Religious and ecclesiastical events
Repair of the dome of the Holy Sepulchre
In 1698, the Congregation of the Propaganda in Rome was handling the reports of the guardian of Jerusalem. To the entry for the general congregation of 23 June, the same page of the edition adds a report dated 22 November following: the timber was already there, transported at great cost of effort.
Trasportati sino adesso con grandissimi travagli 350 travi con 1500 tavole in questa Santa Città; ne restono in Rama altri 400 et altre tante tavole; quale legname deve servire per riparare la santa cupola, che minaccia ruvina.
Working translation: "Transported so far, with great toil, three hundred and fifty beams and fifteen hundred boards to this Holy City; four hundred more remain at Rama, and as many boards; this timber is to serve to repair the holy dome, which threatens ruin."
The timber was ready. The licence was not. In 1702 and again in 1706, the Franciscans of the Custody repeated the same request to the Ottoman Porte: the Greeks opposed it and claimed a right over the shrine, since letting the Latins pay for the repair alone would have secured the right of the Latins alone. The dispute was never architectural; it was about possession.
Twenty years passed in negotiation, between Jerusalem, Rome and Constantinople, where the French ambassador, his dragomans and the Porte's own kept the matter alive. In September 1712, the French secretary of state wrote to the Custos that the ambassador would obtain the vizier's orders and send to Jerusalem a man of standing on the King's behalf, so that nothing should disturb the works or trouble the workmen. In March 1713, a Franciscan architect left Saïda for Jerusalem, appointed to the rebuilding.
In 1715, two dragomans, the French one and the Porte's, drew up together the memorandum to be presented; the Custody found it equivocal and had it redrafted. In December 1718, a congress held at the ambassador's, the Greek patriarch present, settled the articles of the work. On 25 September 1719, a report finally announced the news awaited for over twenty years, and its price:
Essersi già dal signor ambasciatore di Francia alla Porta ottenuta la desiderata licenza, di potersi assolutamente rifabricare la cupola del Santissimo Sepolcro, senza che i Greci o altra nazione vi possa haver parte alcuna; essere però stato necessario a S. Ecc. l'accordare e promettere la restituzione di 150 schiavi turchi di 500, che se ne chiedevano dal primo visir.
Working translation: "That the ambassador of France has already obtained from the Porte the desired licence, to rebuild the dome of the Most Holy Sepulchre absolutely, without the Greeks or any other nation having any part in it; that it was nonetheless necessary for His Excellency to grant and promise the return of one hundred and fifty Turkish slaves out of the five hundred demanded by the grand vizier."
A Spanish chronicle printed in Madrid five years later, in another language and through another chain of transmission, recounts the same bargain:
El Visir se convino à el numero de ciento y cinquenta Turcos […] diò el Visir el Decreto original de el Emperador, despachado en el año de diez y nueve.
Working translation: "The Vizier agreed to the number of one hundred and fifty Turks […] the Vizier delivered the Emperor's original decree, issued in the year nineteen." The century is not printed.
The same book says where the figure started: the vizier had first demanded five hundred.
El numero de los Esclavos Turcos […] avia de ser de quinientos.
Working translation: "The number of the Turkish slaves […] was to be five hundred."
The work went ahead. At Jerusalem, the governor, the cadi and the four inspectors surveyed what was to be rebuilt, and forty companies of guards were posted around the convent and the temple. On 11 January 1720, the French ambassador wrote to Rome, and the Congregation recorded his letter on 8 April:
Il signor ambasciatore di Francia in Costantinopoli con lettera degl 11 di gennaro prossimo passato dà parte all EE. VV. … che erasi interamente perfezionata la fabbrica della gran cuppola del Santo Sepolcro.
Working translation: "The ambassador of France at Constantinople, by letter of 11 January last, informs Your Eminences […] that the fabric of the great dome of the Holy Sepulchre had been entirely completed."
The Spanish chronicle closes the matter in the same terms, giving no year, in the very title of the last chapter it devotes to it:
Dase principio a la reedificacion de la Copula, y se concluye con felicidad, y crecidissimos gastos.
