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Encountered condition When a new large basilica was built in the 5th century, it developed into the existing sacred buildings. It is a three naved basilica with a rectangular ground plan without an apse; in the eastern part it has a semicircular wall for the priests’ stalls, and like other churches in Istria of the 5th century, it developed under the influence of the architecture of the eastern coast of the Adriatic and of the Near East. The local builders combined these influences with the inheritance from the Early Christian age and from Roman profane architecture. The walls were built of naturally broken stones roughly dressed which needed thick applications of stucco and were reinforced with lesenes. This was the basic inventory that Euphrasius would have encountered in the middle of the 6th century when he arrived in his new see. Below the central window in the apse of his basilica, dominated by the figures of the Madonna and Child flanked by Bishop Euphrasius, Archdeacon Claudius, the saint and martyr Maurus and others, there is a Latin inscription in which the bishop explains the reason for his great architectural enterprise. In translation it runs as follows: Here at first was a shaken and ruined temple in danger of falling down, and it was not strengthened by sure power, it was narrow and was not embellished with gold, and the dilapidated roof was held together only by grace. When the concerned priest Euphrasius, devoted to the faith, saw that his seat was in danger of collapsing under the burden with a holy intention he forestalled the ruination, and to make the ruined building more firm he demolished it, having lain the foundations he raised the summit of the temple. What in these days you see shines in gold (he) embellished, finishing what had been started, and gave it great gifts, calling on Christ’s name he marked the church, rejoicing in the work. This testimony of the bishop’s does not entirely correspond with the truth. The basilica that met Euphrasius on his arrival was not entirely ruinous or modestly decorated. Parts of its walls and main pillars served for the construction of the new church. As for mosaics, they were not completely wanting in the 5th century basilica. The reasons are more to be found in the taste of the new age and the centre from which Euphrasius came to Poreč. Milan Prelog, the great art historian without whose research and publications our history of the city of Poreč and of Euphrasius’s complex would be much poorer and far less clear, insists on the fact of the external, i.e., Byzantine, effect on local tradition as crucial in understanding Euphrasius’s initiative. For that reason the innovations that were carried out here, the aim of which was to link together the distant stretches of the Mediterranean, place the work of the great bishop of Poreč in a very important place in the history of art. The construction of the basilica, and above all the organisation of the interior space, the sculptural elements and the iconographic programme carried out in the wall mosaics together constitute an exceptionally important moment in the development of western art and the inclusionwithin it of impulses conceived in the eastern part of the disunited Roman Empire. One of these great innovative elements was the eastern part of Euphrasius’s basilica, which ends with three apses; the large one that is polygonally shaped from outside corresponds to the main nave, while the two side naves have their own apses in the form of semicircular scoopings out of the wall mass that is straight outside. This venture meant that for the first time in the West a three naved basilica closed by three apses, that is, with three visual and cult centres, and three separate altars, was formed into a single spatial whole.
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Zatečeno stanje Kada se u V. stoljeću gradi nova bazilika velikih dimenzija, ona urasta u postojeće sakralne objekte. To je trobrodna dvorana pravokutnog tlocrta bez apside koja u istočnome dijelu ima polukružni zidić za svećenička sjedala, a kao i druge istarske crkve V. st. i ona je nastala pod utjecajem arhitekture istočne obale Jadrana, kao i Bliskog istoka. Te su utjecaje lokalni graditelji uklapali u svoje nasljeđe iz starokršćanskog razdoblja i rimske profane arhitekture. Zidovi se izvode od pritesanih lomljenaca koji zahtijevaju debele namaze žbuke i pojačavaju se lezenama. Bio bi to osnovni inventar što ga dolaskom u svoju novu biskupiju sredinom VI. stoljeća zatječe Eufrazije. Ispod središnjeg prizora u apsidi njegove bazilike u kome dominira lik Bogorodice s Isusom, okružene biskupom Eufrazijem, arhiđakonom Klaudijem, mučenikom svetim Maurom i ostalima, stoji latinski natpis kojim biskup objašnjava razlog svog velikog graditeljskog poduhvata. U prijevodu on glasi: Ovo je isprva bio uzdrhtao i ruševan hram u opasnosti da se sruši i nije bio učvršćen sigurnom snagom, tijesan i nije bio urešen zlatom, a trošan krov držao se samo milošću. Kada je brižljiv i vjeri odan svećenik Eufrazije vidio da mu sjedištu prijeti opasnost da se sruši pod teretom svetim naumom preduhitri rušenje i da bi ruševnu zgradu bolje učvrstio sruši je, postavivši temelje podignu sljeme hrama. Ovo što skorih dana vidiš da sja u zlatu (on je) ukrasio dovršivši započeto i velikim darovima obdario, zazivajući Kristovo ime obilježi crkvu radujući se djelu. To biskupovo priznanje ne odgovara u cijelosti istini. Bazilika koju je Eufrazije zatekao nije bila baš sasvim ruševna i skromna u ukrasima. Dijelovi njezina ziđa i temelji stupovlja poslužili su u gradnji nove crkve. Što se pak mozaika tiče, nije ni njih sasvim nedostajalo u bazilici V. stoljeća. Razloge prije treba tražiti u ukusu novoga doba i sredine iz koje Eufrazije dolazi u Poreč. Milan Prelog, veliki povjesničar umjetnosti bez čijih bi nam istraživanja i objavljenih radova i povijest grada Poreča i Eufrazijeva kompleksa bili mnogo nejasniji i siromašniji, ističe upravo činjenicu vanjskog, to će reći bizantskog djelovanja na lokalnu tradiciju, kao presudnu za razumijevanje Eufrazijeve inicijative. Upravo zato i inovacije koje su ovdje provedene, a kojima je cilj povezivati udaljene prostore Mediterana, uzdižu djelo velikog porečkog biskupa na tako značajno mjesto u povijesti umjetnosti. Konstrukcija bazilike, a prije svega organizacija unutrašnjeg prostora, plastički elementi i ikonografski program proveden na zidnim mozaicima, predstavljaju iznimno važne momente u razvoju zapadne umjetnosti i uključivanju u nju impulsa začetih u istočnome dijelu razjedinjenog Rimskoga Carstva. Jedan od tih velikih inovacijskih elemenata jest i istočni dio Eufrazijeve bazilike koji završava s tri apside: glavnome brodu odgovara velika koja je izvana poligonalno oblikovana, dok dva pobočna broda dobivaju svoju apsidu u obliku polukružnoga udubljenja u masu zida koja je izvana ravna. Tim je zahvatom po prvi puta na Zapadu trobrodna bazilika s troapsidalnim završetkom, što znači s tri vizualna i kultna središta i tri zasebna oltara, oblikovana u jedinstvenu prostornu cjelinu.