Cathedral of Saint James
UNESCO-listed cathedral built entirely of interlocking stone, with 71 carved heads outside.
Work on the cathedral began in 1431 and ran for more than a century, spanning the shift from Gothic to Renaissance taste. Juraj Dalmatinac took charge in 1441 and devised the technique for which the building is famous: the whole structure, walls, barrel vaults and dome alike, is assembled from precisely cut stone slabs and ribs locked together without brick, timber or mortar bonding. After his death in 1473 the Florentine sculptor Niccolo di Giovanni carried the design through to consecration in 1555.
The exterior frieze of seventy-one carved heads that wraps the apses is the best-known detail, a gallery of ordinary faces thought to portray citizens of fifteenth-century Sibenik. Inside, the baptistery beneath the south apse is a small vaulted chamber of extraordinary carving, and the sacristy is reached by a stair above the street. UNESCO added the cathedral to the World Heritage List in 2000, citing the structural system and the unusual continuity between its interior form and exterior silhouette.
Highlights
- Built without mortar bonding from interlocking cut stone, including the dome
- Frieze of 71 carved stone heads around the three apses
- Richly vaulted baptistery beneath the south apse
- UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000
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