Hum, Church of St Jerome
Century/year: Late 12th or early 13th century
Historical-cultural period: Romanesque period
The church of St Jerome is situated in the local cemetery, opposite the fortified town of Hum. It is a single-nave structure with a rectangular ground plan and an inscribed semicircular apse. The façade is articulated by a shallow projecting bell tower terminating in a bell gable with two bells. A porch (lopica) was added to the façade in the sixteenth century, its present form resulting from a reconstruction carried out in 1991.
Wall paintings dated to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century have been preserved on the north wall and the triumphal arch, while smaller fragments survive in the apse conch and on the south wall of the church. Two painted layers can be distinguished on the wall surfaces. The earlier, Romanesque layer comprises parts of a Christological cycle. On the north wall, scenes of the Passion of Christ are arranged in sequence, while the south wall originally contained scenes from the Life of Christ, of which only the Visitation can now be identified. In the velarium zone of the south wall, the scene of the Martyrdom of St Lawrence has been preserved. The Annunciation, located on the triumphal arch, stands out as the best-preserved scene of this painted layer. In the semicircular apse, only fragmentary remains of a painted decorative textile are visible. The dating of these paintings relies on a Glagolitic inscription from the early thirteenth century, as well as on iconographic and morphological features closely related to contemporary artistic currents in northeastern Italy, Austria, and southern Germany.
The later painted layer, preserved in the central section of the north wall, is conceived in the form of an altarpiece retable. Within a square frame terminated by a segmental arch, a Calvary scene with two crosses is depicted. At the centre of the composition, St Anthony supports the lifeless body of Christ wrapped in a shroud. Above the scene hovers the dove of the Holy Spirit, accompanied by two angels holding the Crown of Thorns, while on the right an angel in mourning is shown. This painting is associated with the master Anton of Padua, the author of a triptych that was once located in the church. Based on the inscription on the triptych, the wall painting is dated to around 1529.
The wall paintings were discovered by Branko Fučić in 1947, and their first comprehensive analysis was presented in his study “Hum – ciklus romaničko-bizantinskih zidnih slikarija,” published in 1963 in the journal Peristil.
Iconographic programme:
East wall: 1. – 2. Annunciation, South wall: 3. Visitation, North wall: 4. Crucifixion, 5. Wall painting of the later layer, 6. Deposition from the Cross, 7. Entombment, 8. Martyrdom of St Lawrence.
Scene locations
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