The Profanation of Diocletian’s Grave According to Ammianus Marcellinus (XVI, VIII, 3-7)

U članku se analiziraju povijesne okolnosti bizarne priče Amijana Marcelina, čiji su se navodi uzimali samo kao dokaz da je Dioklecijan oktogonalni hram usred splitske građevine podigao kao mjesto svog trajnog počivališta i da je u njemu stvarno i pokopan. Amijan nam je, zapravo, opisao prvi sudski proces koji se 356. godine vodio u »Aspalatu«, koji je u to doba bio još uvijek neobična kombinacija imperijalne palače i državne tekstilne tvornice, te nam je dao izravan uvid u proces profanacije Dioklecijanovih uspomena u njegovoj palači i početke njene kristijanizacije.The article analyses the historical circumstances behind the story of Ammianus Marcellinus (XVI, VIII, 3-7), according to which a certain woman, in the year 356, during the reign of Constantius II, made a report to Rufinus, the chief steward of the praetorian prefecture of Illyricum, accusing her husband Danus and »a gang of plotters« of the theft of the purple robe (uelamen purpureum) from the sarcophagus of the emperor in his mausoleum in Split, of the crime, then, of lèse-majesté, of the most serious affront to the imperial majesty. In the subsequent inquiry, it later turned out that Rufinus had persuaded this woman by a tissue of lies to charge her guiltless husband. Always only in a passing comment, the story is taken as a proof that Diocletian built his octagonal temple as a place for his eternal resting place and that he was in fact entombed there. Ammianus, with his acute and impassioned evaluations of contemporary real politics and characters, described the trial that was conducted in the city, at that time still an uncommon combination of imperial palace and factory for army textiles (Gynaeceum Iovense Dalmatiae – Aspalatho as the place is called, in entirely official terms, in Notitia Dignitatum at the beginning of the 5th century). The Split episode is mentioned as the first in a series of proofs that Constantius II exceeded the severity of Caligula, Domitian and Commodus in the processes of interrogating accused persons who were in any way suspected of having threatened his rule or the attributes of his dignity. The many people put to torture during the investigation must have been working people and officials in Diocletian’s gynaeceum. The investigation was conducted, highly logically, by Ursulus, count of the largesses, that is, the head of the sacred state treasury, under whose direct jurisdiction the gynaeceum Io-vense in Aspalathos lay, and by Lollianus Mavortius – praefectus praetorio per Illyricum, known to us as the dedicatee of an important book about astrology by the Late Antique writer Julius Firmicius Maternus, lavishing on him numerous encomiums. It is worth pointing out at once that appointment of Lollianus Mavortius to the position of examining magistrate in the Split case was very logic, not only because he, like count Ursulus, belonged to the imperial consistory, but because at that time justice in the appeal court was carried out by the praetorian prefect, as it was on occasions in the court of first instance. Ursulus was appointed Mavortius’ collaborator; in fact, he is the central character in the whole story, one of the exceptionally rare positive characters in the world of Ammianus. He was count of the sacred largesses. A number of special financial bodies were underneath him: in Illyria, for example Rationalis summarum Pannoniae secundae, Dalmatiae et Saviae, as well as comes largitionum per Illyricum. (Not. dig., 188), in rank almost equal to the governor. Dependent on the counts largitionum per Illyricum were the prepositi (for example, Prepositus thesaurorum Salonitanorum), managers of the state workshops, procurators, of which there was a fair number in Illyria (for example, Procurator monetae Siscianae) and also the Comes metallorum per Illyricum (who controlled the gold mines in the interior). In Salona there was also a separate gynaecium, certainly connected with that in Aspalato; also there was a separate workshop for dyeing silk and wool with scarlet – bafium, as well as a weapons factory – fabrica Salonitana armorum, where helmets, gauntlets, breastplates and so on were produced, under the direct control of the magister officiorum. The real investigation into the theft of the purple from Diocletian’s tomb carried out precisely by the comes sacrararum largitionum; this shows, it should be underlined, not so much the emperor’s wish to get things into the open by a really righteous and strict person, as Ammianus would have it, rather the fact that the crime happened in the premises that were under the direct jurisdiction of the highest financial officer of the empire. The procedure was not conducted by anyone from the level of the provincial politburo, not by any of the officers in Salona, which at that time was the head of the diocese of western Illyria, the prefecture of Italia (composed of seven provinces). Ursulus’ authority in the case of this enquiry is thus extremely significant. The comes sacrarum