Original scientific paper
Croatian Art in the Second Half of the Ninth Century
Nikola Jakšić
; Faculty of Philosophy, Zadar, Croatia
Abstract
In Croatia there are a great number of precisely dated sculptures and architectural monuments from the second half of the ninth century. It was a time following the delimitation of spheres of interest on the eastern Adriatic between the Carolingians and Byzantium, and when the Croatian dukedom (kneževina) developed into a state under the rule of Dukes Trpimir, Branimir and Muntimir. Their names were carved in some reliefs on church furniture, which makes it possible to precisely follow the development in architecture and sculpture from the middle to the end of the ninth century. Pre-Romanesque buildings in the second half of the ninth century, indirectly dated by sculptured inscriptions, belong to two types: the hexaconchal oratory under the influence of the older Mediterranean architectural heritage, and longitudinal structures with a triapsidal or triconchal sanctuary, external buttresses and a westwork, as the most important characteristic. All the buildings were vaulted, with cross vaults or barrel vaults and domes. Members of the ruling class possessed goldwork of a high level of craftsmanship. Some of it was dated by a Lothar I coin, which indirectly allowed another group of similar very valuable objects to be dated to the second half of the ninth century. We refer to the well-known gold jewelry from Trilj, gilded royal spurs and a like set of child's spurs from Crkvina in, Biskupija near Knin, and other similar contemporary objects found in richly-equipped royal graves that also had Byzantine gold coins of Constantine IV and Leo V.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
179416
URI
Publication date:
1.5.1997.
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