St. Francis Church at the Cemetery is the only remaining part of the monastery of Franciscans of the Third Order. It was built, as the inscription on the portal says, in 1490 in the late-Gothic and early-Renaissance style as a typical one-nave monastic basilica with a rectangular sanctuary overarched with Gothic vaults. The floor in the church nave is a true mausoleum of important figures of Rab with interesting tombstones of which the one belonging to the reformer of the Franciscan order Fr. Matija Bošnjak stands out. The year of his death, 1525, is written in Glagolitic (ancient Croatian Script). Also worth mentioning is the gravestone of the Spanish painter Huan Boschet and, in particular, the gravestone of a shipbuilder Mrganić from Senj. The latter provides a faithful representation of related tools from 1558. The coats of arms of nearly all the most famous patrician families of Rab (Hermolais. Nimira, Scaffa, Cernotta, Zudenigo, Dominis, Galzigna and Segota) are carved in the intrados of the triumphal arch. The church front is extremely elegant with a portal that is richly decorated with skilfully carved festoons, made in the best manner in the workshop of a great sculptor Ivan Dukanović. He was the leader of Dalmatian carvers in Budim. on the court of King Matija_ Korvin. After his death they settled in Senj and Rab. The trilobated ending with Renaissance shells suggests monumentality and possible inner division of the space in such a way. The monastery buildings were abandoned after the monastery was repealed in the beginning of the 19th century. After that, in the twenties of the 20th century, they were pulled down and today are replaced by a graveyard. |