largitionum directly oversaw the work of the gynaecea, like that called after Jupiter in Asapalto. Rufinus is a particularly picturesque character. He was princeps clarissimus, in the highest rank of state officials (agentes ducenarii), from whom the heads of the officia of the prefects and the most important civil governors for West and East were chosen, or for the military in the East. Via these principes, the court was able to keep a close eye on the working of the provincial governors, that is, they had official spies (if we can really say that). We recognise Rufinus from a second Ammianus story (XV, III, 7-11). Danus is usually considered to have been a slave, according to an actually rather arbitrary repair by Heraeus of a lacuna of some 11 to 14 letters in the firstsentence [Per id tempus fer………..num quendam nomine Danum → Per id tempus fere servum quendam nomine Danum]. But Pighi fills this same lacuna by venturing that Danus might have been some official – a palatinus or praefectianus (in his supplement: palatinum vel praefactianum), which does seem a more logical solution. He might, then, have had some official standing in Aspalathos, and Ammianus’ story could well be an indirect confirmation of the operations of the gynaeceum in Aspalathos. This new approach, in which we are no longer dealing with a slave, as has been commonly thought, but, probably, with one of the officials in the management of the imperial textile factory in Split, elegantly explains the apparent contradiction of the affair between Rufinus and Danus’ wife. We have no knowledge of how the cunning Rufinus became acquainted with this thoughtless woman. Perhaps he met her during an investigation into the theft in the Split mausoleum, which without any doubt really did happen. He seduced her (post nefandum concubitum) with fine words and promises (ut loquebatur iactantius). Ammianus’ account might have been a significant proof of the beginnings of Christianity’s squaring of accounts with the reliquaries of paganism within the Palace. It was in that same year, 356, that by the edict of Constantius all the pagan temples in Rome and elsewhere in major centres (which would have included Split, which was under direct imperial control) were closed down. This could well have emboldened the Split conspirators to take steps in squaring accounts with the irritating presence of the mortal remains of the emperor-persecutor in the midst of the Split palace-factory, which at that time was already certainly in the process of Christianisation. The sentences that Ammianus might have based on a direct inspection of the dossier of the Roman prefecture certainly demand to be analysed in detail and, as far as is possible, supplemented. The short Split story penned in 15 sentences of Ammianus’s masterly hand, in refined literary expression, sets forth a poignant sample of the harsh texture of life in later antiquity. It is also an important historical source, in the context of the great paucity of written sources about the life of the Palace in the century in which it was built, and provides us with some of the names of its first visitors after the death of Diocletian

NIKOLA BOŽIDAREVIĆ

Autor pokazuje kako se stil Božidarevićeva slikarstva može analizirati kao reprezentativna građa za povijest dubrovačkog društva1500-tih godina, premda se Nikola ustezao od prodornijeg promatranja svog unutarnjeg svijeta i onog vanjskog koji ga je okruživao, dočim se moglo očekivati (obzirom na njegov temperament i budući da je radio po narudžbi kapetana i trgovaca globe-trottera) da mu slike budu proviđene s više detalja onodobne vidljive stvarnosti.He signed himself in brush strokes only twice as: Nicolaus Rhagusinus, Nicolo Raguseo- Nikola of Dubrovnik - once in a marble medallion under the arm of Gabriel in the middle of the Annunciation, which he painted in 1513 forthe Đorđić family, the second time at the foot of the Virgin\u27s throne on the main altar retable in the Church of Our Lady of Dance, his last work (1517). This name, until the archival discovery of his Croatian family name, fired the imagination of those researching Dubrovnik Renaissance art and even became a kind of myth. To call himself Rhagusinus in the middle of Dubrovnik undoubtedly meant a self-confident declaration vis a vis his artistic contemporaries- especially Mihajlo Hamzić and Vicko, the son of Lovro Dobričević,and even perhaps in relation to his own father whose workshop he had just left. When we stand today in front of polyptychs of this kind (which, when preserved in full, amaze us by the perfect balance of their general composition) we rarely think that they were created as bricolage. Immediately after Nikola\u27s return from Italy he, and his father Božidar Vlatković received several very large orders. In 1495 they were given a contract for the retable of the main altar of the Franciscan church in Cavtat. The church authorities required that the central composition and figures on the left side should be composed according to the pattern of a polyptych executed almost half a century