Hagia Sophia
The interior of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, rebuilt by Justinian and completed in 537 after the Nika riots destroyed its predecessor.
The Nika riots of 532 burned much of the city centre and nearly cost Justinian his throne. What he built on the ruins was a dome 31 metres across resting on pendentives, an engineering solution that had never been attempted at this scale and that made the roof appear to float on light. Destruction gave him a clear site and a reason to build something no emperor could be seen to have matched. Read the full story in our article on The Nika Riots of 532: Destruction and Renewal in Byzantine Constantinople.
CC BY-SA 3.0 — source (Wikimedia Commons). Free to reuse under the stated licence.
