Church of the Ruined Monastery at Daou-Mendeli, Attica

Extract

So little of this picturesque and interesting Byzantine church and monastery unfortunately is left standing that the measured drawings and photographs reproduced on Plates XIV.—XVII, will perhaps serve as the best form of description. Mr Hasluck and I made a careful survey of the church and the scanty remains of the monastic buildings in March, 1902, putting up for a week at a farmhouse about four miles distant.

The planning of the central part of the church at the ground level carried up as a hexagon and domed with a twelve-sided cupola is very interesting and somewhat unusual for this type of church. An hexagonal plan of somewhat similar character is shown in Fig. 1, a drawing from a Cairene Mosque made by Mr E. F. Reynolds, Student of the School in 1902–3. The arrangement of the apse internally is very effective, though, on account of the slope of the ground, which rises considerably at this end of the church, we were unable to determine the external treatment. The gallery and first floor are approached on the west side from a room over what appears to have been the monks' cells, and this seems to have been the only means of access to it, as no evidence of a staircase leading to the upper floor exists in the church at all. Fig. 2 gives an elevation and section of the screen.