earlier by Matko Junčić in the church of the Minorite Friars in Dubrovnik, while figures on the right side were to be done according to the pattern of another altar in the same church. The saints in the upper part of the polyptych, shown down to the waist, were to be done after Junčić also, and only the central Pieta according to an earlier painting by Božidarević. The same is true of their style. Experts have very easily "reduced" Božidarević\u27s work into the style and themes found in the Crivelli brothers and Vittore Carpaccio. But Božidarević obviously also knew the fresco paintings of Perugino and Pinturichio in the Vatican palace (Appartamento Borgia)and elsewhere in Rome where his brush may, according to Vladimir Marković, have indeed been involved. The form of a polyptych (like the form of a sonnet) helps in the construction of a figural composition, in a rationally and symmetrically balanced composition. It equalizes lighting, concentrates sight and attention: even when its constructional elements are removed, which make the composition of a polyptych, it continues to make an invisible effect for a long time. By 1500 the form of the polyptych which the "Dubrovnik School of Painting" retained until the end had become a Procrustean bed. It did not allow figures to be shown in a natural context, to be enlivened by being shown with real appurtenances, nor for any relaxation of stiff postures, or any easier breathing. Thus in Božidarević\u27s paintings the representation of real life and the movement of the real world is only found in miniatures, on the borders of polypthychs, in "footnotes" on individual articles or when we study details "microscopically". In fact it is drapery which is the most convincing and arresting and almost tactile element of Božidarević\u27s painting. Just as we perceive the bustle of the harbour on the model of Dubrovnik held by St Blasius so too he was fully aware of the richness of the materials which were produced at this time in Dubrovnik. Cloth was as important as salt for the trade of Dubrovnik and was a very tangible asset in the consciousness of the city. It may be paradoxical but it is accurate to say that Božidarević did not paint portraits (using patterns of characters) but portrayed materials in which his saints were clothed. It is of significance in this context that the most outstanding assistant in his workshop for which in 1507 he rented a whole floor in one of the mansions on Placa, suitable because of its good light - was Marin Kriješić who is recorded in one of the archives as "pictor sive coltrarius", painter of pictures, curtains, covers and cloth. When we consider Božidarević\u27s landscapes we also notice a paradox. The endless journeys of the Dubrovnikians, constantly involving the sea, did not give rise to the desire to extend the picture to include real landscape even in those ordered by ship\u27s captains, merchants, or globe-trotters. But it would have been unrealistic to expect Nikola Božidarević to show the Annunciation in Kolendić\u27s Lopud landscape. Instead he presents the stereotyped picture of the humanists\u27 idea of Arcadia but omitting Bellini\u27s ploughmen and donkeys. This is no bucolic Virgilian landscape as created in the circle surrounding Giorgione - no mundane Utopia in which we might like to live. Behind Gabriel the landscape is wild and rough, behind Our Lady it is cultivated, these are more symbolic, antithetical rather than any true mise-en scene. When we first come to Božidarević\u27s paintings we may be surprised by the fact that in spite of the very real situation within which they developed, there is a lack of any penetrating observation of either inner or outer worlds. Where details appear they largely represent a sanctified aspect of reality: spiritualiasub metaphoris corporalium, as Thomas Aquinus would say. The political, diplomatic, commercial realism of the people of Dubrovnik was, surprisingly enough, very late reflected in an art which served symbolic ends. Considered from this angle the architectural presentation of the city has something in common with butterflies which have great black eyes on their wings in order to make an impression on their surroundings and themselves. Thus in Božidarević and his predecessors we shall find no dark allegory, as measured by today\u27s art critics, but a clear and balanced representation of the Bible message. These polyptychs provide a view of many kinds of fear (of heaven, of the sea, of plague, of Turks of all kinds, of oneself), and also of much hope. The four paintings by Božidarević which have come down to us are typologically different. This only shows us how impoverished we are not to have his entire opus. All four of Božidarević\u27 surviving paintings were private votive offerings. Their subject must therefore be read according to the wishes of the person who ordered them. It is often considered, taking into account their formal superioriy that the Sacra conversazione of the Đođic painting and the Annunciation done for Captain Marko Kolendić are the "measure" of