Original scientific paper
A contribution to the knowledge of Romanesque goldsmithing in Dubrovnik
Vinicije B. Lupis
orcid.org/0000-0001-8516-9312
; Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Regional Centre Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik, Croatia
Abstract
The author discusses a segment of the Romanesque layer of the Dubrovnik Cathedral Treasury, based on the research of the Treasury as a central cultural topos, where the cult of saintly powers was developing over the centuries in Dubrovnik. Special attention is paid to three reliquaries with Romanesque figural depictions: the foot reliquary off St. James (CLXXIII), the foot reliquary of St. Bartholomew (XIX), and the foot reliquary of an unknown saint (CXXV), perhaps St. James. With re- spect to the foot reliquary of St. James (CLXXIII), the author notes that this is an artwork in the Romanesque style close to sources from southern France in sculptures and miniatures, also notable in southern Italy, where the Benedictines spread the Romanesque style. An unknown Dubrovnik master from the 13th century embossed the saint’s figure on the foot reliquary of St. Bartholomew (XIX). Its artistic template in terms of graphic language should be sought primarily in miniatures from liturgical books that most often circulated from one Adriatic coast to another, conveying a taste of Aquitanian sculpture and French and English miniatures of the 11th and 12th centuries. On the relic of the foot of an unknown saint (CXXV) is an embossed relief of a saint and it is the only preserved metal relief of the late Romanesque period, which would allude to the missing metal altar-pieces from the older period. As to artistic parallels to the Dubrovnik example, we should consider the later layer of the extremely poorly restored silver gilded reredos from the Cathedral in Caorle, dated quite widely, viz. from the 13th to the 14th century, and the processional cross dei Battuti by an unknown Venetian goldsmith from the 13th/14th century, from the Museo Diocesano in Trieste. The considered reliquaries indicate the complexity of artistic influences on Dubrovnik Roman- esque goldsmithing from the 12th to the end of the 13th century.
Keywords
Dubrovnik; Romanesque; reliquary; St. James; St. Bartholomew;
Hrčak ID:
258555
URI
Publication date:
1.6.2021.
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