SITES IN PULA
Along with the Euphrasian basilica in Poreč, the St Mary Formosa basilica is the most significant monument of sacral art in Croatia from the era of the Justinian reconquest. Justinian's protégé Maximianus, Bishop of Ravenna (546–556 CE), a native of today's Veštar near Rovinj, was a pivotal figure of imperial policy in the northern Adriatic. After Maximianus completed magnificent structures in Ravenna (the San Vitale and Sant'Apollinare in Classe basilicas), he built the St Mary basilica in the southern part of Pula's ancient core.
It was a splendid basilica with a nave and side aisles (19 by 32 m), a pair of sacristies (circular plan), and a pair of mausoleums (Greek cross plan), featuring typical Paleo-Byzantine polygonal apses at the rear and horseshoe arched doors at the façade and the side walls. The arrangement of columns and arches inside the church was mirrored on the outside faces of the external walls by the alignment of windows and pilaster strips terminating in blind arches, creating a vibrancy of shadows on the outside wall faces and a mystical ambiance of light contrasts. The floors of the basilica's naves and sacristies were adorned with polychrome floor mosaics featuring stylised floral and geometric motifs, akin to the mosaics of the Justinian era in churches in Ravenna and North Africa. A fragment of a mosaic depicting a pair of marsh birds with a basket of fruit was found in the southern intercolumniation. A fragment of a wall mosaic depicting Christ and St Peter originates from the apse of the southern mausoleum.
The basilica was a symbol of the estate held by the Ravennate church (the Sant'Apollinare fief) in the Pula diocese, for which we have records dating up to the 12th century. Richly decorated with marble and mosaic, it was called formosa ("beautiful"), but due neglect and marshy conditions in the medieval period saw it later termed del Canneto ("of the reeds"). It saw particularly heavy damage when the Venetians burned Pula in 1242. It is likely that the architect J. Sansovino stripped it of its marble columns in 1547 for use in his buildings in Venice. Some accounts indicate that the alabaster columns of the ciborium of St Mark's Basilica in Venice may also have come from Pula's basilica. What now survives are remains of the basilica's foundations, the southern mausoleum up to the roof level, and a part of the north wall, behind which there was a Benedictine monastery. Recent archaeological investigation and conservation intervention has clearly identified the architectural contours of this basilica with its nave and side aisles.
