engleski

Medical Elements in Istrian Frescoes and Graffiti

The time of flourishing of fresco-painting in Istria was also the time marked by big epidemics, disasters of mass deaths, low health protection and mostly inefficient medical procedures. Our research has revealed that frescos and graffiti carved in Istrian churches have been the witnesses of these problems. Frescos were made to present the life of saints, but also the needs and preoccupation of men of that time, their understanding of the world around them, of life and death. Regarding this paper, we will pay attention only to the frescos and graffiti carved in the churches in Beram, Lovran, Hrastovlje and Pazin. In the most cases order for this frescos was given by the fraternites (association of profession or class). One of the richest Istrian fraternites in fifteenth century was that of the small village of Beram. They ordered building and painting of the church named - St. Mary of Škriline, being today the most representative and the best preserved work from that time, done by master-painter Vincent from Kastav (a place near Rijeka) in 1474.The paintings of saints were ordered for the protection of diseases and the evil, as well as gratitude for the mercy they received. In front of these frescos people thought about their pain or confided it. Sometimes they went to priest and he wrote for them their message on the painted wall in Glagolitic alphabet, the ancient Croatian letter. In that way the walls are becoming live again and the witnesses of a history which was not written by historians and cannot be found in their documents. Today, from the messages on the wall and iconography motives of their paintings we can reconstruct the problems and preoccupation of ancient people. On graffiti carved in mortar of the churches in Lovran and Pazin we can find the traces of the effects of the plague.

Istria; Croatia; 15th and 16th century; frescos; graffiti; patron Saints; plague; Dance of Death

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