Saint Tryphon’s reliquary casket in Kotor. A contribution to the study of the iconography

Abstract

The paper analyses late Gothic and early Renaissance imagery on the reliquary casket of Saint Tryphon kept in the Kotor Cathedral. The iconography of the torture and death scenes of the young martyr Tryphon, as well the representation of the architecture on the model of the town of Kotor in the hand of Saint Tryphon opens up the possibility of interpreting this reliquary in a historical context. The paper proposes an interpretation of the iconography of the scenes on the reliquary casket as part of the constructed memory of the Ottoman siege of Kotor under the command of kapudan pacha Hayreddin Barbarossa (1539) and the Venetian defense of the town. A similar way of creating memories through juxtaposing images of Turks, members of the Holy League and Kotor’s devotees under the protection of Saint Tryphon has been recorded in poetry, chronicles, and epistles. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177003: Medieval heritage of the Balkans: institutions and culture]

Keywords

• kotor (cattaro)
• saint tryphon
• reliquary
• venetian republic
• hayreddin barbarossa
• gian matteo bembo