Gradska ulica
The Cipiko Palace is a Venetian Gothic palace constructed by Koriolan Cipiko, thus giving the structure its name. The Ćipiko Palace is located opposite the Trogir cathedral. Inside the palace you can see a figure head taken from a Turkish galley captured during the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571. Famous Croatian architect Ivan Duknovic took part in designing the exterior of the palace. The palace itself is a complex of several buildings, connected in time to a unified whole. The oldest walls date back to the early Middle Ages, and the largest part of the complex was built in the 13th century century. The most radical change of palaces is experienced in XV century, at the time of the humanist, warrior and writer Koriolana Ćipika, who recruited the most prominent artists of this time Nikola Firentinac, Andrija Alešija and Ivan Duknović.
The Ćipiko Palace complex is located on the town
square, a small spatial part of the historic center of Trogir, in
which surrounded by narrow streets, gathered in one place the most
representative buildings: the cathedral, the Communal Palace, the
town lodge - court, the church of St. Sebastian with the clock tower
and the palace complex Ćipiko.
History
Among the builders
of the Ćipiko plateau in Trogir is certainly the most famous Trogir
humanist Coriolan Cippico (1425 - 1493), the main figure of Trogir's
political and cultural history of the second half of the 15th
century, author of the book, incunabula, Petri Mocenici imperatoris
gestorum libri tres (better known as De bello asiatico), printed in
1477, which later had several editions. His work has not been
forgotten in contemporary Venetian historiography either. It
describes the warrior feats of Pietro Mocenig, under whose command,
as a co-commander of the Trogir galley, war was fought against the
Turks in Asia Minor, the Aegean and the Ionian Sea. Coriolanus
Cippico was a versatile figure, with Renaissance personalities,
skilled in sword, pen, and politics; he was repeatedly elected
ambassador (orator) in Venice; he was repeatedly elected opera
(guardian) and treasurer of the cathedral, so he had the opportunity
to hire famous artists not only to build the chapel of St. John of
Trogir but also to his palace.
Small and large Ćipiko Palace
The small palace is a complex of several connected buildings, and
most of them are from the 13th century. The Renaissance courtyard is
interesting, and the portal on the first floor is decorated with
candelabra, a favorite motif of Nikola Firentinac.
The Great
Ćipik Palace, whose adaptation is related to the late Gothic style,
is most likely the work of several builders, so:
two late Gothic
trifores on the east façade and the south portal are attributed to
the builder and sculptor Andrija Aleši.
southern portal, to
Andrija Aleši and Nikola Florentinac.
the eastern, renaissance
portal opposite the Cathedral is attributed to Ivan Duknović; as
well as a statue of an angel holding a torch in one hand and the
family coat of arms of Ćipiko in the other.
Garanjin-Fanfonja
Palace
The Garanjin Palace was created, like many other noble
palaces, by connecting several houses into a single whole. This
palace was owned by the Venetian Garanjin family, from the 18th
century, which in the 19th century became part of the prominent
Zadar Fanfonja family, from which cavalry commanders in the Venetian
army were chosen. Today, this building houses the Museum of the City
of Trogir, where you can see objects from Hellenistic, Roman and
medieval Trogir. An interesting salon with furniture from the 17th
and 18th centuries, portraits of nobles and weapons ... The library
of the Garanjin family is very important, with about 5,500 titles.
There is a Lapidarium on the ground floor, and it consists of a
collection of old monuments made of stone, presented chronologically
- from antiquity to the Baroque.
Architecture
The complex
of the Ćipiko Palace consists of a large (domus magna) and a small
palace.
The great palace of the Ćipiko family
The great
palace of Domus magna, as it is called in the will of Coriolanus
Cipicus - was created by merging several medieval houses and their
radical adaptation at the beginning of the second half of the 15th
century. The central part of the palace is the former house of the
Cega family, which was inherited by the Chipiko family. The year
1457 can be taken as the time of adaptation of the house into a
palace, based on the inscription in the palace yard:
CORIOLAVS. CIPICVS
P.F. HEC.STATVENDA.
