Early church of the middle Byzantine period and the relics of St. Tryphon in Kotor

Abstract

Based on data contained in Constantine Porphyrogenitus’s De Administrando Imperio, local written sources, and fragments with inscriptions, the article offers new insight about the original position of the relics of St. Tryphon, the patron saint of Kotor from the first decades of the 9th century. Also, the foundations of a church with a quincuncial (cross-in-square) plan, erected in the same period and discovered below the city’s cathedral, can be seen as an early and important example of the dispersion of this architectural type in lands that belonged to the Byzantine cultural sphere. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177015: Hrišćanska kultura na Balkanu u srednjem veku: Vizantijsko carstvo, Srbi i Bugari od IX do XV veka and Grant no. 177036: Srpska srednjovekovna umetnost i njen evropski kontekst]

Keywords

• middle Byzantine architecture
• Kotor
• quincuncial(cross-in-square) plan
• marble
• sarcophagi