A Study of Gulru Necipoglu’s Article “The Life of an Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia after Byzantium”: Summary and Critique
Number of pages:
10
ABSTRACT:
This is a 10 page paper discussing Gulru Necipoglu’s article “The Life of an Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia after Byzantium”. Gulru Necipoglu’s article “The Life of an Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia after Byzantium” highlights many of the cultural and historical aspects of Hagia Sophia since Mehmed II’s conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Necipoglu comments that her purpose for the article is to fill in many of the details which have been missed in other works relating to the transition Hagia Sophia has undergone within its last 451 years. While Necipoglu does have a great deal of professional knowledge in the field of architecture and especially that within the Islamic world, Necipoglu’s article actually emphasizes the cultural and religious significance and changes within Hagia Sophia and of the architectural changes which accompany these transitions. Her emphasis is on the cultural and religious flexibility of Hagia Sophia and not only how it accommodated the transition from being The Great Church in Christianity to becoming the great Ayasofya mosque in the Muslim world but also she reveals many of the myths which were created in order to support its growing importance in the Islamic world. While it may seem that a great many of the historical and architectural details are absent from Necipoglu’s article which preceded Byzantium, the article appears within a larger text on Hagia Sophia and its placement near the end provides a good contextual finish to the text of a monument which has undergone a great deal of architectural, cultural and religious renovation and change.
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