Locations
Church of St. Andrew in Betiga near Barbariga
The oldest part of the sacral complex of St. Andrew in Betiga is the early Christian trefoil memorial chapel with an altar tomb and an early Christian mosaic with a donor's inscription from the beginning of the 5th century. The preserved parts of the black and white floor mosaic in the side apses and around the altar depict geometric, cruciform, and stylized plant motifs.
In the next construction phase, the original trefoil memoria (which was articulated on the outer walls by lesenes) was incorporated into a three-aisled basilica of rectangular plan. The naves of the basilica were emphasized by seven pairs of columns with Corinthian capitals. In the central nave, a multicolored floor mosaic from the first half of the 5th century has been preserved. The larger mosaic field is framed by a ribbon with a series of heart-shaped motifs. The field is filled with quatrefoil medallions containing donor inscriptions or adorned with stylized plant and geometric motifs. The smaller mosaic field at the entrance part of the basilica is more modestly decorated, displaying series of concentric circles and a row of rhombuses in the framing ribbon.
At the end of the 8th or beginning of the 9th century, the early Christian church was transformed into a pre-Romanesque one through reconstruction. At the sanctuary, the side aisles were closed off with smaller semicircular apses. The original modest altar screen was replaced by new stone furnishings decorated with interlace reliefs. Parts of the pre-Romanesque altar screen (plutei, pilasters), altar ciborium, and ambo have been found. A baptistery with an apse (semicircular inside, polygonal outside) was adjoined to the south side of the church in the 7th century. A rectangular burial chapel with sarcophagi was later built next to the baptistery.
The basilica complex was eventually extended westward with the construction of a monastery. At the center of the elongated rectangular building was an atrium with a cistern and a probable colonnaded portico. From this common corridor with a portico, one entered a series of rectangular side rooms of the monastery. Numerous finds of ceramic vessels date life in the monastery from the second half of the 5th century until its probable abandonment in the 13th century.
