The Roman Catholic Church of St Peter’s and the Ragusan Colony in Stari Trg near Trepča

Abstract

The construction of a Roman Catholic church dedicated to St Peter in Stari Trg near Trepča can be related to the presence of Catholic migrants, Saxon miners and merchants from Dubrovnik and Kotor, who colonized the area around the rich mine during the medieval period. This article focuses on the role of the Ragusan colony in the construction and furnishing of the Kosovo church. Judging from the remnants of the church, it may be presumed that it was a three-nave structure, with a dome above the last bay of the central nave, same as the cathedrals of Dubrovnik and Kotor, and that a workshop from the littoral probably also decorated the church with paintings. The fact that in 1487 the parish priest at St Peter's church commissioned the altar polyptych from the Ragusan painter Stjepan Ugrinović shows that architects and painters may have been invited from Dubrovnik in the earlier centuries as well, and that there may have been continuity in their work on St Peter’s church in Trepča.