One-fifth of the loot obtained belongs to the state, according to the Islamic law governing war, applied by the Ottoman state. One-fifth of these state-owned properties also become the personal wealth of the sultan. The sultan has the right to choose whatever he desires from the loot. Sultan Mehmed II, aka Mehmed the Conqueror, acquired Hagia Sophia, which belonged to the emperor before the conquest, and converted it into a mosque.
When he entered the building, he performed the first prayer and read the khutbah — the address delivered in the mosque on Fridays and during annual rituals — himself during the first Friday prayer. The prayer was led by Akshamsaddin, an influential Ottoman religious scholar, poet and tutor and adviser to Sultan Mehmed II.
Sultan Mehmed II did not keep this place as his own mosque but donated it as a foundation for all Muslims to use. He prepared a deed called "vakfiye" for this foundation. In , the Council of Ministers turned Hagia Sophia into a museum, going against the foundation law.
Turkish courts ensured that this decision was lawful. Thus, it was made necessary to respect private property in accordance with international law. Besides, this liberated the structure from the curse written by Sultan Mehmed II in the foundation deed. To this end, religious items belonging to Christianity were removed. The sultan did not allow the cutting and removal of ornaments and mosaics. However, since having them visible would prevent worship, he ordered them to be covered with a thin layer of lime.
Ottoman historians, such as Solakzade Mehmed, recorded that the faces of pictures were scratched after the conquest. Some foreign travelers wrote that frescoes were exposed in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. During the fourth crusade in , Latin Crusaders sacked many Byzantine buildings including Hagia Sophia.
Many beautiful mosaics were removed and shipped to Venice. After the Ottoman occupation of Constantinople in , with the transition of Hagia Sophia into mosque, the mosaics were covered whitewashed or plastered.
But they still remained covered until when a restoration and recovery program began under the leadership of Thomas Whittemore. In , Mustafa Kemal Ataturk ordered that Hagia Sophia would become a museum, the recovery and restoration expanded then. For this reason, Constantine was accepted as an ancestor by the Byzantines and was remembered with respect even centuries later. Emperor Justinian lived two centuries after Constantine. The years between and , when Justinian ruled, was the peak period of the Byzantine Empire.
Emperor Justinian and his wife Empress Theodora became the most famous figures in Byzantine history. For this purpose he conquered Italy. In this mosaic you can see the two most famous emperors of late Antiquity. On the right, Emperor Constantine presents his masterpiece, Constantinople, to the holy family.
This mosaic dating from the 10th century is still in very good condition. The Justinian and Constantine mosaic, made hundreds of years after the reign of both emperors, shows that their legacy was well remembered.
Deesis Mosaic of Christ is located in the south gallery on the upper floor of Hagia Sophia. The mosaic dating from the 13th century is one of the best examples of Byzantine art.
The mosaic depicts the Judgment Day, one of the most popular scenes in Byzantine religious art. The Deesis Mosaic has Christ Pantocrator at the center.
On the left is the Virgin Mary and on the right is John the Baptist. Mary and John beg Jesus for mercy for people on the Day of Judgment. The vividness of the colors and the facial expressions of the characters are very successful in the mosaic. For this reason, Deesis in Hagia Sophia is considered the renaissance of Byzantine mosaic art. Empress Zoe was the only heir after the death of her father. The person she would marry would become the emperor.
She married a man Romanus III deemed suitable by the officials of the state. However, she fell in love with someone else. Her first husband died mysteriously after slipping in the bathroom. Therefore Zoe was able to marry the man Michael IV she fell in love with.
But her second husband died as well due to a deadly disease. Then she married the handsome bureaucrat Constantine Monomachus. Constantine also brought his mistress Maria Skleraina to the palace after getting married. This is why the new emperor received great reaction from the public.
People feared that Zoe would be a victim of an assassination. Feeling the pressure of the people, Constantine did not dare even if he had an intention to do something to Zoe. Between and the reconquest of the city by the Greeks in the Ottoman authorities began an effort to conserve and restore the mosaics. The roof was redone and the surface of the mosaic was cleaned.
At the time the city was multi-national composed of Muslim Turk, Jewish and Christian Greek communities. Charles Diehl, the French Byzantinist, worked on the mosaics, especially the Theotokos in the apse.
Damage had been done to the faces and the gold stars on the shoulders of the Virgin's maphorion had been hacked out. It is not clear how much of Christ's face had been over-painted in the restoration.
In the mosaics of the apse were restored and the gold background was reset. Missing tesserae in the two figures was replaced. The suture lines showing the area of replacement of a vast iconoclastic era gold cross with the figure of the Virgin and Child were destroyed. Now it can only be studied in old photographs. The dome mosaics were fully restored in The figure of Christ in Glory was in excellent shape. Christ was seen by an Italian traveler, the Venetian Ambassador, who could in still see the Pantokrator in the dome of Hagia Sophia.
The mosaic in the dome represents the Ascension with the inscription from Acts "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? The dome is ringed by the figures of all Twelve Apostles, Mary and two angels. The two angels above are very different and must have been done by different artists.
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