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THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH OF SAINT CLEMENT NEAR SPLIT: THE INFLUENCE OF THE DIOCLETIAN'S MAUSOLEUM
Abstract
The Diocletian's mausoleum was built at the beginning of the 4th century and was later turned into Split's cathedral in the 7th century. Due to its importance, it is not a surprise that the cathedral is an architecturally influential building. There are several churches near Split that contain the central octagonal element in their spatial composition and the church of Saint Clement in Sitno Gornje is the oldest one, still standing. The researchers have often emphasized the influence of the Diocletian's mausoleum, since the end of the 19th century on all the buildings in the area that contain an octagonal plan, but that seems to be an incomplete and only formal approach to the built heritage. So, the goal of this paper is to comprehensively analyze all the attributes of the Saint Clement church and evaluate the possibility of the mausoleum's influence, aiming to emphasize the importance of a comprehensive reading and understanding the complexity of built heritage. Thoroughly analyzed and evaluated, the eight architectural elements of the Saint Clement church and its later additions (such as project task, context, original concept and later additions, form and space, movement, technology as well as perceptual and conceptual readings) and their comparison to the same elements of the mausoleum provide more objective information about the possible influence. The major later additions to the pre-Romanesque church of Saint Clement occurred in the 15th century. This study has shown that only the octagonal domed chancel could have been designed under the influence of the mausoleum: the majority of its analyzed elements has some similarities with the mausoleum's elements and can be explained with its influence. The 15th century building context, the details, as well as the movement and technology attributes of the church cast a shadow on an easily done proclamation of a direct influence. The comprehensive analysis method presents an unavoidable step in scientific evaluation, interpretation, and valorization of the built heritage. The medieval Saint Clement church illustrates the possibility of the Diocletian's mausoleum influence and the indirect infiltration of the fresh Renaissance architectural ideas in the exclusive chancel addition.
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