Contribution to the Trogir Stonecarvers’ Workshop

Abstract

The author attributes the chancel screen gable from the Trogir Town Museum, discovered in the pavement of the vestibule of the destroyed pre-Romanesque hexaconchal church of St Mary at Trogir to the Trogir stonecarvers’ workshop. The arguments for such an attribution are found in the visual and stylistic analysis of the gable and  in the analogies with other similar fragments of pre-Romanesque reliefs which have already been attributed to the same workshop. This demonstrates a similar concept in the layout on the gables from Trogir and Bijaći, while more obvious stylistic parallels for the Trogir gable are found on the chancel screen arches and architraves from  Pađene, Brnaze, Malo polje of Trogir and Otres, but also those from Krković and Ostrovica. In addition, two fragmented reliefs which have been inserted as spolia in east wall of the parish church of St George at Pađene near Knin are also attributed to the same workshop. These fragments have been measured and photographed in more detail for the first time for this paper. The analysis of their decoration has resulted in the conclusion that these fragments belonged to a widely distributed type of chancel screen pilasters, with a somewhat more complex decoration consisting of a dense interlaced mesh of three-strand bands.  Finally, the gable from the Trogir Town Museum, and other stylistically similar relief from Trogir, have been brought into a stronger connection with the church of St Mary, and its original liturgical furnishings in particular. Following from such a conclusion, as well as the fact that the same workshop produced liturgical installations in another hexaconchal church at Brnaze near Sinj, the author dates both structures to the period when the workshop was active (the first quarter of the ninth century), and places the construction of almost all Dalmatian hexaconchs in a relatively short time frame from the end of the eighth century to mid-ninth century.