By Franka Horvat | University of California, Los Angeles

Context

The church of St. Nicholas on the island of Koločep, Croatia is one of the best-preserved Elaphiti churches. This is partially due to the conservation and restoration work undertaken in the late 90s and early 2000, and partially because it was still in use up until the restoration. It served the purpose of a funerary chapel of the island’s only cemetery, a function that it acquired — according to ethnographic data — in the 19th century when the cemetery was moved to its present location. The prior function of the monument is uncertain. There are no mentions of it in the archival sources, and it is possible that St. Nicholas is not its original dedication. However, its location in the inland of the island, in the midst of the agricultural zone and on the path that connects the two modern settlements can shed light on the medieval use of the church. Clues about the users are also to be found in the monument’s architectural forms and decoration.

Significance

Like most other medieval churches on the Elaphiti Islands, St. Nicholas belongs to the so-called southern-Dalmatian dome type: a regional variant of a simple single-aisle church which can be found all over the Mediterranean. All southern-Dalmatian dome type churches are built out of rough-cut stone and covered by mortar, share the ground plan consisting of a three-bay interior vaulted by a dwarf dome in the middle, and have a similar wall articulation. Such structures are usually dated to the 9th or 10th century, and brought into connection with other pre-Romanesque monuments on the Dalmatian coast. However, architectural features can seldom provide a secure date, since the southern-Dalmatian dome type persisted for generations. The church of St. Nicholas has been dated to the 11th century based on stylistic features and inscriptions on the sculpture found during the conservation campaign. The bell-tower dates to the 16th century.

Sometime between the construction of St. Nicholas and the addition of the bell-tower, there was another intervention phase in which the church was painted. Not a great deal of the fresco cycle is preserved. In the apse survives a curious variation of the Deësis in which the Archangel Michael takes the place of the Virgin on the right. While local patron saints can step in for John the Baptist in rural areas, the replacement of the Virgin is unprecedented in three-figure Deësis compositions. The Archangel Michael appears once more in the central bay beneath the dome, facing his counterpart, the Archangel Gabriel, who is painted in the same position on the opposite wall. The same regard to symmetry is evident in other surviving figures, preserved in the upper registers of the north and the south wall.  They have been identified by previous scholarship as Saints Peter and Paul, and Maurus and Stephen. The figure of Saint George, portrayed beneath the Archangel Michael, has lost his pair. There is not a single narrative scene in the church: the cycle is dominated by devotional images and non-iconic representations. All of these factors indicate that the church should be brought into connection with laymen and laywomen, rather than with a monastic community. A closer look into hagiographic aspects will shed additional light on the devotional practices on the island.

Ornament does not serve only as filler, but covers, or it used to cover, the entire surface of both barrel vaults of the church. This motif, which loosely resembles a series of hour-glasses, can be found in churches of Serbia, as well as several regions of Greece (namely Macedonia, Mani, and Crete), but nowhere is it given such a prominent position as in St. Nicholas. The replication of the motif enables a comparative analysis with other monuments, revealing patterns of transmission.

However, the closest parallels to St. Nicholas are found in Calabria, in the church of San Donato al Pantano. Stylistic comparison can be drawn both on the account of chromatic effects, brush strokes, and facial features of the figures, and on the correspondence of particular details, such as for example the pearled halos. While it is hard to date the wall painting of the church of St. Nicholas with precision, comparisons with the cases of San Donato al Pantano, San Biagio in San Vito dei Normanni, and possibly others, point to a date at the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century. 

Although largely unknown in international scholarship, the small archipelago of the Elaphiti Islands, located in the southern Adriatic Sea only a few nautical miles away from Ragusa (medieval Dubrovnik), is remarkably rich in material remains from the Middle Ages. The church of Saint Nicholas is one of the 15 surviving medieval churches on the three inhabited islands of the chain — Koločep, Lopud, and Šipan. Apart from the corresponding inventories of the churches, material evidence includes traces of settlements, including secular buildings, cisterns, agricultural facilities, and paved paths. Furthermore, the islands are well attested in 13th-century documents preserved in the Archive of Dubrovnik. These sources offer insight about the islanders’ occupations, family bonds and relations with neighbors, and thus shed light on the social and economic aspects of the islands.

Moreover, these documents portray the islands as sites where large ships harbored to board cargo, tradesmen conducted business, and artisans recruited their apprentices. A number of archival records show that the islanders, as well as the city-dwellers, engaged in trade relations with other regions of the Mediterranean. This is confirmed by material evidence on the islands, which synthesizes Byzantine, Italianate, and local elements. In other words, not only do the Elaphiti Islands lend themselves well to the study of medieval art on the periphery of various empires, but they also allow for a broader examination of island cultures, island-mainland dynamics, and wider Mediterranean networks.

Further Reading

Gerstel, Sharon. Rural Lives and Landscapes in Late Byzantium: Art, Archaeology, and Ethnography. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

A seminal publication on non-urban Byzantium in which the author uses archaeological, ethnographic, pictorial and written sources to uncover the patterns of daily life of villagers in remote areas of rural Greece. She also places emphasis on the phenomenology of the village, and the multi-sensory manner in which medieval villagers (and medieval people in general) would have experienced the world around them.

Horvat, Franka. "Insular Power: Reconstructing the Social, Economic and Artistic Networks of the Elaphiti Islands, Croatia." PhD Dissertation, UCLA, forthcoming.

A study of the Elaphiti Islands set within the framework of island-mainland relations and the broader Mediterranean. By examining a variety of sources, the author reconstructs the islands’ living conditions in the 13th century, their relationship with Ragusa, and their role in the social, economic and artistic networks of the wider Mediterranean.

Kalopissi Verti, Sofia. “Collective Patterns of Patronage in the Late Byzantine Village: The Evidence of Church Inscriptions.” In Donation et donateurs dans le monde byzantine, edited by Jean-Michel Spieser and Elisabeth Yota, 125–140. Paris: Réalités Byzantines 14, 2012.

The author examines dedicatory inscriptions from Crete and Laconia to shed light on the different types of patronage – private, co-operative, and collective.

Parani, Maria G. Reconstructing the Realities of Images: Byzantine Material Culture and Religious Iconography (11th–15th Centuries). Leiden: Brill, 2003.

A fundamental study that bridges the gap between archaeology and art history. The author employs wall painting as a source for the study of Byzantine objects of material culture, focusing on different types of costumes, furniture and implements.

Peković, Željko. Četiri elafitske crkve/Quatro chiese delle isole Elafite. Split: Studia Mediterranea Archaeologica, 2008.

This is the only publication that came out as a result of the restoration campaign of four Elaphiti churches. The author describes the process step by step for each monument and provides ample drawings and photographs of excellent quality. The book is bilingual, with Croatian and Italian running parallel to one another.

Riccardi, Lorenzo. “Le pitture murali della chiesa di S. Donato al Pantano di San Donato di Ninea (CS): note preliminary.” Calabria Letteraria 59 (2011): 50–60.

A preliminary article about the architecture, painting and overall significance of the S. Donato al Pantano, a Calabrian church that bears the most resemblance with the church of St. Nicholas on Koločep.