Sveti Tomaž (; german: Sankt Thomas
[''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 62.]) is a small settlement in the
Municipality of Škofja Loka
The Municipality of Škofja Loka (; sl, Občina Škofja Loka) is a municipality in the Upper Carniola region of Slovenia. The seat of the municipality is the town of Škofja Loka. The municipality was established in its current form on 3 October ...
in the
Upper Carniola 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 ...
.
Name
The name of the settlement was changed from ''Sveti Tomaž'' (literally, 'Saint Thomas') to ''Tomaž nad Praprotnim'' (literally, 'Thomas above Praprotno') in 1955. The name was changed on the basis of the 1948 Law on Names of Settlements and Designations of Squares, Streets, and Buildings as part of efforts by Slovenia's postwar communist government to remove religious elements from toponyms. The name ''Sveti Tomaž'' was restored in 2000. In the past the German name was ''Sankt Thomas''.
Church
The original church in the settlement, dedicated to
Saint Thomas, was a
Romanesque structure with a square
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 ...
and a rounded
apse
In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...
. The remains of this are still visible in the corner of the
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 ...
. The surviving sanctuary is mostly
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 ...
, dating to around 1500. The church was rebuilt a number of times, most extensively in 1848 when three layers of
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 were revealed, the oldest dating to the early 14th century, the second layer to around 1400, and the top layer to the early 16th century.
Škofja Loka municipal declaration of local churches as cultural monuments, 23 May 2007
References
External links
*
Sveti Tomaž on GeopediaGPS track
Populated places in the Municipality of Škofja Loka
{{ŠkofjaLoka-geo-stub