Preliminary communication
https://doi.org/10.53745/ccp.48.93.1
New Contributions to the Research of the Medieval Franciscan Monastery and Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Olovo
Rosana Ratkovčić
; North University, Koprivnica, Croatia
Abstract
Taking into account the cultural and historical context of Olovo in the Middle Ages, as well as the history of the Franciscan monastery and the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we attempted to explore the possibilities of interpreting the drawings of fragments of lost wall paintings found in the chapel of the church during archaeological excavations in 1886. This drawing is the only recorded trace of the lost wall paintings from the church destroyed in 1704, and the author of the drawing is Ćiro Truhelka, who led the aforementioned archaeological excavations. The drawing depicts a framed field showing fishes, with a motif of painted curtains visible at the bottom of the drawing, a motif commonly present in the lower zone of walls paintedin medieval churches. The motif of fishes is common in early medieval art but appears much less frequently in late medieval art, making the depiction of fishes from the chapel of the Olovo church a rare iconographic example in late medieval painting. Since several authors from the 17th century mention that the church existed here before the establishment of the Franciscan monastery, first mentioned in 1375, we assumed that the construction of the church could be dated to the period immediately after the establishment of the Bosnian Franciscan Vicariate in 1340, thus dating the lost wall paintings to that time. The manual painting of motifs in the second band of wall paintings, above the painted curtains, where in later medieval art, mainly from the 15th century, decorative motifs are usually executed by stencil, indicates an earlier dating of the wall paintings, in line with the assumed time of construction of the church, around the mid-14th century. Considering that Olovo in the mid-14th century was situated on the land of the Pavlović family, which is considered the land of heretics in medieval historiography, or the area inhabited by members of the Bosnian Church, we assumed that the church in Olovo was built for Catholic settlers, and the conduct of rites and maintenance of the church were entrusted to the Franciscans. In the area under the domination of the Bosnian Church, which did not hold its religious rites in separate religious buildings, there were probably no craftsmen at that time who had the necessary knowledge for the construction and painting of churches, so the craftsmen who built the Olovo church and painted its chapel were likely invited from other regions. Given the strong trade and cultural ties between Bosnia and Dubrovnik throughout the medieval centuries, and the documented presence of Dubrovnik craftsmen in Bosnia in the 15th century, we assumed that the builders of the Olovo church and the painters of its wall paintings also came from Dubrovnik. We had previously assumed the activity of craftsmen from Dubrovnik based on fragments of wall paintings from the church of an unknown patron in Panik near Bileća, which we dated to the first decades of the 12th century. Archival documents testify to the presence of Dubrovnik craftsmen in Bosnia in the 15th century, thus the assumed activity of Dubrovnik craftsmen in Olovo complements and confirms this continuity.
Keywords
The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Olovo; the Bosnian Franciscan Vicariate; the Bosnian Church; mining in Olovo; connections between Olovo and Dubrovnik in the Middle Ages, medieval wall painting
Hrčak ID:
320524
URI
Publication date:
6.9.2024.
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