3. Cilt - Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı

The fl oor measures 5x7 meters and the central panel follows a rectangularscheme, with irregular squares in the middle and round ribbons along the externalperimeter. The colors are mainly shades of light and deep blue and turquoise,deep red, deep green and white, with frequent gold insertions; the patterns arevery fi ne and interlaced the one with the other.In the middle of the short eastern side of the fl oor still survives a rectangularmarble base with four empty holes at the four corners and among them a closegrid, also in marble, emptied of the colorful decorative material which would havemost probably once fi lled it in.If the marble base is actually what remains of an altar piece, as most scholarsagree, then the mosaic fl oor belongs to an oratory or to a chapel. Together withother emains from this area, in the Archaeological Museums of İstanbul is indeedexhibited a marble angel, which counts among the very few architectural fragmentswe know of in Constantinople.The dating of the mosaic has been tentatively placed by J. P. Sodini in thetenth century since the Conference of Byzantine Studied held in Moscow in 1990 1 .But in 2001 Marlia Mundell Mango took back the dating of the Boukoleon mosaicfl oor to the fi rst half of the ninth century, analysing with S. E. J.Gerstel and J.A. Lauffenburger typology, chronology and functions of Polychrome Tiles fromByzantium 2 . Recently, the tenth century dating was proposed again by AlessandraGuiglia in The Art of Byzantium and Italy at the time of the Palaeologians 1261-1453 3 and by Claudia Barsanti in the 2006 Parma Conference about “The Churchand the Palace” 4 .We can now look back in the sources for a chapel near the sea-walls dating tothe ninth or to the tenth century.1 J.-P.Sodini, “ Le goût du marbre “, in Etudes balkaniques, “Cahiers Pierre Belon”, 1, 1994,“Actes de la table ronde n.9 , XVIIIe Congrès international d’études Byzantines, Moscou, Août1990”, 179-201;2 M.Mundell Mango, “Polychrome Tiles found in Istanbul: Tipology, Chronology and Function”,in A Lost Art Rediscovered. The Architectural Ceramics of Byzantium, eds. S.E.J. Gerstel andJ.A. Lauffenburger, Baltimora 2001, part.23-5, fugg.1-2.3 cfr. A. Guiglia Guidobaldi “La decorazione pavimentale bizantina in età paleologa” , in L’artedi Bisanzio e l’Italia al tempo dei Paleologi, 1261-1453, eds. A. Iacobini-M.della Valle, (Milion,Studi e ricerche d’arte bizantina, 5), Argos, Roma 1999, part. 324-25, with bibl..4 C.Barsanti, “Le chiese del Grande Palazzo di Costantinopoli”, in La Chiesa e il Palazzo, Attidel Convegno, Parma, 2005, 24, with notes, to be publ.122