Abstract
The churches we are studying with in this paper are built in a period that begins with the establishment of the two Romanian states, Walachia and Moldavia, i.e. the middle of the 14th century, and goes through the first century of their organization, consolidation and affirmation of their policy and culture. The period in question represents for the Romanian states, located in the area at the intersection of strong cultural interferences between the Byzantine Orthodox and Western Catholic world, the moment of creative assimilations that grafted on an old local tradition will open new perspectives on the evolution of church architecture in the following centuries. The study is divided into three parts. In the first two are presented the churches built in the two principalities and in the third part the information is synthesized and the conclusions of the analysis are formulated. In the presentation of each church we first considered the establishment of essential historical coordinates ...
The churches we are studying with in this paper are built in a period that begins with the establishment of the two Romanian states, Walachia and Moldavia, i.e. the middle of the 14th century, and goes through the first century of their organization, consolidation and affirmation of their policy and culture. The period in question represents for the Romanian states, located in the area at the intersection of strong cultural interferences between the Byzantine Orthodox and Western Catholic world, the moment of creative assimilations that grafted on an old local tradition will open new perspectives on the evolution of church architecture in the following centuries. The study is divided into three parts. In the first two are presented the churches built in the two principalities and in the third part the information is synthesized and the conclusions of the analysis are formulated. In the presentation of each church we first considered the establishment of essential historical coordinates for the monument: the determination, as accurately as possible, of the date of construction, the founders, the purpose of construction and the tracking of the impact of the passage of time on the building itself from the time of construction until now, with an emphasis on repairs, restorations, destruction and the existence of possible subsequent construction phases. From an architectural point of view, we first considered the description of the monument in which a distinction was made between the original appearance, established on the basis of documentary and archaeological evidence and the current appearance of the church. A second very important aspect of this analysis was the typological classification of each church, the identification of particular typological variants in the area and the researched period as well as the identification of possible typological precursors, either from the Romanian space or from the South Danube Byzantine environment and the relations with these monuments, which may have influenced the final appearance of the church in question. Next, the constructive aspects of each church were analyzed, identifying the types of walls, the technique used, the materials used, the morphology and the decorations of the buildings. At the end, the construction phases and their constructive characteristics were highlighted. The third part of the work represents a synthesis of all the architectural elements identified and highlighted in the first two parts. It was possible to establish a detailed typological classification of the Romanian churches compared to the typology of churches built in the South Danube Byzantine environment from the same period. Also the relations were established regarding the construction technique, the materials used and the decorations, between the Romanian churches and churches built during or immediately preceding them in the Byzantine space. This paper captures the first stages in the process of evolution of Romanian church architecture in the two states and wants to be an accurate and up-to-date radiography of the period we are discussing, an opportunity to coagulate and expose a maximum of details regarding these monuments, a perspective view of the place of these churches in the Balkan-Byzantine cultural space.
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