In Slovenia, the Baroque spans two centuries, the seventeenth and the eighteenth, while imposing itself with a delay of a few decades upon Italy and adopting regional specificities, between Pannonia and the Karst. But beyond its apogee, it continues with a rococo episode that ends around 1780, then with a post-Baroque period in the nineteenth century. It thus concerns a phenomenon with great extent in time.

a new design of space

According to Slovene specialists, Saint James church in Ljubljana, the first Jesuit church, introduced into this part of Europe a new reading of space resting on three equal naves and relay advance towards the central altar, "the place of purification". Inspired by the Florentine architecture of Alberti, the Roman church of Vignoli, that dedicated to Mary in Lodi close to Milan, the first models of the Slovene baroque are built: the old church of Augustans in the capital, the church of the Holy Trinity in Vrhnika, the church of the pilgrims in Nova Stifta or that dedicated to Saint Joseph close to Preserje.

But the baroque also very quickly relates to mural illusion thanks to the emigration of artists such as Almanach of Antwerp or H.A. Weissenkihrer of Graz, while castles and parks are made baroque or entirely refitted.

Parish church of St Mary.
Adergas Velesovo, Slovenia. Photo Damjan Gale

an academy

The founding of Academia operosorum in 1693 helps the development of the plans to make the Slovene capital baroque. The Operosi "had the initiative of a complete series of churches and public buildings whose models also spread to provincial towns." By order of intervention, the first authors are Italians, after whose arrival pupils are formed locally and guests from Austria settle. It is a Lombard Master, G. Quaglio, painter in Gorizia and Udine, who is entrusted to complete the painting of the cathedral in Ljubljana. "Its illusion is based on real architecture by adding segments that represent ascension. It crosses the borders of real space by linking the Earth to the beyond." One will not forget therefore the remarkable seminar from the capital and its superb baroque library.

Brezice castle, Slovenia. Photo Damjan Gale

the case of styrie

Visual arts in Styrie, oriented towards castles and parks, are very specific and bear the influence of Graz with a significant intervention of stucco work, which uses tender pinks. The most significant masterpiece is the castle of Dornava. A connection between the architecture of Styrie and Carniole is proposed in the cathedral of Gornji Grad. It is also in Styrie that entirely gilded wooden altars appear.

Since 1992, the Slovene Ministry of Culture has published a guidebook describing in detail the stages of a voyage in the heart of the baroque, a voyage that proposes for reading the major artistic transformations that this country knew, coming from Italy and Austria, on the same basis as its direct neighbours from Central and Eastern Europe.