Signaling Saintly Presence: Constructing Identity in Fourteenth- to Seventeenth-Century Dalmatia

Rebecca Johnson

This project examines the architectural and spatial development of tomb-shrines of select patron saints located in the port cities of modern-day Croatia (Dalmatia). This includes the gilded casket of Saint Simeon in the church of St. Simeon in Zadar, the side chapel of the Blessed Ivan Trogirski located in the St. Lawrence Cathedral in Trogir, and the dual-ciboria and wall tombs of Saints Anastasius and Domnius in the St. Domnius Cathedral in Split. Particular attention is given to the architectural role of tomb-shrines as both sacred sites and objects in order to understand their unique role as both microarchitectural sacred spaces and monumental loci for important patron saints. Focusing on experience and presence, the project uses methodologies of signaling presence and fortifying boundaries. It investigates how these saintly sites were activated through visitor experience and, in particular, the movement both to and around these spaces.
The project adopts a diachronic approach in examining how the sites and social practices around patron saints developed in tandem with the fluctuating social and political fabric of their respective urban environments. Throughout the late medieval to early modern periods, Dalmatia was uniquely positioned between colonial empires that were vying for power and control over the Eastern Adriatic littoral. Although it existed under shifting imperial dominions, its port cities still flourished in their own individual manner. This project considers how external political forces impacted the need for local representation as well as the construction, or execution, of it. In this regard, the project aims to understand how the cult of patron saints contributed to fashioning a sense of identity both on a communal, local level as well as translocally (across Dalmatia more broadly).