Dominican Convent (Dominikanski samostan i crkva sv. Dominika) (Dubrovnik)

Description of the Dominican monastery

The Dominican monastery and church are religious buildings in the city of Dubrovnik. They are located in the eastern part of the old city next to the city walls. Dominicans founded a monastery in Dubrovnik in 1225. It consists of a complex of buildings, among which are the church of St. Dominica, bell tower, cloister and three monastery wings. It has not been established with certainty when the construction began, some data date from the 13th century. In the beginning, it was outside the city walls, but due to its defensive importance, the Small Council decided in 1301 that the commoners would contribute financially and with their labor to the construction. Inside the monastery there is also a work by the Venetian master, Paolo Veneziano. The monastery museum contains valuable manuscripts and 217 incunabula, paintings by Dubrovnik painters from the 15th and 16th centuries: Lovro Dobričević, Mihajlo Hamzić and Nikola Božidarević and the "St. Magdalene" altarpiece, a work of the famous Italian painter Titian from 1550. The church is one of the largest Gothic buildings on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. The designs were made by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo, and the construction was led by the Dubrovnik masters Utešimović, Radomanović and others.

 

History and description of the building

The Dominican monastery in Dubrovnik was founded by monks in 1225. Today it is located next to the city walls and the Ploč Gate and forms a complex of buildings consisting of a large one-nave church with an attached bell tower, a cloister (on the north side) and three monastery wings that enclose the cloister. The mentioned complex also includes four smaller monastery churches, although they are not completely integrated into the whole. These are the church of St. Sebastian, church of St. Luke, the Church of the Annunciation and the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary, i.e. the Rozario confraternity church. Church of St. Sebastian's Gothic church was built in 1466 right next to the church of St. Dominica, more precisely, along its southern wall. Although still Gothic, it is an example of the first church with a semicircular apse in Dubrovnik. Its position in the immediate vicinity of the city gates should have meant St. Sebastian's protection of the city from the plague, which at that time was a great threat to the population of Europe. Church of St. Luke, then the Church of the Annunciation and the Rozario confraternity church are spatially separated from the central complex of the monastery, but nevertheless they are owned by it. The first two are located on the east side of Ulica sv. Dominica, while the last one, the church of Our Lady of the Rosary, was built opposite the western facade of the church of St. Dominica. Although it is a well-known fact that as early as 1282, on the site of today's monastery of St. Dominica, there was a small cloister with graves, it was not until September 1301 that it was mentioned for the first time as the date of the beginning of the construction of the mentioned monastery. The initiative is led by the Small Council, which orders that all residents, both men and women, must participate in the construction of the monastery.[1] However, although the works began already at the beginning of the 14th century, and during the same century both the monastery and the church were already built, the monastery took its final form only with the construction of the sacristy, chapter hall and cloister porches in the middle of the 15th century.

 

Church of St. Dominica

Church of St. Dominika is one of the largest Gothic areas on the eastern Adriatic coast. The deep and empty space of extremely large dimensions for our area (42x16x16 m) in combination with the high and smooth walls of the church nave and the open wooden roof give the impression of spaciousness and Gothic lightness. The same impression can be obtained in some other churches of preaching orders. It is a one-nave building with a long nave with high walls, to which the polygonal shrine continues. The outer shell of the church is divided by square buttresses. Despite the opinion of some researchers that due to earthquakes and rebuilding, very few remains of the original construction remained, the Dominican church mostly kept its original form. This is evidenced by grave inscriptions at the bottom of the facade from the 14th-15th centuries, a series of three-part Romanesque-Gothic blind arcades and a polygonal apse. The south facade of the church is dominated by the main entrance, which is reached by a steep staircase. Bonino Jakovljev from Milan is the master of the outer, late Gothic frame. In 1418, together with local stonemasons from Dubrovnik, he created the outer frame of the southern portal and the figure of God the Father, which is located at the top. The second, western entrance to the church was opened only in the middle of the 15th century, after the long access ramp was arranged.

 

Belfry and cloister

As part of the monastery complex, next to the church of St. Dominica, there is a bell tower. It is surrounded by city walls from the south, east and north. Its ground floor is integrated into the space of the sacristy. The year 1390 is taken as the start of construction, when the builder Cecho from Monopoli started working on it. According to De Diversis, in 1444 the belfry was still under construction, and it is considered that it was not finished before 1450. The final date of completion is 1531, when the brass gilded chanter was placed on top. However, since that peak was destroyed by lightning as many as three times in the 17th and 18th centuries, the stonemasons, in accordance with new stylistic trends, decorated it with baroque garlands and volutes and carved the shape of a cube, as was customary in the Baroque era. The belfry is basically built in the Romanesque style, but Gothic and Renaissance style marks are also visible, as well as Baroque ones. After the earthquake in 1979, all bell towers in the Dubrovnik area suffered significant damage, including the bell tower of the Dominican monastery. Reconstruction began nine years later. The cloister of the Dominican monastery stands out among Dubrovnik monuments for its spaciousness and beauty. The idea of building a cloister existed as early as the 14th century. However, its porches were only built in the period from 1456 to 1483. Also, this cloister is considered an example of the first penetration of the Renaissance into Dubrovnik sacral architecture, although some details still bear features of the Gothic style. In the center of the courtyard there is a stone well from the 16th century. The cloister was designed by the famous Florentine quattrocento artist, Masso di Bartolomeo, and the work was carried out by local craftsmen.

 

Crucifix - Paolo Veneziano

At the back of the large church nave, located in the arch of the apsidal opening of the monumental church, high above the altar is the magnificent Crucifixion, which, according to Grga Gamulin, is one of the most grandiose works of the founder of the Venetian school of Trecentist painting, Paolo Veneziano. Its current and at the same time most likely original location follows the already established arrangement of medieval sanctuaries in which the Crucifix was placed high above the altar, thus presenting the Sacrifice of the Son of God whose symbolism calls for Salvation. It is most likely that the crucifix was originally placed in its current location. The crucified Christ is painted in the center, while the figures of the Virgin and John are on the side fields. It dates back to the period between 1350 and 1355, and is considered to have been created at the zenith of Paolo Veneziano's creativity. This work is certainly among the most expensive from the late Middle Ages in Croatia.

 

Celebrities

Famous Dominicans who lived and worked in this monastery:
Dr. Antonin Zaninović (1879 – 1973)
prof. Dr. Hijacint Bošković (1900 – 1947)
Dr. Father Dominik Barač (1912 – 1945)
prof. Dr. Father Jordan Kuničić
prof. Stjepan Krasić, Ph.D
Tomo Basiljević
Tomo Botteri, prior, Croatian. writer and preacher

Researchers
The most important Croatian researchers who studied the Dominican monastery throughout the 20th century were Ljubo Karaman, Cvito Fisković and Frano Kovačević, while Stjepan Krasić and Predrag Marković stand out among contemporary researchers.