St. Triphon’s Cathedral Kotor

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St. Triphon’s Cathedral

Kotor

St. Triphon’s Cathedral is the most significant monument from medieval Kotor.

The cathedral was under construction for decades. It was finally completed and consecrated in 1166, of which a written testimony is preserved. It was built on the old cultural place, in which in 809 a small Romanesque church was built dedicated to the same saint. The foundations of the original church had the shape of a cross with three leaning apsids and the dome above the central part. Its patron was an inhabitant of Kotor - Andrea Saracenis, which is confirmed by the sarcophagus with his name.

It is three-nave Basilica, extensively restored several times, especially after the 1667 earthquake when the bell towers and a part of the façade were destroyed. After the earthquake, new bell towers were made in the Baroque style. The rosettes windows on the façade are those which attract the special attention. Once they were Romanesque but today they are with Gothic-Renaissance motives.

St. Tryphon’s Cathedral has in its possession a rich collection of art paintings preserving the works of Marin Lovra Dobricevic, Tripo Kokolj, Paolo Veroveza, Hieronim Santa Croce and other great artists. The church has a rich collection of gold and silver relics, the works of local masters from the period from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The interior of the Cathedral is depicted with frescoes done by Greek masters - pictores greci.

The most important part of the interior decoration of the Cathedral is the Romanesque Gothic ciborium from the fourteenth century above the main altar. On the wall of the apse there is the Golden Altarpiece with figures of Christ, the Virgin, St. John the Baptist and St. Tryphon and sixteen other saints. It is the masterpiece of Kotor goldsmiths’ work of the first half of the fifteenth century.