Marian Piety as Devotional and Integrative System in the Bay of Kotor in the Early Modern Period, BEYOND THE ADRIATIC SEA: A PLURALITY OF IDENTITIES AND FLOATING BOARDERS IN VISUAL CULTURE, Edited by Saša Brajović, Novi Sad, Mediteran Publishing, 2015 (original) (raw)
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In this article the authors examine creation and development of the cults of saints in the medieval and early modern communes situated on the East Adriatic shore particularly focusing on influence of Marian cult on pious life of inhabitants of East Adriatic urban settlements. Based on the data from unpublished and published written and visual sources the authors also analyses the creation and increase in popularity of Marian cult from the Early Middle Ages to Renaissance paying particular attention to historical reasons which influenced the flourishing of Marian cult in Istrian and Dalmatian communes in the late medieval Renaissance period. For this purpose the authors examined notary records, chronicles, pilgrim diaries as well as votive images from various Istrian and Dalmatian communes.
Legends, Images and Miracles of the Virgin Mary in the Bay of Kotor in Early Modern Period
IKON
The aim of this paper is to present two icons of the Virgin from the Bay of Kotor: their iconography, style, but above all the legends about them, the miracles they performed and, in particular, the ways in which these wonders were used in the process of constituting the legitimacy of the communes and the region. At the root of the myth of Our Lady of the Reef was the political aspiration of the citizens of Perast to consolidate their domination over the broader territory. The citizens of Prčanj had a similar aspiration. But, while the creation of the cult of Our Lady of the Reef was officially based and rested on the heroic and masculine principle, the establishment of the cult of Our Lady of Prčanj, the cult of the icon of Italo-Cretan origin was based quite opposite, on the private and women's domain. Therefore, the creation of the Virgin cults in the early modern Bay performed a variety of cultural roles. The two icons followed the meticulously designed Post-Tridentine model of linking sacral and political power and both served as mirrors of social hierarchy. However, the dynamic nature of their cultural impact, which involved more than subtle differences in the ways in which the two Virgins were produced and consumed, resulted in the justification of local cults. The similarities and variations which followed their fashioning should be perceived as two sides of the same coin, complementary and interdependent, rather than mutually exclusive phenomena.
IKON 11, 2018
During the 17 th and 18 th centuries in the Bay of Kotor a vast number of artefacts was altered in order to correspond more conveniently to the orthodox norms of the post-Tridentine Catholic church. In this paper, we want to suggest the subtlety of this transformation by using the examples of various 'additions' to the most precious holy objects. During these two centuries , the two most important icons and reliquaries in the Bay were altered by using silver covers, iron grids or silver plates as instruments of their representation. These adjustments can rather eloquently suggest the problematic nature of labeling each of these practices as either iconoclastic or iconophilic in nature. It is more fruitful, instead, to examine whether this blockage of the believers' gaze could act as a trigger for a kind of perception that exceeds only repressive impulses imposed by institutional authorities. Regulation of images and discipline of believers' bodies, hence, could be used as heuristic tools, open to the analysis that implies a different vocabulary used for communication between subject and object in the post-Reformation era.
Bulletin de l’Association pour l’Antiquité Tardive, n. 25, 2016
The complex of the church and the tower called Tureta, located in the Tarac bay in the central part of the island of Kornat, represents one of the most remarkable sites of our Late Antique heritage. The church itself is nestled in a bay with a little harbor at the foot of the early Byzantine tower that dominates the typical landscape of Kornati for 1500 years. Until recently, it was known only for its highly preserved apse in the back of today’s late Medieval church, bearing witness to a remarkable skill of Dalmatian Late Antique builders. The entire site had its first systematic archaeological excavations during the last decade that have not yet been finalized, but today it is possible to bring out at least some preliminary conclusions and display its historical development as well as its significance among the island sites. Church complex, most likely developed on the remains of an ancient villa rustica, consisted of single-nave church and lateral chambers arranged in two rows. One of them was equipped with a piscina in the shape of a Greek cross, and the other probably served as a funerary chapel or memoria in one phase. Discovery of the baptistery in 2006 caused quite a surprise, considering the then interpretation of the church only as a station on the maritime route and a companion of the early Byzantine tower above it. However, today’s understanding of the church allows the identification of four successive phases of construction and its gradual expansion. This presentation brings the contemporary interpretation of the entire church complex and the arguments for the complexity of its spatial development, which is explained by the presence of the supposed nearby settlement protected by the tower, in the vicinity of the fertile field with the source of water. Special attention is paid to the remains of the altar screen traces preserved in the first layer of the plastered flooring in the sanctuary of the early Christian church. The arguments are presented according to which these are the only archaeologically confirmed traces of wooden liturgical instalations in the province of Dalmatia.
