Fossati brothers

A figure of a "Seraphim Angel" on a ceiling of the Hagia Sophia Mosque has come to light on dismantling a scaffold that was inside the mosque for about seven years.

"We have completely demounted the scaffold today," said the officials on Nov. 22.

The Historical and Folklore Museum of Nikiti in Halkidiki, northern Greece, is currently hosting an exhibition of 22 lithographs by Gaspare Fossati, depicting the former Greek Orthodox Christian basilica of Hagia Sofia in the city then widely known as Constantinople.

Swiss-Italian architect Gaspare Fossati and his brother Giuseppe were responsible for overseeing the restoration of Istanbul's Hagia Sophia in 1847-49. Originally constructed as a church between 532 and 537 on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque after the city fell to the Ottomans in 1453.