CATACOMBS OF JAJCE

Carved into the rock in the early 15th century, these catacombs (Katakombe) house a chapel that is probably Catholic, at least Christian, and was intended to be the burial place for the family members of the founder of Jajce and the Croatian ban Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić (1350-1416). But he and his family were eventually buried elsewhere, in Montenegro and Dalmatia. First carved in the Romanesque style, then completed with Gothic vaults, the chapel consists of a narrow narthex (2.18 x 5.50 m) adorned with the unfinished bas-reliefs of two coats of arms, and then a nave (7.50 m x 9.50 m) housing burial niches called loculi. At the back of the nave, behind the altar, the wall is pierced with three symbols: a patriarchal cross (close to the cross of Lorraine), a sun and a crescent moon. The two crossbars of the cross represent the death and resurrection of Christ, while the sun and the moon reveal an influence of the dualism of the Bogomil Christian movement, since they are evocations of death and eternal sleep according to the Christian cult practiced by the Church of Bosnia in the Middle Ages. The same symbols are reproduced in a loculi on the left. Finally, a cavity in the floor of the nave provided access to a small crypt below. Although the place was never used as a burial ground, it was later used as a leper colony by the Franciscan monks of Jajce. It is even said that Tito took refuge there during a German bombing in 1943.