Pendentives carrying a great dome over a square plan
Pechinas para cubrir una planta cuadrada con cúpula de gran luz
- Date
- 532-537 · confidence medium
- Place
- Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
- Credited to
- Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Spherical triangles of masonry rising from the four corners that carry the weight of a circular dome onto square piers, freeing the central space. At Hagia Sophia they support a dome about 31 m across above an open interior.
Earlier pendentives exist in Roman and Byzantine buildings (e.g. Sergius and Bacchus, 527); Hagia Sophia is the largest-scale application. The dome partly collapsed in 558 and was rebuilt higher.
What it led to
- domes-over-square-plan systems of Byzantine churches and Ottoman mosques
- stepped semi-domes that buttress the thrust (Sinan)
- basis of dome architecture in Russia, the Balkans and the Caucasus