The Split Cathedral is dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, popularly known as the Cathedral of St. Dujam (St. Duje). The cathedral is located in the complex of Diocletian's Palace in Split, on the Peristyle and was originally an imperial mausoleum, built in the early 4th century. Cathedral of St. Duje is the oldest cathedral in the world.
View from Cathedral of Saint Domnius
History
Today's Split Cathedral was built in the 4th century
as the mausoleum of the Roman emperor Diocletian († 316). On the eve
of the emperor's death, by the Edict of Milan in 313, Christians
were given the freedom to practice their religion, so in Salona,
the administrative center of the province of Dalmatia, they built
basilicas over the graves of Christian martyrs.
In the 7th
century, the Avars and Slavs overthrew Salona. The surviving
inhabitants fled to the islands, from where, after some time, some
of them returned to the mainland and settled in an abandoned
imperial palace. They turned the imperial mausoleum into a Christian
church, removed pagan idols and the sarcophagus in which the emperor
rested. From the ruined basilicas in Salona, the bones of the holy
martyrs that Diocletian had executed were transferred: Dujam, the
first bishop of Salona, and Anastasia, a worker, who were stored
in the emperor's mausoleum dedicated to the metropolitan church.
According to a tradition preserved by the Split chronicler Thomas
the Archdeacon from the 13th century, the first archbishop of Split
was Ivan Ravenjanin (7th century) who organized and arranged the
Split Church.
The Split Cathedral is famous for its wooden
doors made by the local master Andrija Buvina in 1214, who carved 28
scenes of Jesus' life in walnut. They are well preserved, except for
the lowest parts damaged by the feet of passers-by, Buvina's doors
are a rarity in European artistic heritage, because while the bronze
Romanesque doors are relatively numerous, only a few doors remain of
the wooden ones.
The bell tower was probably built in the
13th century. The term around which the possible beginning of the
construction of the Split bell tower revolves is the missing
inscription from 1257 which mentioned Kolafis (Golubica), the widow
of the Split prince Ivan Krčki, as a donor of the bell tower, while
the local tradition credited her with building a pulpit in the
cathedral.
Description of the cathedral
The building is
octagonal in shape on the outside and had a covered peripterum with
twenty-four marble pillars with Corinthian capitals. The portal of
the cathedral is also of ancient origin. The baroque stone slab with
a tiara on top highlights the metropolitan and primacy status of the
church that the archdiocese had until the papal bull Locum Beati
Petri in 1828. At the top of the portal is a small sarcophagus in
which the remains of Catherine and Margarita, the daughters of King
Bela IV, who died in Klis during the Tatar invasion in the middle of
the 13th century, are buried.
The cathedral is round in
shape, vaulted with a dome with square and semicircular niches, in
which statues of gods and emperors once stood. The interior is
surrounded by eight granite pillars set on a base of white stone,
with Corinthian capitals. These pillars were for purely decorative
purposes. Above the richly decorated capitals is a wreath that forms
the base for the second row of porphyry pillars. Above the other
capitals is a small wreath and frieze with the figures of the
genius, Mercury Psychopompos, and medallions with the figures of
Emperor Diocletian and his wife, Empress Prisca.
At the
entrance to the cathedral, on the left, there is a six-sided pulpit
(pulpit) created in 1257 by the gift of Princess Kolafisa, the widow
of the Split prince Ivan Frankopan. It was made by Master Mavro from
precious red and green porphyry that probably originated from a
destroyed imperial sarcophagus. The pulpit is erected on six marble
pillars ending in various capitals of native stone.
In the
15th century, two stone altars with ciboriums were built, located in
the niches of the mausoleum on the left and right sides of the main
altar. The right altar dedicated to the main patron saint of the
city, St. Domnius, was erected in 1427 by the Italian master Bonino
da Milano († 1429), and was shaped like a sarcophagus with the
reclining figure of St. Domnius in a vestment, resting his head on a
halo above a decorated pillow. the three angels support the folded
cloth like a tent. The interior of the canopy of the ciborium was
painted with frescoes of the late Gothic style by the Split painter
Dujam Vušković and Ivan Petrov from Milan.1429. years. In the second
half of the 18th century, a new altar of St. Domnius was erected, so
this one was then dedicated to St. Joseph. In 1958, during
restoration work, the Baroque antependium was removed and an ancient
sarcophagus with the image of the Good Shepherd (Pastor Bonus) was
discovered. On the sarcophagus is an altar canteen with an
inscription in rhythmic verse dating from the mid-13th century.
