Original scientific paper
Considerations on the ground plan of the Augustinian monastery in Križevci
Zorislav Horvat
Abstract
The present day Greek Catholic Bishop’s Palace was an Augustinian monastery in the Middle Ages. The author uncovered new information pertaining to the monastery while working on his article about the monastery church – which was reconstructed in the neo-Gothic style for the purposes of the Greek Catholic Diocese at the turn of the 19th century – published in the previous issue of this very magazine.
The Augustinian order was established in 1243 in Italy and their members were probably invited to Križevci by ban Stephen V, who ordered the erection of the monastery complex. It is possible that the construction of the Franciscan monastery in Zagreb had an effect on this. The monastery was abandoned in mid-sixteenth century after a Turkish raid on Križevci. The Franciscans, who became the owners of the derelict monastery in the beginning of the 17th century, made alterations in the building and adapted it to their needs. After the disbanding of the Franciscan monastery in the beginning of the 19th century the building was handed over to the Greek Catholic bishop who used it as his residence. From 1894 to 1897 the church (cathedral), as well as the monastery building, underwent a renovation led by the architect Herman Bollé in which it gained its current appearance.
The medieval monastery complex probably consisted of a square cloister with buildings situated near its eastern and southern flanks. Today only the eastern wing of the Greek Catholic residence has somewhat kept the original dimensions of the cloister, while the Franciscans elongated its southern side and built two new wings: the southern and the eastern.
The current ground plan was quadrangulated in order to reconstruct the underlying Augustinian one in the extent that the preserved Augustinian objects enabled such a feat. The ground plan of the church (present day cathedral) has mostly remained intact, while it is presumed that the monastery had a square one. The dimensions of all the quadrangulation elements are expressed in fathoms – a medieval unit of measurement (1 fathom = 195 cm) – while the squares of the quadrangulation bear some kind of proportion to one another. The suggested quadrangulation was compared with the ground plans of other medieval monasteries in continental Croatia: the ground plan of the Benedictine monastery from the 12th century has a different procedure, while the monasteries in Našice, Kamenosko and Gvozd have similar systems to the Augustinian monastery, including expressing the length of the square’s sides in fathoms.
The purpose of the quadrangulation was to obtain a regular ground plan which corresponded to the envisaged project and fulfilled the needs of the monks.
Keywords
Augustinians monastery; Greek Catholic Cathedral; Križevci; Middle Ages; quadrangulation
Hrčak ID:
150059
URI
Publication date:
28.12.2015.
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