engleski

Baptismal font of the Croats: a case study in the formation of a national symbol

The paper appears in the volume 62—a special issue titled “National Narratives and the Medieval Mediterranean”—of the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Soon after its 'discovery' in Venice in the mid-nineteenth century, the so called baptismal font of prince Višeslav entered Croatian historiography as the font commissioned for the early tenth-century duke Višeslav of Zahumlje. Related to the debate concerning the emergence of the first Croatian bishopric, the font was soon interpreted as having originated in the center of the Croatian principality in Nin. The font remained in the focus of the scholarly debate on the Christianization of the Croats during the twentieth century and was often interpreted as an example of the so called Old Croatian Art. Purchased from Italy by the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia, it was transferred to Zagreb during the Second World War. Another translatio to the newly built Museum of Croatian Archeological Monuments in late 1970s marked the beginning of a new phase of font’s large-scale public promotion. Treated as one of the symbols of the national identity of Croatia and of its Christian roots, the font subsequently gained an important place in the national collective memory. In an attempt to provide the history of reception of the font, the paper aims, in a broader sense, at reconstructing chronological phases, detecting ideological tenets and analyzing the discoursive formations which marked both the shaping of the modern Croatian nation and its cultural institutions between the late nineteenth and early twenty-first century.

Baptismal font of prince Višeslav, History of Art, Historiography, Ideology, Nationalism, National Identity

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