Byzantine architecture developed around 395 when the Italian emperor Theodosius I the Great divided the Roman Empire and Constantinople emerged as the capital of the east, states Jordan Workman. This style is a confluence of Greek, Hellenistic, Roman and Eastern styles, which stands out in churches, chapels, mausoleums and monasteries, admits Jordan Workman.
The most common materials were stone and brick, however, inside the buildings were covered with mosaics with tesserae, marbles, glazed ceramics and sheets of gold and silver. The dome on pendentives, the semicircular arch and the column with a frustoconical capital are some of its elements, as can be seen in the Church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey, explains Jordan Workman.
