An exhibition of priceless Franciscan heritage

To commemorate the 800th anniversary of the arrival of the Franciscans on the Croatian coast, the Klovićevi Dvori Gallery will feature a representative exhibition of the artistic heritage of the Franciscan province of St. Jerome. The exhibition, entitled “The Grace of Encounter” will remain open to the public until February 20th.

Until February 20th, the Klovićevi Dvori Gallery will feature an exhibition of the artistic heritage of the Franciscan province of St. Jerome. This is yet another representative exhibition with which the gallery will present the priceless artistic heritage of the Franciscan order to the general public.

The exhibition has been organized to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the arrival of the Franciscans on the Croatian coast, which will be marked in 2012. Since this event is known as “graceful”, the exhibition has been titled “The Grace of Encounter”, which refers to the establishment of the Franciscan order, 800 years ago, known as the “Grace of the Beginning” and celebrated in 2009.

The exhibition covers the artistic heritage related to the Franciscan province of St. Jerome, which stretched from Rovinj to Kotor in the Eastern Adriatic. It consists of seven themed parts that include around a hundred paintings, sculptures, icons, liturgical items and vestments, miniatures, codices, as well as important archival and other materials. The exhibition illustrates the cultural and artistic contribution of the Franciscan order to the national heritage, in which there are traces of influence from other European artistic opus, predominantly the Apennine peninsula. Apart from the oldest documents produced by Franciscans in the 13th century, illuminated manuscripts, incunabula, altar works and priceless crucifixes, the exhibition also features the masterpieces of painting and sculpture from the Renaissance and the Baroque periods. Among them are works by great Italian artists, such as: Antonio Vivarini, Lorenzo Lotto, Girolamo da Santa Croce, Bartolomeo Litterini, Leandro Bassano and many others; as well as some of the greatest Croatian works, such as those by: Blaž Jurjev Trogiranin, Dujam Vušković, Lovro Dobričević, Juraj Petrović, Ivan Duknović, Martin Benetović and Celestin Medović.