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St. George the Latin
or: St. George of the Latins
Left:

Drawing showing the mode of constructing the church out of the ruins of an ancient temple.

Right:

North elevation.

Gazi Magusa (Famagusta) - For some time preceding the building of the great cathedral and the magnificent fortifications, which latter date perhaps from a period long subsequent even to the year 1311, the site of Famagusta seems to have been occupied by the Latin lords of Cyprus.
Attracted by the natural port, they seem to have built the four square castle which, with its four massive angle towers, still survives embedded within later earthwork fortifications as a defence to the harbour mouth. Just across the castle ditch on its southern side they erected the beautiful church of St. George. The very remarkable fact that this church was built with a crenellated parapet - in other words that it was a fortified building - leads to the supposition that it must have existed before the city walls, and when the open country still surrounded the harbour and the castle.

By the time the Latin cathedral was in building the city had come into existence, and the city wall was probably in course of construction (circa 1325). We may, perhaps, date this church of St. George as a building of the last years of the XIIIth century, but as to its history we have not a clue of any kind. Earliest mention of it by name is in the curious representation of the famous siege of Famagusta, where it is clearly enough identified by the old Italian 'S. Giorgio Latino', or 'St. George the Latin'. (* This curious copperplate broadsheet was published by a certain Stephano Gibellino in Brescia the same year as the famous siege and martyrdom of Bragadino. The church is very clearly represented and designated under the name of St. George the Latin.)

Amongst the peculiarities of its construction must be mentioned first the very remarkable way in which the remains of some old classic temple (probably from the neighbouring Salamis) have been made use of. The ancient temple was probably of considerable size, and evidently one of those built in the later style of Roman imperial art - perhaps a multicolumnar example in the style of Hadrian's great temple at Athens. Its columns were constructed in drums of the yellow sandstone of the district. It is perhaps curious that these drums were originally all cut to a uniform thickness of 33 centimetres, and the capitals (judging from tragments discovered in the walls of the church) were also formed out of two thicknesses of 33 centimetres each.

The masonry of the XIIIth century church is absolutely exact, and the courses have evidently been arranged to fit in with this measurement of 33 centimetres. Every stone in the walls seems to have been cut exactly cube, with all five faces clean, like the masonry in marble of the Parthenon. Every three courses with the thin mortar-joints form exactly 1 metre of modern measurement. (* Although the metric system is usually supposed to be a comparatively modern invention, it is often remarkable to find buildings of the middle ages and even earlier times which seem to have been built with the use of a standard measure practically the same as the metre.) The most curious detail of construction is the way in which the circular drums of the Classic columns have been adopted as the stones on which to cut the slender shafts of the Gothic style.

The stonework of the church, although largely derived from the ruins of Salamis, was also quarried elsewhere, the arch stones of windows and some other parts are evidently of a different quality, and the weathering of the stones has been very different in some places. As a piece of XIIIth century masonry the building is a most interesting study, and whilst representative of XIIIth century beauties it also exhibits some of the defects of that style. For instance, the extreme slenderness of the window mullions, merely tied in by iron supports, strikes the eye at once. The irregular way in which the north-west turret fits on suggests its having been an accidental afterthought.


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