Both Dalmatia and Istria formed part of the Gothic kingdom of Theodoric: we find therefore the same Byzantine influence exerted as in Ravenna; an influence which increased when the first-named country was retaken by Justinian in 535, and the second in 539 A.D.
At Parenzo in Istria there is a basilica, built in the year 543 A.D. by the Bishop Euphrasius, and consequently contemporary with the examples at Ravenna already described. This church still retains its atrium, baptistery, and other accompaniments, which those at Ravenna have lost. It consists of a basilica in three aisles, with an apse at the end of each, and an atrium in front, beyond which is situated the baptistery; and in front of this again a tower, though this latter feature seems to be of more modern date. On one side at the east end is a chapel or crypt; this, Mr. Jackson[[282]] suggests, may have been “the martyrium or confessio of the basilica where the remains of the saintly patrons of the church were preserved and venerated.” “According to strict rule,” Mr. Jackson observes, “the confessio should be in a crypt under the choir as at Aquileja and Zara, but Parenzo lies so low that excavation would be difficult, and here as in other cases the martyrium may have been placed in an adjoining building.”[[283]]
Internally the church is 121 ft. in length by 32 in width, and possesses all the usual arrangements of a church of that date. The columns are borrowed from some earlier edifice, but the capitals are all original, and were carved for the church. They are all of pure Byzantine type, and are surmounted by that essentially Byzantine feature the dosseret. The central apse, though circular inside, is polygonal outside, which is another characteristic of Byzantine work. Like Torcello it has still preserved its semicircle of marble seats for the clergy, with the episcopal throne in the middle. Externally the façade retains portions of the ancient mosaics with which it was decorated, and although internally the nave has lost its early decorations, the lofty dado of the apse inlaid with slabs of porphyry and serpentine interspersed with mosaics of opaque glass, onyx and mother-of-pearl, bears witness to its original splendour, the cypher of Euphrasius denoting its execution to be coeval with the building of the church, and therefore some centuries earlier than the mosaics of the baldachino, which are dated 1277.
418. Church at Parenzo in Istria. (From Jackson.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
We are indebted also to Mr. Jackson for the description of two churches at Grado: the Duomo and St. Maria delle Grazie; the former a fine basilican church with nave and aisles and a deep central apse, circular inside and polygonal externally.[[284]] The twenty columns of the nave are all taken from earlier edifices, and of the capitals which surmount them five are Roman and twelve of pure Byzantine workmanship, based on the Roman composite capital, but treated in a quite original way. The capitals are not surmounted by the dosseret, but in the other church of St. Maria delle Grazie some have the dosseret and others are without it, though all of the same period. The chief glory of the church, however, lies in its magnificent marble pavement (measured and illustrated in Mr. Jackson’s work), the greater portion of which is still preserved. The church of St. Maria delle Grazie is a small basilican church of six bays with fragments of similar pavement to those in the Duomo. The apse here is masked on the exterior by two sacristies on each side which entirely enclose it; similar examples are found in De Vogüé’s work of “Central Syria” (Woodcuts Nos. [278], 281, and 299).
419. Capital of Column at Parenzo.
The churches of Parenzo and Grado appear to be the only examples remaining of early Romano-Byzantine work on this side of the Adriatic. St. Maria de Canneto at Pola, consecrated in 546 A.D., was destroyed in the 14th and 15th centuries and its materials carried off to Venice for the adornment of the churches there. As edifices of the age of Justinian, and as showing the relative position of the various parts that made up an ecclesiastical establishment in those early times, the churches of Parenzo and Grado are singularly deserving of the attention of those to whom the history of art is a matter of interest.