ABSTRACT
All these issues demand attention when addressing the conservation requirements at SS Peter and Paul in Famagusta. The mid fourteenth-century Lusignan foundation, comprising a Gothic design with a central five-bay nave and two side aisles leading to three apsidal chapels, and rising to a ribbed and vaulted roof space, is remarkably well preserved. In the course of the intervening centuries, however, it has been converted to a Mosque, has had seismic protection added by Ottoman architects, probably in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, has been allowed to fall into disrepair, has been converted into a store and then, during the period of British rule, into a library. Since then it has been converted back to a store, and it now stands empty and unused. During this period there have been at least four disastrous earthquakes, which have reduced some of the many churches of Famagusta to rubble, and the soft shelly limestone of which it is built has lost its protective render, now exposing it to wind and rain. In all probability it originally carried a timber pitched roof which has been replaced by a flat roofing system applied directly over its vaulting, probably by the Ottomans, and which itself has been replaced a number of times. At the west end, there were once additional rooms, both at ground level where there had possibly been a small narthex, and over the first bay of both the aisles, possibly two storeys high, as evidenced by put holes and brackets to support timber flooring. These rooms were probably later additions, and, judging from their architectural form, probably Venetian rather than Ottoman. On the south-west corner an original spiral stairway giving access to these upper levels was extended and altered in the Ottoman period to form a minaret which has now fallen to the ground. Much of the stone can be found on the ground around the tower, suggesting that the fall was recent, since it is unlikely that it would have gone unrepaired while the building was still in use as a mosque.
