Church cemetery

The chapel of St Peter and Paul in Zagreb`s central cemetery Mirogoj belongs to a group of the most interesting sacral buildings erected in Croatia`s capital at the end of the 19th century. It is one of the first monumental mausoleums ever built outside the Mirogoj`s arcades and one of the fi nest works by the architect Herman Bollé in his version of the neo-Byzantine style. It was erected in 1891 to serve as lieutenant general Petar Kukulj`s mausoleum by his widow Judita. Petar Kukulj was an Austro Hungarian field-marshal. Since such mausoleums were used by a small number of worshippers, there was no need to make them large. Moreover, the locations where they were going to be built were often very limited in order to leave more space for the cemetery. Therefore, during historicism such cemetery chapels were often erected as centrally planned buildings whether the mausoleums in question were Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical or Jewish. Hence, Bollé was provided with an opportunity to practice designing centrally planned neo-Byzantine buildings. Since he had been working for the Orthodox Church he was mostly compelled to restore earlier buildings and build new ones of a longitudinal plan which could facilitate a greater number of believers. On those churches he hadn’t had a chance to build domes. The chapel of St Peter and Paul at Mirogoj cemetery is one of the Bollé`s most signifi cant neo-Byzantine centrally planned domed buildings. Looking at his work, we can see that Bollé`s neo-Byzantine style is infl uenced by Byzantine, Romanesque and even Renaissance elements. He also found a great inspiration in late Rundbogenstil (Round-arch style) of Berlin architecture of the 1860s and 1870s. Orthodox bishop Miron Nikolić commended his work in the chapel and it seems that it had convinced him to entrust Bollé with a comprehensive renovation work on his cathedral in Pakrac, as well as some other buildings in Pakrac eparchy (parish church in Bjelovar for example). Thanks to his work on Kukulj chapel and renovation work on parish church of Transfi guration in Zagreb, Bolle was later commissioned to renovate the Orthodox monastery Grgeteg on Fruška Gora, and the Church of Holy Spirit, Ruma, and so on. Immediately after the work in the chapel of St Peter and Paul was fi nished, the walls were painted and the interior was furnished. Zagreb Crafts School professor Josip Bauer is the author of all decorations on the walls and icons on the iconostasis. All the icons were made on a gold background showing Bauer`s relation to the Byzantine art of drawing. The author attended the Academy in Munich. Therefore, compositions of his works are inherently in correlation with the tradition of western painting but there is also a very strong infl uence of the Nazarenes. Bauer was obviously familiar with the orthodox iconography which resulted in numerous commissions by the Orthodox Church in Croatia. The position of icons on the iconostasis follows the usual rules of the Orthodox Church, but still there are some differences. In the bottom line we can see Annunciation in imperial court with icons of enthroned Christ and Virgin by its side. On the side doors we can see Michael the Archangel and Gabriel the Archangel. Saint Peter and Paul, to whom the chapel is dedicated, are painted on the left end of the row and Saint John the Baptist is on the right end. Two central rows of icons on the iconostasis depict the scenes from the life of Christ and Virgin Mary. The top of the iconostasis shows the prophets painted in round medallions and in the central axis we see the crucifixion of the Christ flanked by the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist) painted above the icons showing the Holy Trinity and God the Father. Herman Bolle is the author of the design for the iconostasis as well as the entire chapel project. The estimated cost of the chapel was 14.000 forints (28.000 krones) which was a substantial amount in that time.

Abstract: Research into a defunct medieval church in Temetődomb, in the cadastral zone of the Pinciná village, yielded a ceramic vessel which was possible to reconstruct. It was located in test pit III-A-2 that crossed the exterior of the south-western corner of the church nave and partially intersected its masonry. The revision of the finds showed that the vessel had originally contained the bones of an infant. This remarkable find ranks with infants’ graves in vessels, the occurrence of which in Slovak territory is confirmed by historical archaeology from the 14th century until the 17th century. However, ethnographic sources shift the practising of this custom as late as the early 20th century. The closest similar find comes from Gortva-Bizovo where a vessel with the bones of an infant was interred in the nave of a defunct church. The find from Pinciná is another example of the use of the locus sacer et consecratus of a defunct church and its graveyard for the burial of possibly an unbaptized infant.
Key words: Pinciná – defunct church and graveyard – modern age – infant in a vessel – locus sacer et consecratus.