LovranQR

The Church of St. John the Baptist

The Church of St. John the Baptist is, apart from the parish church, the only preserved church in Lovran's old town. This single-nave Romanesque church is built on the plot of a former smaller church, whose construction dates to the 12th or 13th century.

The ground on which the church was built was certainly outside the town walls, because if it had been built within the town walls, its facade would be facing the parish church of St. George the Martyr. Although it is mentioned in the Quaderna capituli Lovranensis in the second half of the 16th century, the first detailed information about this church comes from the visitation of Msgr Bartirome, a representative of the Bishop of Pula, in November 1658. At that time the church was being run by and cared for by the Brotherhood of St. John the Baptist. By the main altar, dedicated to its patron saint St. John the Baptist, there were side altars: the altar of St. Lucy, whose patrons were the Corrilich family, and the altar of St. Stephen. During the last refurbishment of the church in the 1990s, frescos were discovered, of which it is worth singling out the scene of Christ's baptism on the north wall, and the scene of the beheading of John the Baptist's on the south wall. The frescoes were most probably the work of the same master and belong to a group of late Gothic Istrian frescoes. During this refurbishment, there was also discovered, on the south wall, a Gothic window with narrow frame-edges, as well as the remnants of polygonal half-piers, probably elements of a Gothic sanctuary.