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Balsa Djurié

Plato, Plutarch and the Sibyl in the Fresco Decoration of the Episcopal Church of the Virgin Ljeviska in

The picturesque town of Prizren, near the border of , and the Former Yugoslav Republic of , is home to one of the most important buildings of Serbian medieval art - the cathedra! of Prizren dedicated to the Virgin Ljeviska. The history of the Serbian Diocese of Prizren, which the cathedra! of the Virgin Ljeviska represents, starts with the conquest of the town from the Byzantines around 1210 and the replacement of the Greek bishop with a Serbian bishop in 1219. The present five-domed church, with its two narthexes, belt tower, and several chapels [Fig. 27], is the result of reconstruction in 1306/1307 under king Milutin, on the foundations of an earlier Byzantine basilica. 1 The walls of the church were painted three times: between 1220 and 1230,2 when a roof was put over the ruined basilica; around 1310, during the reign of king Milutin; 3 and again when the Turks turned the church into a [Fig. 28] at a date that yet to be established. 4 That the walls were decorated at all was discovered completely by accident in the early twentieth century. During the at the end of 1912 the Serbian army entered Prizren. One of the officers, an architect, noticed under the cracked white paint in what was at that time the mosque, some images of saints. 5 Between the Great Wars the minaret was removed and the church again looked as it had in the past. Money was collected for the restoration of the church, which did not take place until the end of World War Two. 6 The frescoes became visible again when the white paint, applied during the Turkish period, was completely removed during large-scale restoration from 1950 to 1952.7 Although partly damaged, these frescoes give us

1. D. Panié & G. Babié, Eoropom1ua JbeBIIUJKa ( 1975) 10. 2. Panié-Babié 54; V.J. Djurié. B113aHrnjcKe

Byzantine Narrative. Papers in Honour of Roger Scott. Edited by J. Burke et al. (Melbourne 2006). Plato, Plutarch and the Sibyl in the Virgin ljeviska, Prizren 275

an insight into the capabilities of both the thirteenth-century and the fourteenth• century painters. 8 We also know the identity of the master craftsmen, Nikola and Astrapa, whose names were found in an inscription in the exonarthex [Fig. 29). 9 In genera!, the exonarthex and the frescoes preserved inside the church show certain traits that were new in contemporary Byzantine painting. This may well be due to the close relationship that existed between king Milutin and the Byzantine emperor, and to the well-educated counsellors and clerics surrounding the king. 1° Certain ly two of these clerics must be mentioned: bishop Damjan, in whose time reconstruction of the church was started, and his successor to the Episcopal throne, bishop Sava, later archbishop Sava III and head of the , in whose time most of the reconstruction and the whole of the decoration was completed. 11 Sava carne to the throne as an educated theologian from the Serbian Chilandar monastery on , and he participated in many artistic activities supported by king Milutin. 12 The five-dome church plan was very popular in Constantinople from the ninth century. It was particularly favoured in the Comnenian and Palaiologan eras because it allowed for a vivid interpretation of more and more complex theological and liturgical explanations of the hierarchy that exists in the terrestrial and heavenly worlds. 13 King Milutin and the bishops of Prizren accepted the compounded church shape, and in the Comnenian period an image of Christ was painted in each of the five domes, while the walls provided space for numerous Gospel cycles and representations of individual saints. The most interesting attempt to explain dogma through paintings can be found in the decoration of the exonarthex. The usual programmes of Serbian churches, such as the Last Judgment and the Tree of Jesse, are included in the cathedra! of Prizren but here they are expanded with a large number of details and infused with new ideas. 14 In the exonarthex, as was a custom in the Byzantine and Serbian Episcopal churches, are depictions of local representatives of the church, local bishops, and all the Serbian archbishops. 15 The frescoes teach the viewer, through symbols and allegories, the dogma of

8. Djurié, BmaHntjcKe London 1953) 11-12: 0. Demus, The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (London 1950) 198tT:A. Frolow, 'Climat et principaux aspects de l'art byzantin' BS/ 26 (1965) 56-8; S. Dufrenne, Les programmes iconographiques des églises by=antines de Mistra. Bibliothèque des cahiers archéologiques 4 (Paris 1970) 23-39 and 49-65, with bibliography. 14. Panié-Babié 66. 15. Panié-Babié 66; N. Okunev 'ApHJJbe naMIITHHKcep6cKoro HcKyccTBaXIII eeKa' SemKond 8 (1936) 239; S. Petkovié, 311,aHocn11Kapcrno Ha no,apy'ljy lleh«e narp11japu11tje1557-1614 ( 1965) 84-5.