Sibenik Local Customs

Sibenik's World Children's Festival is a unique festival - cultural and multimediatic - and completely dedicated to children and their entertainment/education. It's held in summer - in various locations throughout the city, and over a few days period. There's an interesting website about it, but it's in Croatian only, so I could not really find out a lot more about it.

These two little boys and one girl were so deeply involved in the happiness of tasting an ice cream in the entrance of the shop where they had bought it (they could not wait !) that several passer bys took their photo ! Aren't they the figure of pure joy ?

There are plenty of fine details on the buildings in the old core of the town. You can missed most of them if strolling in the main streets only.
This beautifuly designed window stands on the side facade of the church of St. Barbara.

Interior of the cathedral is divided laterally into the front part for the believers and the rear part where the presbytery, two open small galleries and sanctuaries are placed. The area for the believers is divided by Gothic arcades in three aisles.
The baptistry of the temple deserves a special attention. Juraj Dalmatinac placed it on the ground-floor of the south apse. This is a small roundroom with recesses which touch each other in the columns. The baptistry is full of sculptural ornaments among which the most representative is human figure.

Venetian Gothic builders of average capabilities, FrancescoGiacomo, Antonio Busato and Lorenzo Pincino, were angagged in building the cathedral in the first decades. The south and north walls, the down Gothic part of the facade and both church portals were built during that time.
In 1441, the Greater Sibenik Council invited and appointed Juraj Matejev Dalmatinac as the main builder of the cathedral, who was in Venice studying the art of painting.

After Juraj's death, the main builder of the Sibenik cathedral was Nikola Firentinac. Following the construction procedure of his predecessor Juraj, he continued the building in the style of pure Renaissance and built the upper parts of the temple: the dome with sculptures of St. Mihovil, Jakov and Martin around it, the roof complex and the upper part of the facade. N. Firentinac erected longitudinal galleries on the lateral naves and completed the presbytery and sanctuary.

The Sibenik cathedral is a three-aisled basilica with the dimensions 38x14 metres and with the highest elevation of 38 meters at the top of the dome. The back part of the church ends with three apses and a square sacristy which is put on the half a barrel like cassette ceiling leaning to the wall of the bishop's palace and on three columns, so that a passage space was created under it leading to the street as the communications between the square and the wharf.
Here on the picture you can see the main portal of the cathedral.

After Nikola Firentinac, the works lasted for another 30 years under the leadership of Venetian builders Bartol and Jakov from Mestre and the Zadar master Masticevic. Smaller works in the interior of the cathedral were done temporarily as far as 1555, when it was increased.
Here on the picture you can see the north portal (towards Trg Republike Hrvatske) of the cathedral.