The gradus descensionis in the presbytery of St Lawrence’s Cathedral in Trogir

Abstract

During the conservation treatment of the ciborium and while the high altar in St Lawrence’s Cathedral in Trogir was being put in order, in the north, a squarish opening was found from which there is a vertical drop to some steps. A flight of five steps leads to a narrow corridor that angles off like a labyrinth below the altar of the cathedral. This installation must have belonged to an Early Christian church, and derived its shape from the pattern of the original tombs of the Roman martyrs, to which underground passages led. The Early Christian church under the auspices of which the Romanesque church in Trogir was built during the time of peace that prevailed in the province in the first part of the fifth century, when the ecclesiastical centre of Salona and churches throughout the metropolitan see were renewed. The relics of St Lawrence were probably deposited in the Trogir confessio at the time of the great renovator of the churches in Dalmatia, Hesychius, bishop of Salona, and after the triumphant campaign of the Augusta, Galla Placidia, who re-established the continuity of the Theodosian dynasty in Ravenna.