in "Ikon", 7, 2014, pp. 167-180., 2014
Through the discussion of two practical “case studies”, the authors deal with a classical theme of iconographical studies, that is, the complex relationship between text and image. The two examples explain in particular how the “intention” of the artist or patron, and so the deeper meaning of the pictures, are not revealed by the exact correspondences between text and image, but emerge mainly from the recognition of the differences. Often this gap between text and image can be originated from the liturgy or can be explained by the links with ritual practices, in which the pictures are involved. Catholic prelates from Kotor were able to commission such artists who could paint the fresco programmes of town churches mostly based on models found in Byzantine art because such solutions offered them possibilities of forming their own programme based on the liturgy of the Catholic Church. In the case of the Olivuccio di Ceccarello’s Dormitio, from Sirolo, the semi-liturgical rituality of the assault on the properties of the Jews, accepted by the Church, justifies the scars on the image of Jews and clarifies the reason of the selection of episodes made by the painter on the basis of the Legenda aurea, with the intention to highlight the negative role of the Jews, as opposed to the positive one played by the incredulous Apostle Thomas.
Religions 10/6 Special Issue "Domestic Devotions in Medieval and Early Modern Europe", 2019
Although traditionally associated with Eastern Christianity, the practice of venerating icons became deeply rooted in the Catholic societies of the broad Adriatic region from the Late Middle Ages onwards and was an indispensable part of everyday popular piety. The evidence lies in the massive amount of icons located today in public and private collections throughout the Italian Peninsula, Croatia, Slovenia, and Montenegro. At a time when Greeks were branded as "schismatics", and although the Byzantine maniera greca had become obsolete in Western European art, icon painting managed to survive at the margins of the Renaissance, and ultimately went through its own renaissance in the sixteenth century. Omnipresent in Catholic households, icons were very often donated to churches as votive offerings and were gradually transformed into the focal points of collective public devotion. Through the combined study of visual evidence, archival records and literary sources, this article will shed light on the socio-political, confessional, and artistic dynamics that allowed for Byzantine or Byzantinizing icons to gain unprecedented popularity throughout the Catholic milieus of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Adriatic, and become integrated into domestic and public devotional practices.
“Guarda che quel Christo, come è magro”: Migrations of the Holy in the Venetian Bay of Kotor
Migrations in Visual Art, Editors: Jelena Erdeljan, Martin Germ, Ivana Prijatelj Pavičić, Marina Vicelja Matijašić, 2018
In her highly influential article Migrations of the Holy: Explaining Religious Change in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2014), Alexandra Walsham poses challenging questions regarding the ways in which historical development is conceptualized and explained. This provocative call implies awareness of constant tension between a decisive moment of change, such as the Reformation, and "ambiguities, anomalies and ironies" that followed it in practice. 2 The aim of this paper is to examine the ways in which transition between medieval and early modern attitudes towards the sacred body was experienced by the 17 th and 18 th centuries' believers in the Bay of Kotor. During this dynamic period of Venetian government most churches in the Bay were redecorated with new, Baroque artefacts, used together with the ones dating back from previous centuries. This change, although thoroughly explained from the angle of style and iconography, proved to be more complex seen through the eyes of contemporary citizens of the Bay.
The Adriatic Catholic Marian Pilgrimage in Nin near Zadar as a Maritime Pilgrimage
Religions
Following the general approach to pilgrimage as established by anthropologists and other scientists, the paper analyses the pilgrimage in Nin to Our Lady of Zečevo. More specifically, this pilgrimage will be observed as a maritime pilgrimage, following relevant recent research. Based on the oral story about the apparition of Virgin Mary to a widow, the statue of Mary is transported from Nin in a boat procession via sea to a mediaeval church on the nearby uninhabited island of Zečevo. Pilgrimage practices include many sensorial and symbolic practices, so it will be analysed from several points of view and more than one theoretical approach, including the relational approach and mobility turn, applied also to maritime pilgrimage with a reflection on influence of tourism on pilgrimage activities, especially in the Mediterranean. The paper relies on the field research from 2020–2023 in Nin near Zadar in Croatia which has been supported in part by the Croatian Science Foundation under th...