Muzej / Museo Lapidarium Novigrad

The picture of a city is inevitably and unrepeatably determined by the course of time. And the monumental landscape of Novigrad in the past looked very different from the present one. The time of its blossom concurred almost entirely with the city's emergence and the political significance it gained in the Early Middle Ages. Rarely did a city at the Istrian coast, but not only there, take centre stage so suddenly, only to lose this role just as abruptly. And its name - Neapolis, Civitas nova, new city - indeed testifies to its sudden rise. Conducive to this rise were certainly the political circumstances at the time of a growing Frankish Realm and the joint action of Church and State, which dispatched representatives of their social elite to Istria in order to create the prerequisites for a new order.
The sediments of the centuries and the changes brought on by later periods have almost completely extinguished the erstwhile sheen of the newly established city. It was necessary to penetrate into this fragmentarily preserved history, to research it and bring it into logical correlations, in order to be able to present this heritage to the public, aiming to recover at least some of the old sheen from the darkness of the past.

Therefore, the establishment of the Novigrad Lapidarium Museum represents a large step in this direction. Behind its opening and its permanent display lie years of research work, devoted to the study not only of the material that forms the core of the Lapidarium Museum itself, but also of the city's monumental heritage: the former cathedral and the St. Agatha's cemetery church.

The erection of the Lapidarium Museum is by no means the first attempt to rescue and present the city's stone memory. In the course of the centuries, the citizens of Novigrad undertook several such attempts, with varying success (see the contribution by J. Ziherl). Now, the new Lapidarium Museum is incorporated harmoniously into the urban tissue, and the sculptures are set into architectural frameworks that illustrate their original locations, such as the Mauritius Ciborium whose surroundings imitate the long-vanished baptistery. More importantly, the researched and musealized exhibits are located in the immediate vicinity of the cathedral, also partially explored, to whose liturgical inventory they chiefly belonged.

All these explorations have contributed to a better understanding of the history of Novigrad, and today our picture of this early medieval city is much clearer than it still was even very recently.

Novigrad in the Early Middle Ages
Although Novigrad probably existed as Castrum Neapolis at the end of Late Antiquity, at least judging by an entry in the Geographia by the 7th century cartographer Anonymus of Ravenna, it seems to have become a city with all relevant functions only with the start of the Carolingian reign over Istria. In the Placitum of Rižana it is mentioned under the name of Civitas nova, which probably literally denoted a newly created city with all corresponding functions.

The monumental heritage from this period is poorly preserved, but recent explorations have been rapidly completing this so far fragmentary picture.

This is especially true of the cathedral of St. Pelagius. It has long been certain, ever since the discovery of three windows with semicircular arches at the northern wall of the central nave, that a medieval church lies concealed within the present construction. It is just as clear, that the crypt of the church also originates from the Middle Ages. However, the latest explorations in the crypt uncovered not only new fragments of early medieval sculpture, that have enriched the holdings of the Lapidarium Museum, but also revealed morphological features and finds which enabled I. Matejčić to set forth a new, extremely convincing interpretation and date the crypt, and thus the church, to the turn of the 8th and the 9th centuries (see the contribution by I. Matejčić). Although altered repeatedly, the cathedral retained the typological features typical precisely of the Middle Ages -not only in Istria, but above all in the central regions of the Frankish Realm. That this may be no coincidence, seems to be also confirmed by the floor plan of St. Agatha's cemetery church, which, although this church also shows no traces of the Early Middle Ages, is strongly reminiscent of the Carolingian typology.

The cathedral, whose original appearance is yet to be explored, was profusely decorated, corresponding to the significance that Novigrad had attained at the end of the 8th century. The crypt harboured the sarcophagus with the relics of St. Pelagius. The raised sanctuary was enclosed by a richly decorated altar divider with open-work parapets. The staircase probably also had decorated parapets, as did the lower part of the ambon. A reconstruction of the original altar divider and the remaining liturgical furnishings is presently still not possible, but it can be observed that at least two workshops had worked at it at the turn of the 8th and the 9th centuries and a third one later, in the 9th century.

The cathedral complex incorporated a baptistery, lost today. Unfortunately, its exact position cannot be determined without further archaeological explorations. Its localization and excavation remains a priority of future explorations of the cathedral complex. Yet, before the baptistery was dismantled, the well-known engineer Léon Dufourny recorded its appearance in a drawing at the end of the 18th century. It was octagonal in shape and had a hexagonal, sunken baptismal font, to which three stairways led. Above it a richly decorated ciborium was placed. In its form, the baptistery is related to a number of well-known early Christian examples of the northern Adriatic region. Thus, the question of its dating arises. Was the baptistery part of an even older early Christian complex, as its form would suggest, or was it built expressly for the ciborium of Bishop Mauritius at the end of the 8th century? In the context of the expansion of the Frankish Realm in Istria, the latter possibility seems increasingly probable. For one of the basic ideas of the empire was the Rennovatio, the return to old ideals, the imitation of Late Antique models. The face of the early medieval Novigrad as we see it today, bears features of an elaborately equipped political and ecclesiastical centre of the early Carolingian period. The politics of the empire elected Novigrad for the centre of its expansion to the southeast, and the protagonists of these events were highly positioned representatives of the political and ecclesiastical elite.

