THE BAPTISMAL FONT WITH THE NAME»VUISSASCLAVO DUCI« AND THE PROBLEM OF THE NIN BAPTISTERY

The paper deals with the well-known baptismal font.co.mmissione.d by»the priest John (Johannes) in the duke Višeslav\u27s (VUlsst.S~lavus) tIm.e«.The author points out that the font has never been a~propnately studiedin spite of numerous articles dedicated to it. Accordmg. to th~ style ofexecution it was dated to the late Sth or early 9th cen~tmes, while M. Seper on the basis of the same .s~lis~c feature~ dated l.t to the 11th century. If priest John were identified WIth the pnest bearmg the saII?-e .namewho was mentioned in pope\u27s letters to the Croatian duke Branmnr (asearlier authors believed) the font could be dated in the last quarter of the 9th century. The font is supposed to have been originally at Nin from which it was taken to Venice in 1746. This is the suppostion of the historian G. Ferrari-Cupilli from Zadar who in this way explained the datum that a font from Nin misteriously dissappeared in unknown direction, when the baptistery construction was destroyed in 1746. The author of this paper would like this supposition to be tested by archaeological excavations, since there are such possibilities. Earlier excavation lacking scholarly approach, undertaken by L. Jelić in 1910, was led in the wrong direction