5/3/2023 0 Comments Domus ecclesie![]() The decorative elements are carved in marble from the imperial quarries of Marmara and the intrados of the northern colonnade are ornamented in stucco splendid VIth century polychrome decoration unfolds at the east: synthronon and cathedra of marble from Proconnesus, opus sectile, and gold wall mosaics.Ī single-storied, wooden-roofed edifice of basilican plan terminating in three exedras oriented to the north, including the magnificent aula episcopalis, this episcopium ( biskupija/episcopio) - in traditional local terminology - does not appear in texts contemporary with its construction or of the Early Middle Ages, which are practically non-existent. The wooden-roofed, three-vessel nave of his basilica dedicated to the Mother of God terminates in a triple apse. ![]() Finally he erected at the east a triconch memorial to shelter the relics of its sainted predecessor, Maurus. He built the episcopal palace, then rebuilt - preserving the dimensions of the nave - the “Pre-Euphrasian” south basilica, which he linked by a porticoed atrium to the preexistent octagonal baptistery. Of Eastern origin, Euphrasius arrived on the episcopal throne of Parentium with the help of the reconquest of the area by the emperor Justinian in the mid-VIth century. The nature of the episcopium of this phase remains unknown. Not long afterward a basilica of the same type is built flanking it on the north: one finds for this phase, termed “Pre-Euphrasian”, the system of double cathedral that will subsist in the following phase, with a long vestibule on the emplacement of the former cardo. A courtyard precedes it, with, on axis with the church at the west, an octagonal baptistery surrounded by a corridor with canted corners. In the Vth century, a basilica without an apse but equipped with a freestanding synthronon is built to the south partly over the former decumanus (this will later be the site of the “Euphrasian” basilica). ![]() The double cathedral at that time includes two simple parallel rooms paved with mosaic without apses, annexes, a baptistery and at the west a vestibule with an exedra installed on the Roman cardo appropriated by the Church. In fact, the present edifice succeeded in two phases the first state of the building, built in the last third of IVth century close to the city wall, in an insula located at the angle of a decumanus and cardo leading to the northern city gate. Local tradition and older historiography long supposed that the houses razed in the IVth century to leave room to the first state of the cathedral had sheltered an oratory and constituted a domus ecclesiae predating the Peace of the Church (313) associated with the first bishop of the town, Maurus, who came in the VIth century to be considered a martyr of the IIIrd. The so-called “Euphrasian” basilica at Poreč, Colonia Iulia Parentium of the Roman period, is a cathedral of the mid-VIth century belonging to a complex classified as an UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997, which includes an exceptionally well-preserved Proto- Byzantine episcopium.
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