Lonely Planet İstanbul Guide

Dome Aya Sofya’s dome is 30m in diameter and 56m in height. It’s supported by 40 massive ribs constructed of special hollow bricks, and these ribs rest on four huge pillars concealed in the interior walls. On its completion, the Byzantine historian Procopius described it as being ‘hung from heaven on a golden chain’, and it’s easy to see why. The great Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan, who spent his entire professional life trying to design a mosque to match the magnificence and beauty of Aya Sofya, used the same trick of concealing pillars and ‘floating’ the dome when designing the Süleymaniye Mosque almost 1000 years later. Upstairs Galleries