Inside Looking Out: The Controversial Commissioners; Inscription in King Marko’s Monastery near Skopje

In the long history of creation of Byzantine cultural heritage, the name of Marko’s monastery is written on one of the most celebrated pages left by mediaeval artistic creation. Established in the dusk of the Middle Ages, amidst the historical chaos of Ottoman invasion, this monument dedicated to Saint Demetrius has united the metaphysics of the painterly expression and the dark veil of historic tragedy hung over Macedonian territory in the last quarter of the 14th century. The historic data regarding the establishment of Marko’s monastery, encompassed by the commissioner’s inscription preserved in the interior of the church, are, to a great extent, dissonant and ambiguous. Apart from the inconsistency of the information regarding the chronological references (building started in 1345, frescoes finished in 1376/77), as well as the titular rank of the commissioners, i.e. the inadequately used title of king associated with the name of Vukašin in 1345 (when he was but a nobleman) and in 1377 (when he was already deceased), the donor’s inscription discloses a chronological lacuna of twenty-five years that appears in the process of creation of the temple. The manner of execution of the architectural features of the edifice, which clearly points to the consistent activities in the erection of the temple, with no intermissions in the implementation of the building process, as well as the undertaking of the khtetorial initiative by King Marko after the Marica battle in 1371 can be sublimed in a feasible assumption that the temple has been erected during the reign of King Vukašin (between 1365 and 1371), while the frescoes have been executed after King Marko has succeeded to the throne of his late father and have been completed in 1377.