ANTEMIO DI TRALLE

ANTEMIO of TRALLES. – Byzantine architect who, together with Isidore of Miletus, erected in 532 the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, creating the greatest example of a dome resting on triangular pendentives with spherical sections and raised above the arches connecting the four supporting pillars; this system of roofing constitutes one of the principal characteristics of Byzantine architecture (v. BYZANTIUM, ART).

The same architects created in 536 a simpler model, the Basilica of the Apostles, later destroyed by the Turks, on a Greek-cross plan, with a central dome on isolated pillars and smaller domes at the ends of the four arms, which served as a prototype for the Basilica of St Mark in Venice.

Article illustration
(from Deptini, Antichità, Papuit) Ancestors – Sacellum of the *imagines mulierum* or ancestors of the house known as that of Menander in Pompeii.

Bibl.: A. Muñoz, s.V. in Thieme-Becker, I, pp. 249-51; S. Berrini, *L’architettura bizantina*, Florence 1937. Saverio Pisani