Pregledni rad
https://doi.org/10.17018/portal.2014.6
Choir Stalls in St. Anastasia’s Cathedral in Zadar
Barbara Španjol-Pandelo
; Filozofski fakultet, Sveučilište u Rijeci, Odsjek za povijest umjetnosti, Rijeka, Hrvatska
Ksenija Škarić
orcid.org/0000-0003-4496-6010
; Hrvatski restauratorski zavod, Odjel za drvenu polikromiranu skulpturu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
The choir stalls in the cathedral of St. Anastasia in Zadar were commissioned in 1418 from Matteo Moronzon, a Venetian woodcarver residing in Zadar. As Matteo’s workshop executed the work during several decades, the stalls bear the traces of changes in the design of carved ornaments, pointing to different periods of creation of various portions. We find confirmation for the approximate dating of individual carved ornaments in the designs of as many as four coats of arms of the Zadar Archbishops, during whose offices the stalls came into being. Along with the coat of arms of the Archbishop Luca of Fermo, who commissioned the stalls and acted as Archbishop of Zadar from 1400 to 1420, we also find the coats of arms of Archbishops Biagio Molin (1420-1427), Lorenzo Venier (1428-1449) and Maffeo Vallaresso (1450-1495).
Since the time they were created, the choir stalls have continually stood in the sanctuary of the cathedral. However, over centuries they have been redesigned on several occasions, and these changes were often associated with the alterations that the architecture of the church was undergoing. Some alterations were conditioned by practical needs, others were a direct consequence of the changing political circumstances, while the rest, for the most part, came from a desire to refresh and modernize the appearance of the stalls. Traces of these alterations can be observed in the very fabric of the stalls, especially in the irregularities and inconsistencies in the design of certain parts.
After the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797, the seat of the Count as the representative of the Venetian authority, that was once as prominent as the Archbishop’s seat, was redesigned to be less conspicuous. The stalls were distanced so as to enlarge the space, according to the late Baroque concept of a spacious sanctuary enclosed by a vault and a triumphal arch. In a late 19th-century renovation, the portion of the partitions between the stalls was removed, and another tier of stalls was added in front of the existing ones, thus increasing the number of seats in the sanctuary. The embellishment and modernization
of the stalls was mostly evident in the change of the polychromy. Their present-day re-polychromy dates from 1885, when they were thoroughly renovated by Oscar Marcocchia. The former, much more vivid polychromy was revealed in the conservation investigations conducted on two occasions – between 1969 and 1971 by the Conservation Institute of Croatia, and between 2011 and 2014 by the Croatian Conservation Institute.
Just as was the case with the late Baroque renovation of the church, when parts of the stalls were damaged and removed, so it was in a later-date restoration that aimed at giving back the church its medieval appearance, leaving the stalls without some parts. More specifically, during the Italian rule between the two World Wars, the conservation authorities from Ancona removed the Baroque vault in an effort to reconstruct the wooden roofing. The triumphal arch was removed at the time, and half-columns with halfcapitals were constructed, leaving no room for the parts of the choir stalls that were closest to the nave. A single relief that was dismantled at the time was not discarded, but has been kept and preserved until the present day. In 2013 it was conserved at the Croatian Conservation Institute and after almost 70 years returned to the cathedral, where it was mounted onto the wall next to the choir stalls.
Ključne riječi
Zadar; St. Anastasia’s Cathedral; choir stalls; Matteo Moronzon; Oscar Marcocchia; conservation
Hrčak ID:
133043
URI
Datum izdavanja:
22.12.2014.
Posjeta: 2.297 *