Moldavian vault

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The interior of the Church of the Annunciation in the Moldovița Monastery complex, 16th century, Vatra Moldoviței, Romania

The Moldavian vault[1] (Romanian: bolta moldovenească) is an architectural element of religious architecture used from the 15th to the 17th century in Moldavia.[2][3] It is an arched suspension system on pendentives.[4] It was mostly located above the naos or the main nave of the temple. The vault creates a transition from a square plane to a circular plane leading to a dome or tholobate tower. Consists of four diagonal arches over which pendentives transform square the circle. Four smaller segment arches in turn transform the circle into a square. Gradually they rise above the nave and crown the dome or tholobate tower.[5] The vault allows a significant reduction in the diameter and weight of the tholobate, the dome and the tower itself.[2][4][6][7][8]

History

The location of the Moldavian vault in the cross-section of the Church of St. Nicholas in the complex Probota Monastery, 16th century, Romania

In

Post-Byzantine period, especially from the Serbian Morava architectural school. However, the influences of Western architecture are also visible; many churches include Gothic and Renaissance elements.[9][10]

The Moldavian vault is based on a folded dome on pendentives used in Byzantine architecture. The arched suspension system on the pendentives creates a transition from a square plane to a circular plane leading to a dome or tholobate tower. The transformation of the Byzantine vault system to the Moldavian one resulted in the expansion of the interior space and a reduction in the diameter or weight of the tholobate tower.

According to some experts, the Moldavian vault has its origins in

Russian wooden architecture, where the structural elements are reduced in favour of the expansion of the interior space. According to other historians of art, there is also a parallel of the Moldavian vault with the complex muqarnas vault system in Moorish or Islamic architecture. A small number of experts consider the Moldavian vault to be a Gothic solution.[11][12]

Putna monastery
, 15th century, Romania

From the end of the 14th century, there were construction experiments in Moldavia that have lightened the weight from a tower with a small diameter. The columns were replaced by a corbel. This innovative solution first appears in the Old Church of the Moldovița Monastery. The technical solutions were probably optimized at the beginning of the 15th century. The Moldavian vault first appears during the reign of the Moldavian prince Stephen the Great in the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church in Pătrăuți from 1487.[11]

The reduction of the diameter of the tower was used to cover the space of the so-called blind

Voroneț from 1488 or in the St. Nicholas Church in Probota from 1530 and the Annunciation Church from 1532 in Vatra Moldoviței.[11][6]

In the 16th century, a newer variant was framed by arches. Sometimes it also appears in the form of overhanging ribs of the dome vault, which reduce the diameter of the dome itself. Such a solution can be seen, for example, in the

classicism. At the end of the 19th and middle of the 20th century, it was revived in historicist architecture, represented, for example, by the Cathedral of the Three Holy Hierarchs built between 1937 and 1940 in Timișoara.[14][15][16]

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ISBN 978-960-524-317-3
    .
  2. ^ a b Bonifaciu, Sebastian (1985). Romania, Tourist Guide. Editura Sport-Turism. pp. 46, 53, 333.
  3. ISBN 9780853346838
    .
  4. ^
    ISBN 9789004421370
    .
  5. ISBN 978-3-89794-459-6
    .
  6. ^ a b boltă In: Drăguț, Vasile (1976). Dicționar enciclopedic de artă medievală românească. Bucharest: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică. pp. 60–63.
  7. ^ Bolta moldovenesca In: "www.roarhitect.ro" (in Romanian). Retrieved 2021-07-01.
  8. ^ bolta moldoveneasca In: "Dicţionar de arta" (in Romanian). Retrieved 2021-07-01.
  9. ISSN 1857-0461
    . Retrieved 2021-07-11.
  10. hdl:11250/2622309
    . Retrieved 2021-07-11.
  11. ^ a b c Nesterov, pp. 111–113
  12. ^ Nesterov, pp. 114–118
  13. ^ mołdawskie sklepienie In: "Encyklopedia PWN" (in Polish). 2021-07-25.
  14. ISBN 978-1-4387-7538-8
    .
  15. ^ "Arhitectura din Moldova in secolele XIV-XIX" (in Romanian). 2021-07-25.
  16. ^ "Stilul moldovenesc" (in Romanian). 2021-07-25.

Further reading

External links

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