Original scientific paper
The Church of St. Bartholomew at Novi Mikanovci — The Romanesque Art Between the Sava and the Drava and the European Culture
Vladimir P. Goss
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Rijeci
Abstract
The object of the study is a well-preserved medieval church of St. Bartholomew at Novi Mikanovci in Eastern Slavonia. The church contains an easily recognizable Romanesque phase (the western part of the nave provided with narrow, slightly pointed windows, and the rounded tower in front of the western facade), with additions in Late Gothic an Baroque.
The church has been restored several times within the last few decades, and the author follows the notes from the sixties when many details, now inaccessible were still visible. The Romanesque phase of the building, dating probably from the first half of the 13 century, is by its rounded tower a unique example within the entire Hungarian-Croatian "Commonwealth," but it shows striking analogies with the lower German area (Frisia, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Hollstein, e.g., Ratekau) where such a type of Romanesque village church is well documented, and from where it spread to England (Haddiscoe Thorpe), Scandinavia (Hammarlunda in Sweden), or Poland (Inowlodz — all 12 or 13 century buildings). Thus the church at Novi Mikanovci, just as the Romanesque church in Morović in Vojvodina, is a witness to the great inter-European migration occurring as a part of the "Renaissance of the 12 century," often known as the "Saxon" migrations, but in fact including many other groups from lower German area (Flemish, Frisian, Thuringian, etc.). Those "Saxons" were massively settled by Andrew II in Transylvania where they created their own specific culture. St. Bartholomew is judged to be another example of such presence in Croatian part of Pannonia, this time of a groups from an area along the North Sea, or of an architect with connections to that area. Thus it serves as yet another link of Croatian lands with the great European medieval rural subculture spreading from Frisia to Transylvania, and from Scandinavia to the heart of the Balkans (Kosovo — the "Saxon Church" at Novo Brdo of the Morović type).
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
166727
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2003.
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