Mače (; german: Katzendorf''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 54.) is a small village in the

Municipality of Preddvor The Municipality of Preddvor (; sl, Občina Preddvor) is a municipality in Slovenia. The seat of the municipality is the town of Preddvor. The municipality was established on 3 October 1994, when the former larger Municipality of Kranj was subd ...

in the

Upper Carniola Upper Carniola ( sl, Gorenjska; it, Alta Carniola; german: Oberkrain) is a traditional region of Slovenia, the northern mountainous part of the larger Carniola region. The centre of the region is Kranj, while other urban centers include Jeseni ...

region of

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

Geography

Mače stands on a ridge between the valleys of Dry Creek ( sl, Suha) and Bistrica Creek. The territory of Mače includes an isolated patch of forest below Middle Peak ( sl, Srednji vrh, ) known as the Devil's Forest ( sl, Hudičev boršt).

History

During the Second World War, the Partisans abducted Rado Hribar and Ksenija Gorjup Hribar, the owners of

Strmol Castle Strmol Castle (german: Burg Stermol, sl, Grad Strmol) is a castle located at the foot of ''Dvorjanski hrib'' ("Mansion Hill") near the villages of Češnjevek, Grad and Dvorje, in the municipality of Cerklje na Gorenjskem, Slovenia. Named aft ...

in Dvorje, and murdered them at Mače. The bodies were found above Mače in 2015.

Church

The local church, built on a hill above the settlement, is dedicated to

Saint Nicholas Saint Nicholas of Myra, ; la, Sanctus Nicolaus (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greeks, Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor (; modern-da ...

. It was first mentioned in documents dating to 1156. The surviving church is a

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

building from the late 14th or early 15th century. The original

vaulted In architecture, a vault (French ''voûte'', from Italian ''volta'') is a self-supporting arched form, usually of stone or brick, serving to cover a space with a ceiling or roof. As in building an arch, a temporary support is needed while ring ...

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a saf ...

survives. The painted wooden ceiling of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

is from 1649 and was renovated in 1996.

Fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...

s on the north side of the nave depict the journey of the

Magi Magi (; singular magus ; from Latin ''magus'', cf. fa, مغ ) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word ''magi'' is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius th ...

and on the central arch the legend of

Saint Ursula Saint Ursula (Latin for 'little female bear', german: link=no, Heilige Ursula) is a legendary Romano-British Christian saint who died on 21 October 383. Her feast day in the pre-1970 General Roman Calendar is 21 October. There is little infor ...

. On the south wall

Saint Christopher Saint Christopher ( el, Ἅγιος Χριστόφορος, ''Ágios Christóphoros'') is veneration, venerated by several Christianity, Christian denominations as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd-century Roman Empire, Roman emperor Deciu ...

and the

Crucifixion of Jesus The crucifixion and death of Jesus occurred in 1st-century Judea, most likely in AD 30 or AD 33. It is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, attested to by other ancient sources, and consid ...

are shown, with the date 1467.Slovenian Tourist Board site
/ref>

References

External links

Mače on Geopedia
Populated places in the Municipality of Preddvor {{Preddvor-geo-stub