Memory Carved in Stone
The memory carved in stone does not comprise only old inscriptions. Novigrad's early medieval stone monuments are also extraordinarily valuable as examples of fine art. The over one hundred fragments and fully preserved pieces of architectural sculpture and liturgical inventory of the cathedral complex provided researchers with an array of data. Undoubtedly, the best stonemason workshops of the end of the 8th and the beginning of the 9th century were involved in the furnishing of the Novigrad cathedral, and the completed interior must indeed have been lavish.

It has been established, that the ciborium of Bishop Mauritius is the work of a Friulian stonemason's workshop, which in the 8th century provided the important ecclesiastical centres with liturgical furnishings. Let us mention here only the Calixto Ciborium from Cividale, the ciborium from the patriarchal see Aquileia and the sculptures from Riva d'Arcano and Sedegliano.

The liturgical furnishings of the cathedral were manufactured by at least two workshops. So far, the more expressive one of them could be identified, whose works are marked by delicate structures with ample plain background, soft carving, a loose subject arrangement and a characteristic forming of zoomorphic subjects. These sculptures may be associated with the workshop of the "capital master craftsman of Bale", who, according to today's understanding, worked at the cloister of St. Maria Velika near Bale, the parish church of Bale, the St. Thomas Church in Rovinj, and in Dvigrad, Guran and Šijana.

A smaller part of the liturgical furnishings has been chiselled truly superbly. The cypress patterns under the arcades and the convoluted rosettes, as well as the continuous deep carving all point to a workshop with the highest criteria of quality. Although it is still too early to speak of its opus and its origin, a preliminary comparative analysis finds certain resemblances to the Roman sculpture. Whether it is possible that in the course of the political conquest stonemason masters were also dispatched to Istria, remains to be researched, but in the historical context of the establishment of an important Carolingian stronghold at the south-western border of the empire, this would not be unusual.

Shortly thereafter, in the 9th century, Novigrad lost this strategic importance and went down in history as a city with a long history and brief, brilliant peak.

Protagonists
The conquests of Charlemagne were wittily described as "with the sword in the one hand and the cross in the other". As the unity of Church and Empire was indeed state doctrine, it is no wonder that the two key figures behind all events in Istria at the turn of the 8th and the 9th centuries were a prelate, Bishop Mauritius, and a representative of the political elite, Duke Ivan. Both envoys implemented the plans of the centres of imperial power and the ecclesiastical state.

Both personalities appear only in rare historic documents. From a first-rate source, the Placitum of Rižana from the year 804, it is however known, that Dux Iohannes kept court in Novigrad. In the hierarchy of the Frankish Realm, Duke Ivan was subordinate to the Margrave of Friuli, the commander of the border police, who in turn was directly subordinate to the King. Bishop Mauritius in turn is mentioned shortly earlier in a letter by Pope Hadrian to Charlemagne, dating from the year 776–780. The occasion was a relatively tragic incident - the bishop had been expelled by the local population. In consequence, both halves of the supreme power (the Empire and the Church) exerted themselves to restore order in this territory of special interest.

The words of Pope Hadrian from the abovementioned letter sound almost programmatic. He reminds Charlemagne that "[...] the aforesaid Bishop Mauritius was dispatched by yourself to levy St. Peter's revenues on said territory [...]", and demands of him, "[...] to order Duke Marcarius to restore the aforesaid Bishop Mauritius to the cathedra[...]".

There can be no clearer testimonial of the concerted effort of the pope and the emperor in the intention to expand the empire to Istria.

Obviously encouraged by such backing, Bishop Mauritius commissioned the ciborium for the Novigrad baptistery, a masterpiece by a workshop that probably had its seat in Cividale.

Imitating the inscription in the exceptional paragon, the ciborium of Patriarch Calixto in Cividale, Bishop Mauritius praised the marble shimmer of the ciborium. (Hoc tigmen lucefluo almoque baptisterio digno marble ...). Even though it was not actually made of marble, the appearance, the message and the glamour of the ciborium, that preserved the name of its commissioner, Bishop Mauritius, carved in stone, had to fill every spectator with admiration.