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The Reutilisation of Early Christian Lintels in Dalmatian Architecture
Vanja Kovačić
Sažetak
This article discusses the issue of the reutilisation of stone and marble spolia of a religious nature and their later use as “consecrated stone”. Examples are given of anepigraphic Early Christian lintels with three crosses and various ways in which they were recut, with the addition of inscriptions and ornaments in the Middle Ages during subsequent incorporation. A special group is formed of Late Antique church lintels that were used in reduced dimensions and with added inscriptions in the Middle Ages. During work on the paving of the Church of St John the Baptist in Trogir in 2007, a monumental stone lintel with three crosses was discovered, in use as a tombstone. The lower arms of the crosses were cut off and the second line of the inscription was partially destroyed. Because of the damage to and degradation of the epigraph it cannot be reliably ascertained whether it is a canonical Christian text or a formula of dedication and invocation that is concerned. The inscription is exceptionally rustic, not systematic in its graphical features, more scratched into the stone than carved, with uneven and distorted letters. The Trogir fragment tells of the vicissitudes of the Late Antique lintel, originally incorporated into the Early Christian Church of St John the Baptist, its pre-Romanesque use, in which the width of the lintel was abridged and the stone was filled in with an inscription, and finally its reutilisation for sepulchral purposes in the paving of the Romanesque church.
Also found in Trogir, in a wall of the apse of the Church of St Nicholas, was a fragment of an Early Christian lintel with a central cross and an invocation for help (Save your servant, My God, who puts his trust in Thee, Ps. 86, 2). It belongs to the second type, the so-called epigraphic lintel, which contains prayers for the salvation of the soul or the preservation of the community (Salona, Manastirine). The second type of anepigraphic lintel with three incised crosses was found in several Salona sites: at the Episcopal complex, in the cemeterial basilicas at Kapljuč, Manastirine and Marusinac and in the garden of the monastery of St Raphael in Solin. A lintel with repeated crosses symbolises the triumphal hymn of the early liturgy, with its triple invocation Sanctus. The invocation to the glory of God begins with the symbolic Ter-Sanctus, and the entry and exit from the church closes the liturgical cycle and the prayer of the faithful. A step-profiled lintel with crosses in relief is incorporated into a Romanesque house at 6 Nepotova ulica in Split. The origin of this lintel, secondarily used in Split, is uncertain for it cannot be ruled out that it was brought from Salona, a big source of ready-made and dressed elements, a rich mine of marble for the cathedral as well as of inscriptions and crosses conferring protection on houses and households.
Brač Island, the stone-working hub of Central Dalmatia, does not feature Early Christian lintels with three crosses, but rather displays more lavish examples with a central cross in relief and vine tendrils, such as that at the entrance to the basilica of Povlja, and various types of lintels with Christograms from the Late Antique coenobium at Mirje near Postire.
Triple-cross lintels from Late Antiquity, notwithstanding their dismantling, were re-installed in liturgical spaces in different versions, from the sill and archways of church portals to the bases of altar screens. In secondary use, they were installed above house doors, in their back and foundation walls, aimed at conferring lasting protection on house and household members. In their new medieval re-utilisation, originally Early Christian lintels with simply incised cross symbols were supplemented with epigraphic contents and interlacing motifs, always in the liminal space between inside and outside, in both architecture and in the spiritual sphere. The texts of the Psalmist thanking and glorifying the Savour on the eve of Palm Sunday promote the message of the door of the temple: Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. (Ps. 24, 7)
Ključne riječi
spolia; re-utilisation; Early Christian lintels; cross; Dalmatia
Hrčak ID:
330838
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.5.2025.
Posjeta: 61 *