We are too far away in space and years and thought to feel these grandeurs, and those who worship in them have little taste for our Gothic audacities or the sensual images of our Renaissance. Yet even we must be moved when, standing before the ruins of the Blue Mosque at Tabriz (1437–67), we recall its once famed glory of blue faïence and golden arabesques; and we are not unmindful that Mohammed II and Bajazet II raised at Constantinople (1463, 1497) mosques almost rivaling St. Sophia’s majesty.
