"[Nelson's] account is never boring. The illustrations are eloquent. . . . The book is a delight to read, to handle and to browse through."
— Peter Clark, Asian Studies
"Well-researched and gracefully written, this book demonstrates that Hagia Sophia has been repeatedly re-imagined both rhetorically and visually, as political and artistic climates have shifted. . . . This revealing examination of the cultural construction of meaning makes an important contribution to the study of religious architecture."
— Jeanne Halgren Kilde, Religious Studies Review
"Thought-provoking, entertaining, informative, and very readable throughout."
— Robert Ousterhout, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
“The architectural history of the Great Church is here taken for granted: instead the author addresses the structure as a modern monument, recounting the history of its reception. . . . This well illustrated volume . . . is a weighty and rewarding path of approach to one of Christianity’s greatest monuments.”
— Art & Christianity
"Nelson's remarkable achievement is a cultural and intellectual history more nearly than an architectural one. . . . His book doubles, brillinatly, as a historiographic essay illuminating a larger context for the growth and particular shape of the Byzantine specialization. . . . Nelson's insightful, intelligent, timely, and illuminating analysis will find satisfying readers among historians and cultural critics in many fields."
— Sally M. Promey, Journal of Religion
"This fascinating investigation . . . amasses a wealth of documentation. . . . Intelligently and beautifully written, and well produced with 119 figures and ten color plates, the important monograph . . . should appeal to the scholar and the general reader alike."
— W. Eugene Kleinbauer, Catholic Historical Review
"[Nelson's story] is a majestic one, the recovery of Byzantine civilization in the consciousness of the West. . . . With the Byzantine revival brought into focus . . . one can more readily see how a lost and reviled world served as a vital school for art and literature in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries."
— Joseph Connors, New York Review of Books