St. Mark Church

The Parish Church of St. Mark is among the oldest and most multilayered sacred monuments in the city of Zagreb. With its location at the top of the Upper Town and its iconic roof design, it is one of Zagreb’s most recognisable symbols. It is a three-aisled, three-apse Gothic building erected in the 13th century. The church’s main portal, on the southern façade, was created at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century. Most of the sculptures on it are attributed to the circle of artists around the Parlers of Prague. In the second half of the 17th century, a bell tower was added to the church, and between 1876 and 1882 it underwent a thorough restoration initiated by the Zagreb City Council in the Neo-Gothic style, based on the designs of the Viennese architect Friedrich von Schmidt, later partially revised by his student Herman Bollé. During this restoration, the Baroque furnishings were removed from the interior and replaced with new Neo-Gothic ones. Several windows were enlarged and fitted with lavish figurative stained glass made by the Tiroler Glasmalerei company from Innsbruck. A new portal was added at the western entrance, and the roof was covered with polychrome glazed tiles depicting the coats of arms of the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, as well as the city of Zagreb—an expression of the strengthening national consciousness at the end of the 19th century. Another restoration was carried out for parish priest Svetozar Rittig between 1936 and 1938, during which most of the furnishings from the Neo-Gothic restoration were removed. A new choir loft was added at the entrance area, and the church was decorated with frescoes by the painter Jozo Kljaković depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The Chapel of Saints Fabian and Sebastian (created from the former sacristy) was painted with scenes from Croatian history. New altars in the apses of the main and side aisles—with sculptures of the Crucifixion, the Virgin and Child, and the Lamentation—were created by the sculptor Ivan Meštrović.