Типология на капителите в митрополитския храм „Св. първоапостоли Петър и Павел“ при Велико Търново
Typology of the Capitals of the Metropolitan Church of “SS Peter and Paul” at Veliko Tyrnovo

Summary/Abstract: The column (base, shaft and capital) in its functional wholeness as a decorative and supporting element has been a subject of special attention in Christian exegesis and canon. Columns have been assigned an important semiotic role by the biblical texts, which the master builders of the new Christian capital city, Constantinople would materialize in the church buildings, buildings that had not been just places of worship but rather the topos where the earth meets the netherworld: a temple is a gateway of a kind to knowledge of the unknowable. Hence, Byzantine οἰκοδόμοι (builders/architects) would design columns as a materialized idea of the Tree of Life. Column would become that pillar on which the entire universes rested, the pillar that ensured the vertical elevation of the earthly home to God. The metropolitan Church of “SS Peter and Paul” in Veliko Tyrnovo has been subject to consideration in a number of publications, but still there is no a thorough study of its six capitals, which have been incorporated in its interior. This paper is the first to define each of the capitals in terns of its type referring to a particular typological framework. Replicas of some of the capitals have been found across Bulgarian lands with two capitals from the first two capital cities of Bulgaria, Pliska and Preslav among those.

• Details
• Contents