Božidarević\u27s painting. If the former is his first example of a particularly popular Renaissance composition in Croatian art history, the second is his first independent central altar painting. Private orders in Dubrovnik of the time continued to demand the traditional religious, especially votive themes. But in the wider sphere new, more secular, opportunities presented themselves. A study by Vladimir Marković shows this programme to have arisen out of a combination between political intentions and the moral principles of the patrician oligarchy which coincided and were identified with the Renaissance view of Christian and especially with the classical Roman exempla. Božidarević was the contemporary of poets Džore Držić and ŠiškoMenčetić, of Mavro Vetranović. Marin Držić, the most successful writer of Dubrovnik\u27s "Golden Age" was born when Nikola was in prison for the ribald songs. But we cannot but feel that the painter\u27s temper remains hidden behind the porcelain surface and perfect outer symmetry of his compositions. The Dubrovnik context did not provide opportunities for the expression of strong passions. The demands for caution and order were unremitting. There might be considerable personal pride but there must never be bragging. It was not a setting for great philosophy or poetry, nor for tragedy, but for the natural sciences, economics and- along with them- comedies. Unfortunately Dubrovnik painting was fated to disappear almost unnoticed, with no fanfares or real apogee, to be drowned in the import of baroque art from the other side of the Adriatic. When we talk about Dubrovnik, the Renaissance is our first association, but the Renaissance in Croatian painting never managed fully to develop. Indeed Gothic was never fully relinquished but, rather, gradually disintegrated. Its place was taken by the counter Reformation, together with a whole packet of ready-made solutions, before the Renaissance had managed to achieve full definition. We cannot experience Nikola\u27s paintings as Renaissance building blocks cut out from the reality of their own day. We may rather consider them as tables bearing rich fabric. His saints, enveloped in brocade, standing before an azure sky, are sunk in timeless melancholy. They are depicted in an indeterminate context as they appeared to the eye of the painter - without any later addition of colour. They did not attain the position of an academic standard for the Dubrovnik painting of the period that followed. Božidarević went ad patraim paradisi the same time as Mihajlo Hamzić, son of the German immigrant Hans, a "bombardiere" from Cologne, and Vicko Lovrin, son of Dobričević. The sudden and complete change of generations coincided with a fundamental change in the taste of the rich commercial class when it began to turn to the artists of the Bellini and Titian circle. The colours of Božidarević\u27s painting are the most harmonious chords of Dubrovnik\u27s "Golden Age". Of the one hundred and fifty polyptychs registered at the time of Sormano\u27s apostolic visitation in 1573 less than one tenth remain. The Dubrovnik archives record seventeen works by Božidarević but only four have come down to us. In old cities such as Dubrovnik - colour, like everything else except stone, is recessive. What we have today is an idealized impression of what was once reality

The Rendić-Miočević Thesis Concerning the Contents of the Destroyed Central Motif of the Frieze in Diocletian’s Mausoleum

U nizu tekstova o ikonografiji i stilu friza u Dioklecijanovu mauzoleju studija Duje Rendića-Miočevića, premda se začudo ne citira često, ostaje temeljnom za razumijevanje sepulkralne tematike i promišljene simbolike njegove kompozicije. Autor u ovom prilogu pokazuje u čemu se sastojala inovativnost Rendić-Miočevićeve interpretacije. Uspoređuje je sa starijim i novijim pogledima na problem stila i sadržaja toga u mnogočemu jedinstvenoga friza, naznačujući pritom nekoliko problema koji još uvijek ostaju otvoreni.In a series of articles about the iconography and style of the frieze in Diocletian’s Mausoleum, the study of Duje Rendić-Miočević – although amazingly he is hardly ever quoted directly – is still fundamental to the understanding of the sepulchral themes and carefully considered symbols of the composition. Wherein lies the innovativeness of the Rendić-Miočević interpretation? In a number of arguments, he proved that indeed this is an »in essence unique funeral cortège dedicated to an emperor and his family«. The mandatory Erotes that run and play hide and seek, the garlands with theatrical masks, the laurel medallions with busts constitute the contents of the frieze, according to which, without any doubt, it is consistent with sepulchral themes, and in a discussion about the original purpose of the building, was always the most important proof that it was the imperial mausoleum. But Rendić-Miočević paid attention to a problem that nobody before had even raised, or if they did, had never attempted to come to the end of. He assumed then, that in the missing part of the frieze (destroyed