CVRAVIT.SIBI.ET.CVI.DEVS.
DEDERIT. MCCCCLVII
The great
Ćipiko Palace is located across from the cathedral and belonged to
the famous Ćipiko family. The most famous member of this family,
Coriolanus Cipico, a writer and humanist, hired Nikola Firentinac
and Andrija Aleši to rebuild the palace. In the atrium of the palace
there is a wooden rooster from the beak of a Turkish galley, a kind
of memory of the battle of Lepanto in 1571.
The small palace
is also a complex of several connected buildings, and most of them
are from the 13th century. This palace is characterized by a
Renaissance courtyard, and the portal on the first floor is
decorated with candelabra, a favorite motif of Nicholas of Florence.
Due to almost two centuries of construction on the palaces,
there are different stylistic solutions from Renaissance,
Romanesque, Gothic to late Renaissance, and the influence of many
famous Trogir masters of palace builders: Andrija Aleši, Nikola
Firentinac and Ivan Duknović - who gave their personal
characteristics.
The so-called small Ćipiko Palace is located in
the main longitudinal street, opposite the town lodge and the church
of St. Martin (Barbara). An ancient pavement of a possible agora
(forum) of Traguria was discovered on the ground floor of the
palace.
The palace is a set of houses whose core is a
courtyard with a porch and an external staircase. The earliest phase
of these houses dates back to the 13th century, in the Romanesque
style (towards the door with a sickle arch located in the courtyard
or through the Romanesque window on the third floor), visible from
the main square.
The Ćipiko family acquired these houses in
the 1980s, and made changes to them in the Renaissance style, in
which Ivan Duknović probably took part.
The wing of the
palace on the south side of the yard is closed by a house that once
belonged to the Lucić family. The volume, with its façade to the
east, towards the main longitudinal street, to the south-western
edge of the square, faces the Grand Lodge, and belonged until 1481
to the merchants, the brothers Nikola and Ivan Salamunić.
At
the front of the building, in the level of the first floor, there
are two Gothic trifores, of which the left is a replica from the
middle of the 20th century. On the right triforium, which dates from
the beginning of the 15th century, a Renaissance frame with the coat
of arms of the Ćipiko family was subsequently added. Trifora is
probably the work of the builder and sculptor Petar Pozdančić from
the 1410s. There is a porch in the yard on the west side, and an
external staircase on the east side.
The yard underwent a
change in the eighties of the 15th century, at a time when the
houses became the property of the Ćipiko family, and on the west and
north sides, they received balconies on the level of the first and
long floors. The balcony railing on the first floor is composed of
stone slabs, inside which are circles with inscribed four-leaf
clover. Between these plates are inserted smaller plates with a
Renaissance motif of flutes - grooves on which are the coats of arms
of the Ćipiko family.
The portal on the first floor and the
top of the stairs are decorated with candelabras, which are the work
of Nikola Florentinac.
The portal to the Square, which faces the
Cathedral, was built by Ivan Duknović,
The Gothic triforium and
the courtyard with colonnades and galleries in the middle of this
building are entirely the work of Andrija Alešija.
Together with
the pilasters, the palace has a total of about 10 m of fence in the
inner courtyard of 41 m2. The pilasters were carved separately from
the parapet slabs and then mounted as monolithic "captains" to which
traforged slabs were added on the sides.
The gallery in the
Ćipiko Palace extends over the two wings of the courtyard (570 and
426 cm), while the stairs rise along the third wing.
On the south
door is a sculpture with lions by Nicola Florentinac and the
inscription: NOSCE TE IPSUM, whose translation is: Get to know
yourself.
On the balcony of the first floor is a pillar with a
capital of Gothic style characteristics that accepts the balcony of
the second floor, unsuccessfully reconstructed with a concrete beam.