Two thirteenth-century portals in Istria: models of traditional and innovative uses of classical art

Abstract

The author analyzes two up to now unpublished exemples of classical borrowing in medieval Istrian monuments. He states that the three marble relief niches above the portal of the Canon's House are Early Byzantine fragments (6th c) with the date added later (1251). The author also publishes the reconstructed ground floor of this building. The author believes that the motif of the leaf scroll on the portal of the Franciscan church in Pula (1285) was the imitation of the scrolls decorating the near-by Roman Arch of the Sergii family (2nd c). Finally, the author explains how -by forming several small squares -the monocentric classic town of Parentium was transformed into the polycentric medieval town of Poreč.