The left altar, dedicated to the city's co-patron Saint
Anastasia, is the work of the artist Juraj Dalmatinac († 1473/75),
who made it in 1448, also in the form of a sarcophagus with a giant.
On the antependium of the altar there is a beautiful and realistic
relief depicting the scourging of Christ, modeled on Donatello's
drawing.
In the northern niche of the cathedral is a new
altar of St. Dujam, the work of the Venetian sculptor Giovanni Maria
Morlaiter (1699-1781) from 1767, in which the saint's powers were
transferred in 1770. On the antependium of the altar there is a
relief depiction of the decapitation of St. Domnius made in the
Rococo style. Above the altar is a cycle of paintings with scenes
from the life of the Virgin Mary, the work of the Venetian painter
of Flemish origin, Pieter de Coster (c. 1615-1702).
The main
altar of the Split Cathedral was built between 1685 and 1689. Above
the altar is a carved coffered vault with oil paintings of the
Eucharistic theme, the work of the Rab artist Matthias Ponzoni
(1583- d. 1670) commissioned by Archbishop Sforza Ponzoni († 1640),
the artist's brother.
The choir was added at the beginning of
the 17th century on the initiative of the Archbishop of Split,
Markantun de Dominis (1560-1624), by demolishing the eastern part of
the mausoleum wall. This disrupted the peripterum, but significantly
expanded the cathedral. The choir contains artistically valuable
wooden choir benches and an archbishop's throne, as well as six
large oil paintings from the life cycle of St. Domnius, the work of
painter Pietro Ferrari and a wooden crucifix from the second half of
the 14th century in the shape of the Greek letter Y.
The bell
tower of the Split Cathedral
The bell tower of the Cathedral of
St. Dujma is one of the most original church bell towers on the
Adriatic coast. Construction of the bell tower began in the mid-13th
century and lasted until about the middle of the 16th century. Due
to the extremely long period of construction, it is a combination of
Romanesque and Gothic architecture, but both styles are in excellent
harmony. The Romanesque style predominates in the decorative
elements, and the execution of architectural airiness belongs to the
Gothic style of construction.
The bell tower is a distinctive
architectural work, specific for its slenderness and transparency,
for its gradual narrowing towards the top and fitting into the
ancient architectural environment, because with the use of wreaths
and capitals, in the format of openings and arches, it corresponds
to the arcades of the Peristyle.
The original designer and
builder of the Split bell tower is not known, but it is known that
in the 15th century a certain Nikola Tvrdoje managed the
continuation of construction. The donors of the construction of the
monumental bell tower, apart from the citizens of Split, are
probably the Hungarian-Croatian King Bela IV. and his wife Queen
Maria and Prince Ivan Frankopan and his wife Kolafisa.
The
bell tower was thoroughly and radically restored between 1890 and
1908. The top floor with hints of Renaissance style has been
completely redesigned to be in stylistic harmony with the other
floors of the bell tower. Numerous ancient exteriors and sculptures
depicting griffins, lions, sphinxes and humans have been removed.
Some fragments of the old bell tower are kept in the Museum of the
City of Split or are built into the Tusculum building in Salona.
The crypt of the cathedral
Below the mausoleum is a crypt
dedicated to St. Lucia, a virgin and a Christian martyr.
The
treasury of the cathedral
In the cathedral treasury, located
above the sacristy, is kept the Evangelist of St. Dujam from the
second half of the 6th century, the oldest manuscript written on
parchment preserved on Croatian soil. Among the treasury values
are valuable archival documents, medieval codices (Historia
Salonitana), numerous reliquaries, a silver fall from the altar of
St. Dujam from the first half of the 14th century, Mass vestments
and utensils and the miraculous icon of Our Lady of the Bell Tower
transferred from the church above the Iron Gate.