This building's plan and the buttressing of its main piers resembles the Basilica of Constantine, a ruler much admired by the emperor who ordered its construction.
Like an early basilica, this building posesses a longitudinal axis but the nave's central feature is a square compartment. Attached to its two half- domes are semicircular niches with open arcades, similar to those at San Vitale, and the walls under the central dome are not load-bearing, as the dome is supported by pendentives, the first known use of this technique on a monumental scale. This building's plan and the buttressing of its main piers resembles the Basilica of Constantine, a ruler much admired by the emperor who ordered its construction. Designed by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, for ten points, identify this Byzantine Church constructed under Justinian, which had four minarets added to it after the Turks took Constantinople.
Like an early basilica, this building posesses a longitudinal axis but the nave's central feature is a square compartment.
{Hagia Sophia} or {Santa Sofia} or {Church of the Holy Wisdom} or {Ayasofya}