Founder’s model: Representation of a maquette or the church?

• Main Author: Marković Čedomila
• Format: Article
• Language: Bulgarian
• Published: Institute for Byzantine Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts 2007-01-01
• Series: Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta
• Online Access: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0584-9888/2007/0584-98880744145M.pdf

The text deals with some terminological problems concerning the so-called founder’s model. Although it is commonly used to designate the depicted architecture in the hand of the church founder, the expression 'founder’s (ktetor’s) model' is often confusing and misleading. The main question is whether the Byzantine architects used actual model/maquettes for constructing their churches and if so, could these models/ maquettes have been used for the architecture depicted in founders’ portraits? In other worlds is the representation in the donor’s hand the image of a built church or its maquette, produced as a project model? The different aspects of the problem we analyzed - the legal, technical and symbolic functions of these representations support our assumption that the architectural design model/maquette did not serve as a specimen for representations of architecture on founder’s portraits. This specific type of architecture depicted was created after the building itself was completed.