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The Forgotten Proportions: a Canon for Proportioning Church Buildings
Ivo Štambuk
Abstract
The author analyzes in this paper the unseen, hidden proportions of three churches on the island of Hvar: St. Vitus' near Velo Grablje, St. Peregrinus' at the westermost cape of the island and that of St. Mary Magdalen's in Plajica near the town of Hvar, built probably from the early 14th to the late 15th c. He discovers that they were planned by using a certain canon of proportions, which was used already at the beginnings of Christianity. This opinion is corroborated by proportions employed in building a small Gallo-Roman church of a Christian community (4th c. A. D.) that was found in excavations within the space of the antique quarter of barracks in Zurzach (Tenedo). The same is valid in proportions of St. Mary's church on the hill of Garizim (late 5th c.), of San Vitale's in Ravenna (around 526.-547.), of St. Sergius and Bacchus' and St. Sophia's in Constantinople (6th c).All of them display in their planning the isosceles, the "holy triangle" known already by the ancient Egyptians and in these Christian churches probably a symbol of the Trinity.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
123698
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2002.
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