The story of Hagia Sophia

Some of the columns, doors and stones around you are older than the building itself: they were brought here from earlier structures and temples. Hagia Sophia, whose name means "Holy Wisdom", was built for Emperor Justinian I between 532 and 537, directed by Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles, with about 10,000 workers. It is actually the third church on this spot; the first two were destroyed during riots.

Its central dome, the widest of its time, collapsed on 7 May 558, and Isidore the Younger rebuilt it higher, lightened by forty windows. In 1054 the church witnessed the excommunication seen as the start of the split between the Eastern and Western churches. After 1453 Mehmed II turned it into a mosque, and its figural mosaics were covered with thin plaster that protected them for centuries.

A museum from 1935, it became a mosque again in 2020, and since 2024 its upper floor serves as a museum.