26 Km 107 Bl Chreina, Chrainburch the Town of Kranj Is Located on The

Kranj 26 km 107 Bl Chreina, Chrainburch 03 The town of Kranj is located on tion of Italy. the prominence formed by the riv Archaeological finds proved the ers Sava and Kokra and on the continuous existence of severa! transit route leading from the settlements protecting the precipi Karavanke mountain passes over tous walls above the confluence of the river Sava to the Ljubljana ba the two rivers from the Hallstattan sin in the east, and over the area Age, La Tene Age and the Roman of Loka to the south in the direc- period, the period of migrations of peoples and the old Slavonic pe riod. The name Carnium originated from the !ate Roman period when Kranj was an important element of defence of the Roman Empire (Claustra Alpium Iuliarum). After the arrival of the Franks Kranj, or rather, Chreina as the name was recorded in documents about the year 1060, became the seat of the margrave of Carniola and thus the most important town in the province. The establishment of the seat of the original parish in the second half of the tenth century and the burying of the dead around the church were connected with the beginning of one of the large st old Slavonic necropolises in Slovenia. An extensive !ate Roman necropo lis was also discovered on the right bank of the river Sava by the form er church of St. Martin. 1 Gradually market activities started to develop by the seat of the original parish, bringing about the establishment of a town in the first half of the thir teenth century. 2 Kranj was first re cord ed asa town (civitas) in 1256,3 and citizens of Kranj (burgenses de Creinburg) were recorded in docu ments as early as 1221.4 The found ers were probably the Counts of Andechs, who had become depu ties for the margrave of Carniola, and apart from their estates with the seat in Kamnik they additionally possessed the margrave's fief around Kranj due to their office. The town obtained its arms with an eagle from the Counts of Andechs. Urban settlement had started to ex pand after the distribution of plots among new settlers. Originally feu dal !and on the prominence of Kranj was divided into equal parts on which people built their houses and cultivated their gardens, simi larly as in the times of rural coloni zation, only on a different scale. The rest of the !and was intended for the town, church and aristoc racy. Originally the area of the ur ban settlement comprised the present Main Square, yet the influx of population demanded expan sion. On account ofthat the present 77 backbone of its ground plan. On the eastern si de of it there was the parish church, which acquired its final form in the fifteenth century, and its hall-shaped plan had influ enc ed the development of church es of that type in Slovenia. 6 There was a Romanesque ossarium on the north ern s ide of the church, and it was replaced by a graveyard chapel of the family of Eghk, whose manor was in the vicinity, in 1463. 7 The town hall with its consulting room and the outbuild ing for gatherings of the townsfolk (the commune) stood at a promi nent location on the crossroads of Main Square and Post Street, near the so-called Pigs' Square. The town hall was first recorded in Prešeren and Cankar Streets were documents in the early sixteenth soon urbanized, probably in the !ate century. 8 The present Maister thirteenth century. The backyards Square, formerly an expanded nar of house s were connected with the row street, was the last addition to market-place and the two roads by the town in the north-western di means of outhouse paths that were rection. The Upper Gate was lo reached by cross streets (e .g. the cated by its conclusion. Entrance present Jenko Street) or passages into the town from the south-east between houses (e.g. the present was closed by Lower Gate in the Pavšlar passage). The extreme central part of the present north-eastern part of the town Vodopivec Street. prominence had long remained un Kranj had been fortified from very inhabited. It was plan ted with trees, early on. Later additions with tow therefore it was named Pungert ers of circular floor plans, partly (from the German Baumgarten, 'or connected with the remains of the chard '). The construction of the !ate Roman walls, originated from church of lntercessors against the the !ate fourteenth or early fifteenth Plague revitalized that part of the century. During the period ofTurk town around the year 1478.5 ish incursions they were strength The market-place (the present ened by double walls in the north Main Square), with a more or less west and with a tower on the rectangular form adapted to the Škrlovec, a typical monument of terrain and typical of the period the Renaissance fortification which after 1200, was the centre of eco also included the south-eastern part nomic life of the town and the of Khislstein Castle. 78 road covering the natural promi nence, similar to that of Kranj. The spatial impact of streets and squares in Kranj and in other towns of Upper Carniola was re inforced through the growth of house facades and their intercon nection. The disposition of architecturally dominant features, i.e. towers of the parish church, Rosary church, Pungert church and other verticals, enhanced the impressions of Main Square and other streets. The undoubtedly intentional ar rangement of dominant features in the urban area, as depicted in the painting of Kranj by Merian from 1649, was further carried into ef fect in the composition of the prin cipal sculpted elements of the ur ban organism. The tower of the parish church presented the axis of the urban mass, the pyramidal form of which was created by Turkish incursions were a direct architecturally dominant features cause for the formation of the dispersed in the urban centre. The ground plan preserved until the line of composition was then led present. After the decree of Em from the Rosary church to the peror Friedrich III of 14 78 new set Pungert church, thus reaching the tlers had started to fill up the edges edge of the prominence. On the of both outhouse paths, two paral other side the line passed the Up lel streets developed by Prešeren per Gate and was concluded by the Street and Main Square - the ho using area of form er outhouses. present Tavčar and Tomšič Streets, The inclusion of the mountain sil through which the so-called paral houette into the pyramidal view of lel system of traffic communica the town, which was perhaps co tions had developed in Kranj. The incidenta!, had powerfully en same type was partly preserved in hanced its visual effect. On ac Slovenj Gradec, in St. Veit in count of that Kranj is Carinthia and especially in Gmiind; compositionally one of the most in other parts of Europe it was typi sophisticated urban organisms in cal primarily of Bern in Switzer Slovenia and in Central Europe. land, with numerous streets run ning parallel to the main arterial Cene Avguštin 79 1 An extensive bibliography on the archaeologi cal finds of Kranj is compiled in Kranjski zbom iki (1960-1995) and in other publica tions; Walter Schmid, Josip Korošec, Paola Korošec, Stane Gabrovec, Jože Kastelic, Andrej Valič, Milan Sagadin, Timotej Knific, Jana Horvat, Vinko Šribar, Peter Petru, France Stare, Jaro Šaše lj , Janez Hofler, Rajko Bratož, F. M. Dolinar and others. 2 About the beginning of the market or urban settlement ef. Josip Žontar, Fran Zwitter, Božo Otorepec, Ferdo Gestrin, Milko Kos, Bogo Grafenauer and others. 3 M. Kos, GHTS, p. 283. 4 Fr. Kos, Gradivo 5, p. 348. 5 M. Kos, GHTS, p. 288. 6 Bibliography quoted in the chapter The Towns of Upper Carniola. 7 Josip Žontar, Zgodovina mesta Kranj, Ljubljana 1939, p. 60; Andrej Vali č, Kostnica in pokopališka kapela v Kranju, Pod zvonom sv. Kancijana, Kranj 1991, p. 59. 8 'offen komawn', 'Stuben de s rathaus', ef. Josip Žontar, Zgodovina mesta Kranj, p. 37; Cene Avguštin, Mestna hiša v Kranju, Va rstvo spomenikov IX, 1962- 1964, p. 61. 80 .

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