LovranQR

Mustaćon

There is a wooden carving of a dark-skinned, moustachioed and bearded man with a turban, in the lunette of the portal of a grand house in the main square of Lovran's old town.

It is believed that the wooden carving of the Mustaćon, as the figure is locally known, is the work of the wood workshop of master Mihovil Zierer from Rijeka. The portal of the house is decorated with the motif of a cut diamond, and its keystone with a carving of a crest depicting the tower, which is today part of the crest of the Municipality of Lovran. On the side of the stone carving the year of the construction of the portal is inscribed (1722). The present wings of the door date from the same period. The tradition of decorating entrance portals of town houses with moustachioed man characters was widespread along the northern Adriatic coast up to the 19th century. Decorations are also visible on the balcony above the front of this Baroque house, on whose stone consoles the busts of dragons can be seen. The late Gothic balcony consoles on the house that closes the square in front of the church are also decorated with anthropomorphic and zoomorphic characters. The basic idea behind decorating house fronts with these ornamental elements was to protect the house and its residents from all kinds of evil forces.