Hagia Sophia, Istanbul: the gallery

NOTES: The Church of the Holy Wisdom, known as Hagia Sophia in Greek, Sancta Sophia in Latin, and Ayasofya or Aya Sofya in Turkish, was a Byzantine church until 1453 when Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror made it his imperial mosque. In 1934 the mosque was secularized and turned into the Ayasofya Museum.