Working translation: "The rebuilding of the Dome is begun, and it is concluded happily, and at very great expense."
An older memory runs through the dossier without merging into it. A letter of 1712 says the trouble had already lasted eighty years, and a Franciscan chronicle reports that a guardian of the Custody had already repaired the same dome, under a governorship the edition places in the year 1632:
Resarcì anco la cupola del Santissimo Sepolcro, la qual essend'aperta da una parte e declinata, di maniera che pareva volersi ruinare, minacciava gran ruina; onde per accomodarla una volta per sempre […] spese 4070 piastre.
Working translation: "He also repaired the dome of the Most Holy Sepulchre, which, being open on one side and leaning, so that it seemed about to fall, threatened great ruin; and so, to set it right once and for all […], he spent 4070 piastres."
Two repairs of one dome, eighty years apart, do not make a single event.
No one is today linked to this affair by name. The negotiators who carried it, guardian, procurator, dragoman, ambassador, held offices occupied by several successive titleholders between 1698 and 1720, and the names that reach us come largely from twentieth-century editors, not from the pieces themselves. A collapsed vault dated 18 October 1710 does not come from a document of that time either: see Sources and method.
This event is attested by the records and sources that mention it directly. Each person linked to it carries their own degree of certainty, shown on their page: this is neither a complete count nor a final tally.
Related people
People linked
No individual has been linked to this event in the published corpus yet: the links identified rest on a person’s identity that is not yet resolved.
What this corpus does not publish yet
- 6 mentions recorded under personnes nommées ou désignées dans les pièces lues (gardien/custode de Terre Sainte à quatre périodes différentes, procureur, commissaire, architecte, consul, ambassadeur), not yet published: personne non reconstituée dans le vault (règle 6 du contrat); nomination portée en partie par l'apparat éditorial de 1921 ou 1924, non par la pièce d'époque; HOMONYMIE DE CHARGE NON TRANCHÉE — la même charge est occupée par plusieurs titulaires entre 1698 et 1720..
- 0 mentions recorded under individus qualifiés par un champ de cause de mention, not yet published: aucune mention de ces trois fonds ne porte de champ de cause rattachant une personne à l'affaire de la coupole: aucun documented impact n'est fondable, et l'effectif nul est écrit plutôt que tu..
See the source text
personne non reconstituée dans le vault (règle 6 du contrat); nomination portée en partie par l'apparat éditorial de 1921 ou 1924, non par la pièce d'époque; HOMONYMIE DE CHARGE NON TRANCHÉE — la même charge est occupée par plusieurs titulaires entre 1698 et 1720.
aucune mention de ces trois fonds ne porte de champ de cause rattachant une personne à l'affaire de la coupole: aucun documented impact n'est fondable, et l'effectif nul est écrit plutôt que tu.
Scope and places
Where
16 places of this event have no publishable position: they are named below.
Places linked
attested in its own registers : Places linked
Status opened at most: documented impact.
1698-06-23/1720-01-11
attested in its own registers : Places linked
Status opened at most: documented impact.
1715/1719
attested in its own registers : Places linked
Status opened at most: documented impact.
attested in its own registers : Places linked
Status opened at most: documented impact.
1713-03-25
attested in its own registers : Places linked
Status opened at most: documented impact.
1711-09-29
Versailles / Fontainebleau (cour de France)
attested in its own registers : Places linked
Status opened at most: documented impact.
1712-09-04
What this event does not cover
Espagne / Madrid
destinataire d'une demande de secours (lettre au Roi Catholique du 2 décembre 1710) ; AUCUNE attestation d'un effet ou d'un acte de l'affaire en Espagne dans le corpus lu.
Le Caire, Tripoli, Chypre, Liban
lieux d'émission ou de sujet d'actes QUI PORTENT D'AUTRES AFFAIRES (Maronites, missions, consuls) et se trouvent tagués parce qu'un même document traite plusieurs sujets. Quatrième régime de rejet : les y faire entrer donnerait à cet événement la portée d'un autre fait.
