Founder’s Model — Representation of a Maquette or the Church?  Cover Image

Ktitorski model — slika makete ili crkve?
Founder’s Model — Representation of a Maquette or the Church?

Author(s): Čedomila Marinković
Subject(s): Cultural history
Published by: Vizantološki institut SANU
Keywords: maquette; church; founder;

Summary/Abstract: The text deals with some terminological problems concerning the so-called founder’s model. Although it is commonly used to designate the depicted architecture in the hand of the church founder, the expression “founder’s (ktetor’s) model” is often confusing and misleading. The main question is whether the Byzantine architects used actual model/maquettes for constructing their churches and if so, could these models/ maquettes have been used for the architecture depicted in founders’ portraits? In other worlds is the representation in the donor’s hand the image of a built church or its maquette, produced as a project model? The different aspects of the problem we analysed — the legal, technical and symbolic functions of these representations support our assumption that the architectural design model/maquette did not serve as a specimen for representations of architecture on founder’s portraits. This specific type of architecture depicted was created after the building itself was completed.

  • Issue Year: 2007
  • Issue No: 44
  • Page Range: 145-155
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: English