A juxtaposition of some Christian and Islamic bit and pieces. The Virgin and Child mosaic is in the apse, above the spot that once held an altar.
Interesting, at least to me, since so much western art is representational, is that here the Christian church went through two iconoclastic eras. The mosaics visible today were for the most part not seen in the original church -- they are at least 300 years newer than the church.
Many more mosaics were lost when the church was sacked by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. (This is also when the crusaders swiped the famous bronze horses that are now on the front of St. Mark's in Venice -- They came from Constantinople's hippodrome.)
