Hagia Sophia: Sound, Space, and Spirit in Byzantium

The church of Hagia Sophia was a performative place of worship representative of Byzantine religious culture, where the resonant acoustics filled participants with the Spirit of God and made them his image on earth. Bissera Pentcheva's analysis combines digital acoustic models, video, and liturgical texts to explore how liturgy and location worked to animate worshippers in Byzantium, creating an aural experience that led to mystical transcendence.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 304 pages
\n Publication date: 30 October 2018
\n Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
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The Byzantine participants in the liturgical rituals of the Church of Hagia Sophia were filled with the Spirit of God and even became his image on earth by experiencing the resonant acoustics of the church. Bissera Pentcheva's vibrant analysis examines how these sung rites, combined with the church's architectural space, made Hagia Sophia a performative place of worship representative of Byzantine religious culture in all its sensory richness.

Pentcheva applies art-historical, philosophical, archeoacoustical, and anthropological methodologies to provide insight into the complementary ways liturgy and location worked to animate worshippers in Byzantium. Rather than focus on the architectural form of the building, the technology of its construction, or the political ideology of its decoration, Pentcheva delves into the performativity of Hagia Sophia and explains how the "icons of sound" created by the sung liturgy and architectural reverberation formed an aural experience that led to mystical transcendence for worshippers, opening access to the imagined celestial sound of the angelic choirs.

Immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully illustrated, this exploration of Hagia Sophia sheds new light on sacred space, iconicity, and religious devotion in Byzantium. Scholars of art and architectural history, religious studies, music and acoustics, and the medieval period will especially appreciate Pentcheva's field-advancing work.

\n Weight: 870g\n
Dimension: 255 x 180 x 18 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780271077260\n \n