Platy limestone
as cultural heritage

The pre-project body of knowledge in terms of written sources, scientific literature and reports points to interest in stone-built architectures as inspired by different disciplines, mostly ethnographic studies or those related to architectural typology.

The first descriptions of karstic rural houses on Kras/Carso date back to the 16^th century; some time later we have the comprehensive work of Janez Vajkard Valvasor. Scientific/expert interest in stone building typologies began in the last decades of the 19^th and the first half of the 20^th century, with Gustavo Bancalari and Matija and Jovan Cvijić, with brief descriptions of typical type dwellings referred to as "carsicomediterranea", two-storey houses present in Dalmatia, Istria and the Karst. For the northern part of Kras/Carso and its surroundings like the Istrian peninsula, one of the first notable works on the “primitive” Istrian house by Raffaello Battaglia and Gustavo Cumin established a classification of house types, were they mention of a type of house with a roof made of stone plates and other houses of the "Slavic-Alpine" type (see Supplement 3.I, Annex 3.I.4).

In the process of post-World War II reconstruction a few authors suggested the maintenance or reconstruction of stone farm homesteads, like Marjan Mušič, Rado Kregar, Mirko Miličić, and Aleksandar Freudenreich, where the authors tried to define various urban spaces in terms of vernacular stone house types. In the last decades of the 20^th century and into the early 21^st century the question of stone houses in Istria and Kras/Carso is treated by a number of authors like Alfonso Mottola and Lucia Ruzzier; and Luciano Semerani, with co-authors Antonio Guacci, Josip Miličević Luciano Lago and Borut Juvanec studied little small stone shepherd's shelters with roof of platy limestone. Some monographs on the vernacular house architecture of Kras/Carso, together with some other monograph works, were produced by Stanislav Renčelj and Ljubo Lah. Public interest in maintenance is collected in manuals on the karstic stone house and its revitalization; and a series of manuals was also published on the maintenance of walls and dry walls in the karstic area (see Supplement 3.I, Annex 3.I.4).

One of the most recent important overviews on Croatian traditional architecture in a larger context was written by Zdravko Živković, to which we must add the studies of Branko Crković, along with some manuals that were published on the practical maintenance and reconstruction of stone buildings.

The hinterland of the Adriatic, which in the scope of our project is covered by the area of Herzegovina, saw some ethnographic studies on stone buildings by Astrid Bugarski. More recently, there has been a huge production of professional literature, largely in the frame of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments in Sarajevo, and particularly well presented in the monography of Amra Hadžimuhamedović (see Supplement 3.I, Annex 3.I.4), on the renovation, conservation, reconstruction and maintenance of traditional stone buildings in Herzegovina.

Investigations of quarries were, in the past, dedicated largely to the Roman period, especially for the region of Dalmatia

Investigations of quarries were, in the past, dedicated largely to the Roman period, especially for the region of Dalmatia. Rajka Makjanić and Marin Zaninović provided an overview, while other authors investigated specific Roman quarries. In this chapter must point to an analysis by Ante Šonje, who uses the example of the famous dome of the Theodoric mausoleum to demonstrate how successful Istrian quarrying activity was and how skilled the stonemasons that provided and elaborated quality stone for important structures and monuments were.

Marin Zaninović and Nikola Džaja devoted specific attention to the processing of stone with traditional stonemason’s tools and using ancient techniques. Ivan Pažanin noted the important work of stonemason work by the inhabitants of various villages in the Trogir area.

As regards the numerous quarries in Kras/Carso we must mention the excellent work of Božidar Premrl, who made in-depth elaborations of individual churches and stonemason families (Fig. 3.8), as well as the first detailed list of local platy limestone quarries; and the professional documentation of quarries by Bogdan Jurkovšek who, together with his co-workers, published the monograph Geologija Krasa/Geology of Kras (see Annex 3.1).

The entire project area, geographically incorporated in the Dinaridi massive behind the eastern Adriatic coast, is a good example of the karst geological configuration. Due to the specific latitude and climatic influences the project area exhibits various different stages of erosion, widely perceived from the northwest to the southeast of the Adriatic coast and varies according to the various influences of the sea, wind, sun and quality of the stone massive. In the north of Adriatic, in the Kras/Carso and in Istria we can speak of a landscape with rich vegetation; and in Dalmatia, Herzegovina and the islands we find a relatively naked and very dry landscape with a scarcely sufficient layer of earth cover owing to the particularly dry climate there.

In the traditional architecture across the entire project area we find stone as the largely singular building material. During the of 17^th and 18^th centuries the churches, monasteries and most of the homesteads, together with auxiliary objects, were all covered with thin plates of platy limestone, which from afar lends a largely singular, uniform look to the architecture (Fig. 3.3).

Specific peculiarities are to be found in historical urbanization and in the past approaches to the built objects and areas, where we must be certain to distinguish the towns and villages of old medieval times from the highly similar fortified traditions and from the villages and homesteads that populate the countryside. The urban centres (towns and even small villages) reveal a generally closely-clustered type of settlement with a particularly strict use of space from house to house, with very narrow streets.

In the countryside we witness a type of homestead in northern Kras/Carso built in groups and comprising little villages. The homesteads are formed in a semi-circular line of objects with various specific functions, as a unique object/homestead with a courtyard enclosed by a high wall on one side. In Istria, Dalmatia and Herzegovina farmers’ homesteads are spread throughout the countryside; when concentrated in smaller areas however, the village forms are different from those in the north (see Appendices 3.I with regional reports).

We can also trace major differences in the architectures of Herzegovina, where we can follow certain influences on the way of life that correspond to the sacral and vernacular architectures of historical periods marked most often by Ottoman influences. Buildings like mosques, bridges and fortifications, as well as town houses and rural homesteads are all marked through the centuries by the Ottoman way of life and their building art. We can see this in the vernacular architecture in the rectangular form of the houses, with roofs that have four slopes and are covered with large and heavy limestone plates taken from nearby (see Supplement 3.I).

In terms of the administrative component the project area spans the long period in which stone houses with platy limestone roofs were constructed by Italians, Slovenes and Croatians. As a result the technical terms for the building parts, work in quarries and even stonemasonry itself, are in three main languages (Supplement 3.I, Annex 3.I.1). And despite the great geographical span of the project area we come across similar terms, particularly between the Slovenian and Croatian terms, and we find in some terms those expressions that were adopted by the German language from Austrian craftsmen or by the Italian language from populations that lived in coastal towns.