there is one which reads: “Timothy, Keeper of the Vessels.” What was Timothy doing in the gynaeceum, we wonder?
    We now retrace our steps to view the other visible mosaics, all of which are located in the southern gallery. Before we turn into the gallery, we might pause for a moment at a closed door in the south end of the central gallery. This door leads into a large chamber directly over the Vestibule of the Warriors, and this in turn leads into a suite of rooms on either side. These rooms contain a large number of mosaics, which are thought to date from the second half of the ninth century, just after the end of the iconoclastic period. These fascinating rooms are almost certainly the large and small secreta of the Patriarchal Palace, which adjoined Haghia Sophia to the south. Unfortunately, they are not open to the public.
    In the south gallery, between the western pier and buttress, there stretches a marble screen in the form of two pairs of false double doors with elaborately ornamented panels, the so-called Gates of Heaven and Hell. Between them is the actual doorway with a slab of translucent Phrygian marble above it; a sculpted wooden beam forms a kind of cornice to the whole. Neither the date nor the purpose of this screen is known. It is certainly not an original part of the church but a later addition, and it has been suggested that it may have been erected to screen off the portion of the south gallery used