Original scientific paper
THE PARISH CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY IN DONJA STUBICA
Katarina Horvat Levaj
; Institut za povijest umjetnosti, Zagreb
Abstract
The parish church of the Holy Trinity in Donja Stubica is an imposing three-aisled stone structure with a polygonal sanctuary and belfry-tower attached to its front. Its structure bears the traces of a complex construction trajectory from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. This important building has never been fully studied by experts. Only two of its most important construction phases have been dated and partly evaluated: the Gothic (second half of the fifteenth century), when the polygonal sanctuary (apse) was built, and the Baroque phase (mid-eighteenth century) when the two older aisles (naves) were replaced by three new ones. However, careful research of the building and the archival materials reveals another very important phase of construction marked by Renaissance characteristics (the sixteenth century). The proportions and location of the tower-belfry alone, as well as the shaping of its inner portal, show representative Renaissance stylistic elements also present in the tombstone of the autocratic ruler and powerful patron of the church Franjo Tahy who lived in that century (buried in 1573). In addition, if we relate the recent discovery of a large crypt in the north part of the sanctuary (originally covered by a tombstone) with the sources telling us that this was the location of an earlier circular chapel, it becomes quite probable that this chapel had been Tahy's memorial (mausoleum) built in Renaissance style. In the course of the 16th-17th century a northem aisle had been added to the chapel (attached to an older Gothic one-nave church) whose Renaissance front window has recently been discovered in the course of restoration. Another important find of the same research is a broad Renaissance arch opening up the first floor of the tower towards the nave. A pendant to the Renaissance portal we have just mentioned, this arch strongly suggests the existence of a feudal empora, another important element of feudal religious monuments. This paper is an effort to evaluate these Renaissance elements, especially valuable owing to the scarcity of surviving Renaissance architectural traces in continental Croatia.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
151184
URI
Publication date:
15.12.1995.
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