Malte, Florence, Paris
cours sollicitées pour la restitution des esclaves (SJPU1724-p681-b) : cette obligation est une conséquence de la licence, mais le corpus lu n'y attache aucun acte de l'affaire de la coupole daté et localisé dans ces villes.
Bethléem
AUCUNE attestation de l'affaire ; la ville est présente dans les mêmes volumes pour d'autres faits.
Sources and method
Three independent collections carry this affair, and none alone suffices. The Acta of the Congregation of the Propaganda, published by Lemmens from the Roman archives, follow it from start to finish, 1698 to 1720. The correspondence of the Custody of the Holy Land, published by Golubovich, covers only one stretch, 1710 to 1715, because the edited volume stops there: that is the coverage of a book, not the length of the fact. The third, a Franciscan chronicle printed in Madrid in 1724, devotes six chapters to it, from the peril to the closing feast, without ever giving a single date in figures.
The trouble is written in no parish register: neither Bethlehem nor Jerusalem has any means to speak of it, they record baptisms and burials, not building works. It is written in congregational reports, in ambassadors' letters, in printed chapters, each time as a matter of possession of a shrine between communities, never as a builder's mishap.
The opening date, 1698, rests on a single collection, and therefore remains a hypothesis: it is the first time the peril and its material preparation are written together, and it is not the beginning of the peril. The page says so itself, since the timber has by then already been transported over a span it does not measure; we do not date what the source itself does not date. The closing date, 11 January 1720, is better secured in its fact, a Roman report and a Spanish chronicle both recount the completion, but the day of the month comes only from the Roman report: this is why we write "finished by 11 January 1720 at the latest."
What we do not know: the year the works began is written nowhere, the Spanish chronicle gives only the liturgical feast day on which the first stone was laid. No Greek or Armenian holding has been read: the position of the two communities party to the dispute is known only through what the Latin side wrote of it. Finally, a note added by the editor in 1924, in brackets, at the head of the decree of 30 November 1710, tells that a section of vault fell on 18 October 1710:
Il 18 Ottobre 1710 essendo cascato un pezzo di volta della galleria superiore del SSmo Sepolcro […] si spesero tre mila piastre […] s'osservò che la Cupola era in pericolo di rovinare con tutto il Tempio.
Working translation: "On 18 October 1710, a section of vault of the upper gallery of the Most Holy Sepulchre having fallen […] three thousand piastres were spent […] it was observed that the Dome was in danger of collapsing along with the whole Temple."
This sentence is carried by no document of 1710: it comes from a note the editor added two centuries later. We cite it here as what a book of 1924 reports of a manuscript, never as a date of the event.
What the records attest
4 years in this period with no published record here: our registers do not cover them, so their silence proves nothing.
Places not counted: no published page (1).
142 records excluded from the count: they use a different calendar from this series, and we do not convert it.
Cited sources
ouvrage du corpus (édition d'archives) — régeste de congrégation générale, TÉMOIN DE RÉFÉRENCE de la borne gauche
Lemmens, Acta S. Congregationis de Propaganda Fide pro Terra Sancta, t. I, pp. 285-297 ; entrée n° 256, congrégation générale du 23 juin 1698, n° 11, fol. 190, citant une relation datée du 22 novembre 1698
Trasportati sino adesso con grandissimi travagli 350 travi con 1500 tavole in questa Santa Città ; ne restono in Rama altri 400 et altre tante tavole ; quale legname deve servire per riparare la santa cupola, che minaccia ruvina
ouvrage du corpus — renfort de la borne gauche, MÊME FONDS (ne compte pas comme second témoin, H8)
Lemmens t. I, congrégation du 21 août 1702, fol. 209
