Robert Adam and Diocletian’s Palace in Split

nakladnik: Školska knjiga

Autori: Joško Belamarić, Iain Gordon Brown, Stephen Caffey, Amanda Green, Heather Hyde Minor, Angelo Lorenzi, Krasanka Majer Jurišić, Ivan Mirnik, John A. Pinto, Ante Rendić-Miočević, Frances Sands, Valery Shevchenko, Ana Šverko, Colin Thom, Isabelle Warin, Elke Katharina Wittich
Znanstveni urednici: Joško Belamarić, Ana Šverko

Kada je 1757. godine škotski arhitekt Robert Adam, na svom Grand Touru, došao iz Rima u Split istražiti kasnoantičku Dioklecijanovu palaču, očekivao je vidjeti velebnu rimsku vilu. Umjesto toga zatekao je neobičnu građevinu koja se u srednjem vijeku transformirala u grad. 

Istraživanje tog živog spomenika Adam je pretočio u originalnu arhitektonsku teoriju, u jednoj od najljepših knjiga 18. stoljeća, objavljenoj u Londonu 1764. godine. Lekcija koju je doživio u Splitu utjecala je i na njegove arhitektonske projekte te dijelom odredila i “Adam Style”, specifični klasicistički stil koji je ostvario znatan utjecaj na europsku i američku arhitekturu.

Grupa znanstvenika okupila se u Splitu o 250 obljetnici objave Adamove knjige. Iz njihova se razgovora razvio niz eseja posvećenih Robertu Adamu i Dioklecijanovoj palači, ilustriranih s više od 200 slikovnih prikaza iz brojnih svjetskih arhiva i muzeja, od Sir John Soane’s Muzeja u Londonu do Ermitaža u Petrogradu.

Ova nam knjiga pokazuje da se Dioklecijanova palača, jedna od najslojevitijih građevina uopće, u svojoj antičkoj osnovi nije mnogo promijenila od Adamova posjeta Splitu. No ona je i više od priče o Adamu i Dioklecijanovoj palači; ona je ujedno i vodič po njezinim prostorima i spomenicima unutar nje, svjedok njezinih mijena i trajnosti, što bez Adamova istraživanja ne bismo u dovoljnoj mjeri mogli niti razumjeti niti doživjeti.

Recenzent: Iain Gordon Brown.

Authors: Joško Belamarić, Iain Gordon Brown, Stephen Caffey, Amanda Green, Heather Hyde Minor, Angelo Lorenzi, Krasanka Majer Jurišić, Ivan Mirnik, John A. Pinto, Ante Rendić-Miočević, Frances Sands, Valery Shevchenko, Ana Šverko, Colin Thom, Isabelle Warin, Elke Katharina Wittich
Academic editors: Joško Belamarić, Ana Šverko

When, on his Grand Tour, the Scottish architect Robert Adam travelled from Rome to Split in 1757 to study Diocletian’s Palace, he expected to find a monumental Roman villa. Instead, he came across an exceptional late antique structure that, in the Middle Ages, had been transformed into a city. Adam turned his study of this monument into an original architectural theory, and, in London in 1764, it was published in one of the most beautiful books of the eighteenth century: Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia.

The lessons Adam grasped in Split also inspired his own architectural projects in England and Scotland, influencing, in part, the “Adam Style”, a specific neoclassical style that had a significant impact on European and American architecture. We find the imprint of Diocletian’s Palace as an architectural and urban design model everywhere in Adam’s projects, from the scale of the ornamentation (a famous example is his interpretation of the capital from Diocletian’s Peristyle) to the application of the specificities of its spatial construction.

In 2014, a group of scholars gathered in Split to mark the 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam’s book, and a series of essays developed out of their discussions. Their texts are illustrated with more than two hundred images, some of which are being published for the first time, from numerous archives and museums, from Sir John Soane’s Museum in London to the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

This book shows that the ancient stratum of Diocletian’s Palace, this extraordinary multi-layered urban fabric, has not changed notably since Adam’s visit to Split. Yet the book is more than just the story of Adam and Diocletian’s Palace; it is also a guide to the Palace’s spaces and monuments, and a witness to its changes and its continuity. All of these we would not have been able to understand, nor experience so well, without Adam’s tireless research.

Peer Reviewed by Iain Gordon Brown