Gorijvari
Gorijvari
Church standing on a rather high mountain on the right
bank of the Mtkvari, south-west of Gori, used to have a large
cross placed before the altar; this cross was later taken
away by Prince Amilakhvari, a rich landowner from Gori, who kept it in
his home.
In 1920 the cross was acquired by the Georgian Society for History and
Ethnography to be preserved in their museum. At present the Goridjvari Cross is
on display at the permanent exhibition of valuables at the State Museum of Arts
of the Georgian SSR.
The cross is encased in silver plaques bearing fifteen scenes from the
life and martyrdom of St. George, done in relief. A sixteen-line inscription on
the lower part of the cross says that it was donated to the Church of St. George
by King Alexander on the occasion of his recovery from the severe illness.
According to historical data the Alexander mentioned in the inscription was King
of a united Georgia,
Alexander I.(1412-1442). It is also known that, King Alexander I
had been seriously ill., but had recovered. Thus, the dating of the cross
of Alexander I with representations of the donors chased on it, should be
limited to the period between 1439 and 1442.
King
Alexander I is considered to be one of the outstanding personalities in
Georgia’s history. In the late Middle Ages he succeeded in restoring a
politically united Georgia, for which the people added the epithet “the
Great” to his name. Besides, he spared no efforts to have architectural
monuments restored. To this end, he imposed a special tax in 1425,--40
“tetras” (pieces of silver) from each household. By 1440 the greater part of
the architectural monuments in the country had been restored.
Another inscription on the base of the cross says that the base had been
encased in silver plaques in 1707, which work had been commissioned by Prince
Giorgi Amilakhvary. The cross has a cone-shaped top also encased in silver; this
encasement had originally been made in the 13th century and later, in
the 15th century, it was used to adorn the Gorijvaryi cross.
The scenes represented on the cross are noteworthy for their
well-thought-out composition, the high professional skill of execution,
plasticity of forms and artistic merits generally speaking.
Despite the fact that in those
times a certain decline was observable in the Georgian toreutic art, the
Gorijvari ante-altar cross is regarded as a brilliant sample of toreutics in
which the traditions of that ancient art have been fully preserved ;this is
manifest in the brilliant execution of the sculptural forms and in the
compositional complexity of the scenes.
The ante-altar cross from Gorijvari is a remarkable monument of Georgian
15th century toreutics, carrying on the ancient traditions.