Il Maestro degli amboni zaratini

Abstract

The article defines a number of relief carvings found at Pridraga, Novigrad, Zadar and Neviđani on the island of Pašman. Autor identifies them as products of the same stone-cutting workshop, naming it the Master of Zadar Ambos. The carvings demonstrate features of early pre-Romenesque sculpture: soft modelling, loosely arranged motifs of fragile form, as well as representations of human figures which in the late eighth or the early ninth century will start to withdrow and to give primacy to an exclusively vegetative, geometrical and zoomorphic visual repertoire. Taking into account all stylistic, morphological and iconographic features of the relief carvings under consideration and the sites from which they originally come from, the author arrives at the conclusion that they belonged to the liturgical furnishings of at least two early Christian churches (Zadar - cathedral, Pridraga - St. Martin) which were renovated in the late eighth or the early ninth century.