stanno in gran timore, che resti oppresso e rovinato il S. Sepolcro per la caduta, che minaccia la cupola del medesimo ; essere già preparati con molta spesa di Terra Santa i materiali per la fabbrica d'una nuova cupola, nè potersi ottener licenza dalla Porta Ottomana … per l'opposizione de Greci, che pretendono haver jus nel S. Sepolcro
ouvrage du corpus — renfort de la borne gauche, MÊME FONDS (H8)
Lemmens t. I, congrégation du 17 août 1706, fol. 230v
la licenza opportuna, di poter riparare la cupola del S. Sepolcro, che minaccia rovina
ouvrage du corpus — PIÈCE PORTEUSE DE LA CATÉGORIE et de la portée Constantinople
Lemmens t. I, congrégation du 26 mars 1715, fol. 144
… il pregiudizio … al possesso, che tengono per la Santa Sede Apostolica di quel santuario privative quanto a tutte l'altre nazioni
ouvrage du corpus — négociation du mémoire (1715), portée Constantinople
Lemmens t. I, 1715
ouvrage du corpus — congrès de 1718, six articles
Lemmens t. I, 1718
ouvrage du corpus — portée communautaire (patriarches grecs et arméniens), 1719
Lemmens t. I, 1719
ouvrage du corpus — JALON 1719, témoin 1
Lemmens t. I, congrégation du 25 septembre 1719, n° 32, fol. 385, rapportant des lettres des 26 et 29 avril 1719
essersi già dal signor ambasciatore di Francia alla Porta ottenuta la desiderata licenza, di potersi assolutamente rifabricare la cupola del Santissimo Sepolcro, senza che i Greci o altra nazione vi possa haver parte alcuna ; essere però stato necessario a S. Ecc. l'accordare e promettere la restituzione di 150 schiavi turchi di 500, che se ne chiedevano dal primo visir
ouvrage du corpus — BORNE DROITE, témoin 1 (seul porteur du quantième)
Lemmens t. I, congrégation du 8 avril 1720, n° 29, fol. 212v, rapportant une lettre de l'ambassadeur de France du 11 janvier 1720
ouvrage du corpus — description des travaux exécutés (même fonds, ne recompte pas)
Lemmens t. I, section au titre courant éditorial « De restauratione basilicae S. Sepulchri – 1719 »
ouvrage du corpus (correspondance de la Custodie) — décret discrétorial d'ouverture du 30 novembre 1710, daté « Gierusalemme »
Golubovich, Atti del P. Lorenzo Cozza, Custode di Terra Santa 1709-1715, t. IV, p. 82
ouvrage du corpus — portée Alep ; comandamento obtenu du Grand Seigneur (1711)
Golubovich t. IV, p. 136 ; lettre du 29 septembre 1711
Comandamento che V. Eccellenza ha ricavato dal Gran Signore per il risarcimento della cupola
ouvrage du corpus — portée Versailles / Fontainebleau
Golubovich t. IV, p. 202 ; réponse du secrétaire d'État du 4 septembre 1712
un homme de caractère sera envoyé à Jérusalem de la part du Roi pour protéger le chantier et les ouvriers
ouvrage du corpus — mémoire du péril ancien (« anni ottanta ») ; ACTE À DEUX AFFAIRES
Golubovich t. IV, p. 202 ; lettre du 7 octobre 1712
sono anni ottanta che principiò a patire
ouvrage du corpus — portée Saïda (l'architecte part pour Jérusalem)
Golubovich t. IV, p. 238 ; pièce du 25 mars 1713
ouvrage du corpus (chronique imprimée espagnole) — chap. XLIX, reprise de la licence
Patrimonio Seraphico de Tierra Santa, Madrid 1724, p. 678, chap. XLIX
ouvrage du corpus — les 500 esclaves demandés (§ 622)
Patrimonio Seraphico, Madrid 1724, p. 679, § 622
el numero de los Esclavos Turcos … avia de ser de quinientos
ouvrage du corpus — JALON 1719, témoin 2 (autre fonds)
Patrimonio Seraphico, Madrid 1724, pp. 677-680, § 625, chap. XLIX
el Visir se convino à el numero de ciento y cinquenta Turcos … diò el Visir el Decreto original de el Emperador, despachado en el año de diez y nueve
ouvrage du corpus — esclaves livrés au moment de l'achèvement (§ 629)
Patrimonio Seraphico, Madrid 1724, p. 681, § 629
à tiempo, que se concluìa la Fabrica
ouvrage du corpus — BORNE DROITE, témoin 2 (le FAIT, jamais la date) ; enregistrement à Jérusalem
Patrimonio Seraphico, Madrid 1724, p. 685, titre imprimé du chapitre LI, en tête du § 648
DASE PRINCIPIO A LA REEDIficacion de la Copula, y se concluye con felicidad, y crecidissimos gastos
ouvrage du corpus — pose de la première pierre, SANS millésime (§ 653)
Patrimonio Seraphico, Madrid 1724, p. 686, § 653
el Reverendo Padre Guardian, bendiciendo la primera piedra, la puso en su lugar
ouvrage du corpus — FAIT VOISIN DE 1632, cité comme NON ABSORBÉ
VERN2, p. 313 ; pièce du 25 novembre 1632
Resarcì anco la cupola del Santissimo Sepolcro, la qual essend'aperta da una parte e declinata … spese 4070 piastre
How was this event investigated?
