Izvorni znanstveni članak
George of Dalmatia and the Portrait Frieze on the Cornice of Šibenik Cathedral
Radoslav Bužančić
Vedran Deletis
Sažetak
For several decades, local and Venetian craftsmen had been building Šibenik Cathedral. Then, in 1441 the position of master builder was filled by George of Dalmatia /Giorgio da Sebenico, son of a Zadar goldsmith, a consummate architect and builder who had shown what he could do on large building sites in central Italy and Venice. It was probably George whom Filarete and Vasari had in mind mentioning some Schiavone who had done great things in Venice. He was a collaborator
of the best-known Venetian workshop, Bon, at the Porta della Carta of the Doge’s Palace. Documents refer to his direct acquaintanceship with Leon Batista Alberti, to whom he had supplied stone for building in Marche. George of Dalmatia worked on Šibenik Cathedral between 1441 and 1473, in which time he built the cathedral up to the level of the galleries of the central nave, which he did not complete. The work was taken in hand after his death by Niccolo Fiorentino, pupil of Filarete, a sculptor and architect, under whose direction the cathedral was to be completed, following George’s ideas, going on with drawings and solutions in the Alberti manner.
Particular attention has always been focused, where the cathedral is concerned, on the cornice with life-size stone portraits, made by Master George at the very beginning of his Šibenik project. The first part of the frieze was done in 1441 to 1443, as cornice of the apses and was used to demarcate the levels of the sanctuary of the cathedral and the crypt with baptistery beneath it. George himself carved twenty naturalistic portraits of great expressiveness. The neurologist V. Deletis noted the symptoms of neurological conditions on the stone portraits and he and fellow neurologists carried out a joint consultation regarding the heads on the frieze. The methodology employed was based on high quality photographs taken by a professional, frontally and in left and right profile, in daylight, with a camera capable of high resolution; 71 carved heads were imaged. The best angle for looking for signs of neuropathy was the frontal.. Damaged heads or those presenting other obstacles to unhindered analysis were not observed. The photographs were printed in monochrome on A-4 papers, and detailed analysis was done on a computer display. Two neurologists analysed the images, looking for signs of neurological signatures, and then came to independent conclusions. If the two did not agree, the image was nor carried forward for further analysis. To make them the more objective, the images were analysed several times in different times. The eyes of the heads are carved in the stone as double spheres, one for the eyeball (sclera), the other for the cornea. Th pupils are carved conically into the stone as perforations. This technique of carving in a combination of light and shade imparts a very lively expression to the face, facilitating the analysis. The heads were numbered 1 to71 after the work of Radovan Ivančević, according to whom only heads 42 to71 are the work of George of Dalmatia while the others are by pupils or of unknown origin.
In their analysis the neurologists did not take into consideration who the authors of the heads were, focusing, rather, on the identification of neurological symptoms presented by the heads irrespective of their origins. From these 71, 23 heads were selected for further analysis with neurological facial signatures. The most frequent neurological signature was strabismus (18 heads), followed by strabismus and palpebral ptosis (one head), palpebral ptosis alone (one head), a combination of strabismus and exophthalmos (two heads), and exophthalmos alone (1 head).
The cornice in Šibenik with its head motifs follows the advice of treatises in the naturalism and faithful copying of motifs; the sequence of seventy-one heads was from the outset conceived as a gallery of likenesses composed of real portraits of contemporaries, of women, youths, old men as well as of familiar faces, emperors, poets, activists, in short of uomini illustri. The concept of illustrious men refers to historical persons of great virtues or merits like Caesar, Byzantine emperor Palaeologus, Petrarch, often celebrated for their exceptional contributions to science, politics or society; it is deeply rooted in Classical and Renaissance culture. The Šibenik example is not just a collection of models of behaviour or instructions for the achievement of civil virtues; it is a model of human society with a whole gamut of realistic features, an incredible degree of realism thus being attained, precisely that varietas enjoined by Alberti in his De pictura.
Ključne riječi
Šibenik Cathedral; George of Dalmatia; Leon Battista Alberti; neurological symptoms; Renaissance portrait
Hrčak ID:
330860
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.5.2025.
Posjeta: 63 *