Atectonic Retables in Bakar: Importing Central European Designs to the Monarchy’s Periphery

Abstract

This paper analyses and evaluates the main altar in the church of St Margaret and three side altars (the Altar of the Holy Cross, the Altar of St John the Baptist, and the Altar of St Francis of Paola) in the church of St Mary of the Port in Bakar, erected almost at the same time. The discussion considers possible sources of influence and comparative models together with temporal, spatial, and cultural contextualization. In the mid-18th century, the church of St Margaret on the southern side of the Bay of Bakar obtained a high altar whose typological analogies are found directly across the bay, on the northern side, in the church of St Mary of the Port. In the panorama of altar heritage in the Croatian Littoral and the Quarnero – where from the last quarter of the 17th century works in stone and marble predominate – these altars are carved in wood and, besides their artistic quality, stand out for their atectonically constructed retables, unusual for the Croatian Adriatic. Unlike northern Croatia, where atectonic altars are more common, along the Adriatic coast they appear only as isolated examples. In Bakar – then part of the Litorale Austriacum – the furnishing of church interiors with solutions current in the Habsburg Monarchy reflects a political administration intent on leaving a mark of its presence even on the periphery of its territory.