See the source text
LEMM1 (régestes de la Propagande, Rome) ; GOLU4/5 (correspondance de la Custodie — UN SEUL témoin, même entreprise éditoriale) ; SJPU1724 (chronique imprimée espagnole, Madrid 1724)
598 actes portent un mot de coupole sur les 4 champs textuels de 56 273 actes ; 194 le portent avec le Saint-Sépulcre
§240 ③ : aucune source de ce dossier n'écrit de bilan humain ; il n'y a rien à servir. Un bilan ne se déduit d'aucune estimation.
The detail of this point appears in the case’s source text; its reformulation for publication is under way.
AUCUNE mesure statistique n'est mobilisée: cet événement n'a et n'aura aucun signal de surmortalité. C'est une démonstration de par l'autre bout — un événement pleinement démontré peut n'avoir aucune trace statistique, et l'absence de signal ne réfute rien. Tous les comptes ci-dessus sont datés du 30/08/2026 et recroîtront (§230-ter): la transcription des ouvrages est EN COURS, et son état d'avancement se lit au chantier corpus — il n'est pas servi ici, aucun rapport n'étant fondé sur un dénominateur ancré.
montants rencontrés dans les pièces (3 000 piastres en 1710, 70 000 puis 35 000 piastres de dette de la Custodie en 1712, 4 070 piastres pour la réfection de 1632, emprunt à vingt pour cent): SIGNAUX versés à @economicien, jamais des mesures instruites ici.
montants rencontrés dans les pièces (3 000 piastres en 1710, 70 000 puis 35 000 piastres de dette de la Custodie en 1712, 4 070 piastres pour la réfection de 1632, emprunt à vingt pour cent): SIGNAUX versés à @economicien, jamais des mesures instruites ici.
Ottoman Holy Land Christian Communities Project, "Repair of the dome of the Holy Sepulchre: Jerusalem, 1698-1720," accessed 30 August 2026, https://levantinelives.org/en/evenements/evt_1698_1720_coupole_saint_sepulcre_jerusalem/. Version cited: snapshot from 30 August 2026, hash 54536129c19f+de1b0b.
Cite this record.
Reference (Chicago style).
Ottoman Holy Land Christian Communities Project, "Repair of the dome of the Holy Sepulchre: Jerusalem, 1698-1720," accessed 30 August 2026, https://levantinelives.org/en/evenements/evt_1698_1720_coupole_saint_sepulcre_jerusalem/. Version cited: snapshot from 30 August 2026, hash 54536129c19f+de1b0b.
See the BibTeX and RIS formats
@misc{levantine_evt_1698_1720_coupole_saint_sepulcre_jerusalem,
title = {Repair of the dome of the Holy Sepulchre: Jerusalem, 1698-1720},
author = {{Ottoman Holy Land Christian Communities Project}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {https://levantinelives.org/en/evenements/evt_1698_1720_coupole_saint_sepulcre_jerusalem/},
note = {Snapshot 2026-08-30, hash 54536129c19f+de1b0b, id evt_1698_1720_coupole_saint_sepulcre_jerusalem},
urldate = {2026-08-30}
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