Josip Belamarić: The Conversion of Diocletian's Mausoleum into the Cathedral of St. Domnius (Split, Croatia)

It is an irony of history that the mausoleum of the most ardent of Christian persecutors was transformed during the fifth century into a church and then in the mid-seventh into a cathedral dedicated to St Domnius, a bishop executed during the persecutions of AD 304. This lecture will re-assess the procedure and forms of its de-consecration and re-utilization. Through a reinterpretation of the extant buildings and from a reading of a series of unpublished documents, an attempt will be made to follow the metamorphosis of its interior from the Late Antique period until the early modern era.

Josip (Joško) Belamarić received his MA and PhD degrees from the University of Zagreb, where he studied Art History and Musicology. In 1979 he began working for the monument protection services in Split, and between 1991 and 2009 he served as the director of the Regional Office for Monument Protection. Since 2010 he has been the head of the newly established Cvito Fisković Center at the Institute of Art History in Split. He is also a professor at the Department of Art History, University of Split. He has published a number of books, studies and articles on the history of art, architecture and urbanism of early modern Dalmatia, and also edited number of exhibitions. He has directed conservation works in Dalmatia and held the offices of the president of the Croatian Association of Conservators. He was Robert Lehman Visiting Professor at the Villa I Tatti in Florence (2016) and the Research Scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles (2017–2018).