Construction
Eastern emperor Justinian orders the building of Santa Sophia (also called the Hagia Sophia), designed by Isidore of Miletus (Turkey), the first building with a dome large enough to cover a town square. The dome is actually a pendentive, formed by cutting off the sides of a hemisphere to produce a figure that covers a square and then slicing off the top, producing four upside-down "triangles" with curved sides joined at their upper bases. The pendentive dome itself is 37 m (120 ft) across and 14 m (46 ft) high, but rests on the top of a building, giving it a total height of 61 m (200 ft). Santa Sophia is the largest religious structure of its time. See also 126 ce Construction.
