Projects / Programmes
The Pretorial Palace of Koper/Capodistria: Form, Meaning and Function
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.09.00 |
Humanities |
Art history |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.04 |
Humanities |
Arts (arts, history of arts, performing arts, music) |
art history, architectural history, architecture, urban history, administrative buildings, Middle Ages, Venetian Republic, Istria, Koper/Capodistria
Researchers (7)
Organisations (3)
Abstract
Koper was the center of Venetian Istria during the late medieval and early modern ages. From 13th to 18th century, the head of the Koper comune was a so-called podesta (or praetor), a member of Venetian nobility, who also acted as the administrator of the entire Venetian Istria throughout the early modern period. His residence and the main administrative complex of the city was therefore actually called Pretorial Palace. Due to its former role, the Pretorial Palace is without parallel in Slovenia. In the eastern Adriatic, similar complexes as in Koper have developed only in Zadar and Kotor, but with some differences. In Zadar there were headquarters of the administration for the Venetian Dalmatia and Albania, but this regional administration was separated from the local one. In Kotor, on the other hand, the rector of the commune was also responsible for the Venetian Albania, but subordinated to his superior in Zadar. His administrative building was built away from the city centre and away from the cathedral complex, next to the city port. Similar complexes, seats of the Venetian regional structures, are found in Corfu and Crete (Heraklion). In none of the above mentioned towns Venetian domination was so prolonged or pronounced as in Koper, especially during the earlier period. At the same time, Koper was under the rule of the patriarchs of Aquileia until mid-13th century, while none of other later-to-be Venetian maritime regional centres was under the domination of great feudal lords. Therefore, when it comes to the building history of Pretorial Palace in the earlier periods (11th–13th centuries), our comparisons should also be, for example, in Treviso, Padua, and Verona. Today’s outer dimensions of the Pretorial Palace were largely determined by the end of the 15th century, when renovation of the main town square was completed; still, precise building history of the palace remains to be studied. During the proposed project, a group of art historians, historians, a classical philologist and a conservator, will discuss several issues regarding architectural and urban history: (1) the location of the palace within the urban framework (2) the chronology of the building interventions, the original arrangement of interior spaces and their respective functions; study the relations between public and private spaces, both in everyday and ceremonial use; the impact of changing political circumstances and economic conditions on the building history of the palace; (3) iconographical and spatial elements of the palace within the urban framework of the Platea Communis (now Tito Square); (4) a comparative art historical analysis of the Pretorial Palace in a wider context. After last thorough studies of the Pretorial Palace based on archival sources in early 1900s, for the last seven decades serious research of the communal palace was prevented by the inaccessibility of the Koper municipal archives. Their recent reopening (in Venice) offers an exceptional opportunity to place the Pretorial Palace on the map of important administrative buildings of the Venetian Republic. At the end of the proposed research project, the Pretorial Palace will be one of the best explored medieval administrative palaces in wider region and therefore a good reference for any further international research. The analysis of the building history on the basis of the function of individual spaces, as well as the spatial organization of the Venetian authorities in the old town centres together with the distribution of the city elites around the centres of government are also among the current topics of architectural and urban history. Research results will be disseminated through a website, papers in scholarly journals and books, a web-based exhibition, and an international conference on medieval administrative palaces in the Adriatic area and on the Venetian Terraferma.
