The Franciscan Church of the Annunciation ( or commonly ''frančiškanska cerkev''; officially ''Cerkev Marijinega oznanjenja'') is a

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

located on Prešeren Square in

Ljubljana {{Infobox settlement , name = Ljubljana , official_name = , settlement_type = Capital city , image_skyline = {{multiple image , border = infobox , perrow = 1/2/2/1 , total_widt ...

, the capital of

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

. It is the parish church of Ljubljana - Annunciation Parish. It was built on a site where two or possibly three churches stood earlier between 1646 and 1660 (the

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

s following around 1720) under the management of Francesco Olivieri and Francesco Rosina, and its exterior was redesigned in 1858 according to plans by . The frescoes in the interior were added in the mid-19th century by and on the ceiling by Matej Sternen in the first half of the 20th century, whereas the main altar was mostly made by the Baroque sculptor Francesco Robba (1736). The red or pink colour of the church is symbolic of the Franciscan monastic order. Since 2008, the church has been protected as a cultural monument of national significance of Slovenia.

Interior

The early-

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

layout takes the form of a

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

with one

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 two rows of side-

chapel A chapel (from , a diminutive of ''cappa'', meaning "little cape") is a Christianity, Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their o ...

s. The Baroque main

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of worship. They are use ...

was executed by the sculptor Francesco Robba. Frescos in the interior were mostly painted by Matevž Langus in 1845 and 1848–55; two of them were contributed by ) in 1882. Many of the original

fresco Fresco ( 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 plaster, the painting become ...

es were ruined by the cracks in the ceiling caused by the Ljubljana earthquake in 1895. New ceiling frescoes were painted in 1935–1936 in the

'' trompe-l'œil'' manner by the Slovene otherwise

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

painter Matej Sternen.

Façade

The front facade of the church was built in the Baroque style in 1703–1706 and completely redesigned in 1858 according to the plans of the Austrian painter . Its red colour replaced the earlier classical white, a Goldenstein's fresco of four

Church Fathers The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical peri ...

was added above the entrance (in 1882, it was replaced by a fresco by ), and a statue of Our Lady of Loretto, i.e. Madonna with Child, was added at the top of the facade. The statue, which replaced an older wooden statue of a

Black Madonna The term ''Black Madonna'' or ''Black Virgin'' tends to refer to statues or paintings in Western Christendom of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, where both figures are depicted with dark skin. The Jungian scholar, San Begg publ ...

, was made of beaten

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

by Matej Schreiner upon a plan drawn by Goldenstein. The facade has two parts, featuring

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s with the Ionic capitals in the lower part and pilasters with

Corinthian capital The Corinthian order (, ''Korinthiakós rythmós''; ) is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order, which was the earliest, ...

s in the upper part. The sides of the upper part are decorated with

volute A volute is a spiral, scroll-like ornament that forms the basis of the Ionic order, found in the capital of the Ionic column. It was later incorporated into Corinthian order and Composite column capitals. Four are normally to be found on an ...

s. The faces and the hands were modelled by . The facade also has three niches with sculptures of God the Father above the main stone portal, and an angel and the Virgin Mary in the side niches, work by the Baroque sculptor Paolo Callalo. There is a stone entrance staircase in front of the church. The wooden door with reliefs of women's heads dates to the 19th century. In the 20th century, the facade was renovated twice, in 1961 and 1992–93.

Monastery

Next to the church, squeezed next to Prešeren Square between Čop Street, and Miklosich Street, there is a Franciscan monastery dating from the 13th century. It features the richest monastic library in Slovenia, which contains over 70,000 books, including many

incunable An incunable or incunabulum (: incunables or incunabula, respectively) is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. The specific date is essentially arbitrary, but the ...

s and medieval

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

s. Founded in 1233, the monastery was initially located at Vodnik Square, moving to the present location during the Josephine reforms of the late 18th century.

References

External links

* {{Coord, 46, 3, 6.62, N, 14, 30, 21.61, E, type:landmark_region:SI, display=title Roman Catholic churches in Ljubljana

Annunciation The Annunciation (; ; also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord; ) is, according to the Gospel of Luke, the announcement made by the archangel Gabriel to Ma ...

Roman Catholic churches completed in 1660 17th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Slovenia Baroque church buildings in Slovenia Cultural monuments of Slovenia 1660 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire