The Phenomenon of Introducing Marble Altars to the Croatian Littoral: An Unknown Altar from the Pacassi Workshop in the Former Frankopan Castle in Bakar

Abstract

This paper reconstructs the phenomenon of introducing marble altars to Habsburg territories in the Croatian Littoral and Istria at the end of the 17th century, based on new data. Newly discovered archival sources reveal that the first marble altar, dedicated to St Francis Xavier, was erected in 1683 in the former Jesuit church of St Vitus in Rijeka. It was the Jesuits who initiated the transformation of sacred spaces by introducing marble furnishings, gradually replacing earlier wooden ones. During the last decade of the 17th century, commissioners from Rijeka procured altars exclusively from the altar workshop of the Pacassi family in Gorizia. Their works can be found in the former Jesuit church in Rijeka, the parish church in Kastav, the chapel of the Immaculate Conception in the former Augustinian monastery in Rijeka, and the Franciscan church in Trsat. Finally, the Kvarner oeuvre of the Pacassi family includes a fragmentarily preserved altar from the chapel of St Michael in the former Frankopan castle in the town of Bakar.