by a new window being knocked through above the chancel of the cathedral), flanked by the portraits of Diocletian and Prisca, originally there should have been some supreme symbol of the divine emperor’s rule. He assumed that a depiction of eagle, symbol of Jupiter, might have been carved here, the deity being identified with the emperor himself – Jupiter’s son (Jovius). Consistently with this attractive hypothesis, the author produced a theoretical reconstruction of the original appearance of this part of the frieze in the shape of a triptych (with eagle as Jupiter between the imperial couple) that was supposed to represent the »announcement of the presumed, if not actually executed, apotheosis of the emperor who even during his lifetime was considered the son of Jupiter (Jovius)«. The question of whether this sepulchral frieze, like the Mausoleum itself, was created during Diocletian’s reign or after his abdication is still open to discussion; in addition, another dilemma appears, first raised by Rendić-Miočević. Was at least a part of this sculptural decoration produced and finished after his death? The coarseness of the sculptural working of these faces and, in general, the lack of details in the making of all the effigies, led S. McNally to assume that originally it had been intended to confide the finishing touch to plaster and colour, but during the recent cleaning, with a close look from the scaffolding, no trace of anything to confirm this hypothesis was found. It is still possible, however, that the whole unit of the frieze was unfinished in sculptural terms: various degrees of finish of the individual parts of the relief can be observed

The Rendić-Miočević Thesis Concerning the Contents of the Destroyed Central Motif of the Frieze in Diocletian’s Mausoleum

U nizu tekstova o ikonografiji i stilu friza u Dioklecijanovu mauzoleju studija Duje Rendića-Miočevića, premda se začudo ne citira često, ostaje temeljnom za razumijevanje sepulkralne tematike i promišljene simbolike njegove kompozicije. Autor u ovom prilogu pokazuje u čemu se sastojala inovativnost Rendić-Miočevićeve interpretacije. Uspoređuje je sa starijim i novijim pogledima na problem stila i sadržaja toga u mnogočemu jedinstvenoga friza, naznačujući pritom nekoliko problema koji još uvijek ostaju otvoreni.In a series of articles about the iconography and style of the frieze in Diocletian’s Mausoleum, the study of Duje Rendić-Miočević – although amazingly he is hardly ever quoted directly – is still fundamental to the understanding of the sepulchral themes and carefully considered symbols of the composition. Wherein lies the innovativeness of the Rendić-Miočević interpretation? In a number of arguments, he proved that indeed this is an »in essence unique funeral cortège dedicated to an emperor and his family«. The mandatory Erotes that run and play hide and seek, the garlands with theatrical masks, the laurel medallions with busts constitute the contents of the frieze, according to which, without any doubt, it is consistent with sepulchral themes, and in a discussion about the original purpose of the building, was always the most important proof that it was the imperial mausoleum. But Rendić-Miočević paid attention to a problem that nobody before had even raised, or if they did, had never attempted to come to the end of. He assumed then, that in the missing part of the frieze (destroyed by a new window being knocked through above the chancel of the cathedral), flanked by the portraits of Diocletian and Prisca, originally there should have been some supreme symbol of the divine emperor’s rule. He assumed that a depiction of eagle, symbol of Jupiter, might have been carved here, the deity being identified with the emperor himself – Jupiter’s son (Jovius). Consistently with this attractive hypothesis, the author produced a theoretical reconstruction of the original appearance of this part of the frieze in the shape of a triptych (with eagle as Jupiter between the imperial couple) that was supposed to represent the »announcement of the presumed, if not actually executed, apotheosis of the emperor who even during his lifetime was considered the son of Jupiter (Jovius)«. The question of whether this sepulchral frieze, like the Mausoleum itself, was created during Diocletian’s reign or after his abdication is still open to discussion; in addition, another dilemma appears, first raised by Rendić-Miočević. Was at least a part of this sculptural decoration produced and finished after his death? The coarseness of the sculptural working of these faces and, in general, the lack of details in the making of all the effigies, led S. McNally to assume that originally it had been intended to confide the finishing touch to plaster and colour, but during the recent cleaning, with a close look from the scaffolding, no trace of anything to confirm this hypothesis was found. It is still possible, however, that the whole unit of the frieze was unfinished in sculptural terms: various degrees of finish of the individual parts of the relief can be observed