The Eastern Adriatic and Byzantium
In the last fifteen years, several major international museums – at Paderborn, Mainz, New York, Munich, London and Milan – showcased Byzantine material from their collections at thematic exhibitions and in exhaustive accompanying catalogues. The collections in question contain objects and artworks from a variety of sites, once been included in the Byzantine Empire, and they grew during the nineteenth century through acquisitions and donations. By featuring loans from other museums, these exhibitions aimed to demonstrate the role and importance of Byzantine art with regard to the visual culture of western Europe. None of them, however, presented Byzantine monuments from the territory of present-day Croatia, which can probably be explained as being caused by the language barrier. With this in mind and given that early medieval Croatia occupied the borderland between Europe and Byzantium, the exhibition The Eastern Adriatic and Byzantium aims to re-evaluate Byzantine heritage in Croatia from a cultural and historical perspective.
This exhibition, therefore, re-assesses and investigates late antique and early medieval art and culture which emerged and developed under various influences – most notably that of Byzantine art – from the sixth to the twelfth century on the territory of modern-day Croatia. Not all of these areas were governed by Byzantium with the same degree of power and for the same amount of time: Pannonia was lost after a couple of decades, in Istria Byzantine control lasted until 788 while in some coastal areas of Dalmatia it was present until the twelfth century. This is the reason why the exhibition focuses on the easter Adriatic coast while at the same touching upon its connections with the western Adriatic coast (Ravenna, Venice and Aquileia) and with the imperial seat at Constantinople but also other parts of the Byzantine Empire. The position of early medieval Croatia between the Franks and the Byzantines is also taken into account, a case in point being Zadar before the Aachen Treaty of 812, and the relative normalisation of Croatian–Byzantine relations in the second half of the tenth century when King Stjepan Držislav of Croatia (969–996) obtained the title of eparchos and patrikios from Constantinople. During the course of the eleventh century, Croatian rulers gradually assumed more and more control in coastal Dalmatia which saw the disappearance of the Byzantine reign by the end of the century.
For more than 600 years, albeit with occasional interruptions, the Byzantine Empire ruled over the entire territory of present-day Croatia or part of it. Despite this, the immediate material evidence of its presence is few and far between. For example, the stamp imprinted by the Byzantine civilization on the western Adriatic coast is not found on the eastern shore. Nonetheless, beneath the layers of the past and entangled with the influences from other cultures that left their mark on the Croatian regions, Byzantine roots go deep and are evident in the fields of written and legal heritage, place names, architecture and ecclesiastical rites…
Some researchers suggest that the Palace of Diocletian, an architectural monument of global importance and undoubtedly the most significant late antique building complex in Dalmatia, should be regarded as the cornerstone on which Byzantine culture began to evolve. The Palace combines the elements of Roman architecture with those that can be stylistically traced to the East. Moreover, some of the spaces within the Palace catered to the needs of an emperor whose rule was theocratic and as such came to be widely adopted by Byzantium and passed on to posterity, surviving even today in some parts of the world.
The Eastern Adriatic and Byzantium gives particular attention to the Justinianic era that ended with the death of Emperor Heraclius in 641, which in Croatia represents a crucial and important point marking the transition from late antiquity to the early middle ages. It is to the reign of Emperor Justinian I (527–565) that an interesting set of secular buildings can be attributed. A number of forts (castra) dotted along the eastern Adriatic coast and its immediate hinterland enabled safe travel along the sea lanes as an alternative to travelling overland where roads were threatened by the newly arrived Avars and Slavs and had to be guarded by forts also built during Justinian’s reign.
This exhibition also addresses late antique town planning (Poreč, Pula and Salona), religious architecture (the Euphrasian Basilica, the Church of SS Peter and Moses at Solin and others), material culture, hagio-toponyms, coinage and especially the Gothic war, that is, the arrival of the Slavs followed by the Croats.
After the Franks emerged victorious in the war against the Avars in Pannonia, their pressure turned to the Adriatic which at that time was in Byzantine hands. Around 800, the Franks extended their control over Venice and Dalmatia. Byzantium intervened by sending a fleet to the Adriatic which managed to recapture the coastal parts of the lost territory. The representatives of Venice and Zadar played a key role in the negotiations with Charlemagne, particularly Donatus, the bishop of Zadar, who travelled to Constantinople and Aachen. As a reward, he received the relics of St. Anastasia and brought them to Zadar. At the same time, the relics of St. Euphemia reached Rovinj from Chalcedon and both examples indicate that Byzantium considered eastern Adriatic towns important enough to step in when the Franks started to meddle. Bishop Donatus built a monumental rotunda dedicated to the Holy Trinity the basic building structure of which reveals influences from the East and West alike. It has a three-apsed sanctuary (a possible western influence) and an inner ring consisting of piers with a gallery on top and a central dome (a possible Byzantine influence). The Holy Trinity happens to be the largest religious building of its time in the Adriatic. Byzantine elements can also be noted in a number of other religious buildings on the coast as well as in the hinterland, that is, on the territory of the Croatian principality, in particular during the rule of Prince Branimir (879–892).
The diplomatic efforts of the representatives of Zadar and Venice resulted in the demarcation of the Byzantine and Frankish spheres of interest enshrined in the Aachen Treaty of 812 which regulated the relations between the two empires. The coastal towns (Kotor, Dubrovnik, Split, Trogir and Zadar) and several islands (Krk, Rab and Cres) that secured the maritime route between Constantinople and Venice remained in the Byzantine sphere of influence while the rest of the Dalmatian coast and its hinterland stayed within the Frankish sphere on which the nascent Croatian principality heavily relied. From that point onward, Croatia increasingly focused on relations with central and western Europe while a very different social and cultural climate emerged in Byzantium after the Great Schism of 1054. The last attempt to regain parts of Dalmatia took place at the time of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180) when Byzantium restored its power up to the River Krka for fifteen years in the 1160s.