Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15291/misc.1356
Notes on the Palimpsest Relief Depicting John the Apostle from the Church of St. Jerome on Marjan
Dražen Maršić
orcid.org/0000-0003-4582-7792
; Department of Archaeology, University of Zadar
Abstract
The relief depicting John the Evangelist which was once embedded in the Church of St. Jerome on Marjan is a palimpsest of a Roman funerary monument. Since the removal, it has been visible from all sides, and this paper first presents their description. The upper side is particularly interesting as it bears the remains of an insertion groove. In the author’s opinion, the figure of the saint was made by reworking a portrait of a woman in the Eumachia-Fundilia statue type. This means that the hair was also re-carved from some characteristic female coiffure and that the object in the left hand (etui with a pen or a pen?) was made of drapery or some typical female attribute. Considering the manufacturing process and shaping of the front with two joint niches, the relief from Split could have been formed only from a monumental stele or a relief incorporated into a larger funerary object. There are no comparable examples in Salona and its close hinterland meaning that it was a monument of peculiar rendering, i.e. a previously unknown typological variant. Since several elements contradict the thesis on attribution to the embedded relief (presence of an inscription, portrait format), the author supports an opinion that it was a monumental stele made after a northern Italic model.
Keywords
palimpsest; Eumachia; Fundilia; portrait; embedded relief; stele
Hrčak ID:
190831
URI
Publication date:
18.12.2017.
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