Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić: Jajce, books and political power

A nobleman with several titles

King Tvrtko I made Hrvoje grand duke in 1380 and granted him estates in Lašva. In the struggles over the Hungarian crown, Hrvoje supported Ladislaus of Naples against Sigismund of Luxembourg. Ladislaus rewarded him with the title of duke of Split in 1403. Hrvoje also intervened in Bosnia’s succession: he helped remove King Ostoja and bring Tvrtko II to the throne in 1404. His career crossed the boundaries between royal service and independent power, with estates, offices and alliances in Bosnia and Dalmatia.

• Hrvatska enciklopedija · Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić

A family church beneath Jajce

Inside Jajce’s walls, near the Bear Tower, Hrvoje commissioned an underground church intended as a burial place for his family. The chambers were cut into living rock around the turn of the fifteenth century. Unfinished reliefs in the entrance area include his figure, heraldry and a woman holding lilies. Tomb recesses line the church, with a lower chamber reached by steep steps. The building is commonly called the Catacombs, but its purpose was a noble family’s funerary foundation. The stone porch above the entrance was added much later.

• Jajce Heritage Agency · Catacombs

Hval’s manuscript, dated 1404

One of Hrvoje’s commissions carries its own written record of patronage. The scribe Hval states in the manuscript’s colophon that he made the book for Hrvoje in 1404, while Radomir headed the Bosnian Church. Now catalogued as manuscript 3575B in Bologna’s University Library, it contains the New Testament and Psalter, with canticles and other religious texts. It is written in Cyrillic, in the Bosnian recension of Church Slavonic. Its illustrations and colophon preserve evidence of Hrvoje’s religious patronage alongside the political records of his career.

• University of Bologna Library · Catalogue entry for manuscript 3575B

A duke on horseback in a missal

Hrvoje also commissioned a Glagolitic missal associated with the scribe Butko. Near its end, a full-page image presents the duke mounted on a white horse, opposite his coat of arms. The placement gave the patron a conspicuous presence inside a book made for worship. The manuscript is now in Istanbul; the Old Church Slavonic Institute identifies the Topkapı Palace Museum as the repository of the original used for its facsimile. Together with Hval’s book, it documents patronage across different scripts and religious settings at the beginning of the fifteenth century.

• National and University Library in Zagreb · Book Art in Croatia, Glagolitic codices
• Old Church Slavonic Institute · Hrvoje’s Missal facsimile

The loss of Split

The political position that financed such commissions did not last. After Hrvoje attacked the possessions of Sandalj Hranić in 1413, Sigismund moved against him, and Hrvoje lost his Dalmatian power. Failed negotiations were followed by an appeal to Ottoman assistance. Ottoman forces entered Bosnia in 1414, and a Hungarian army was defeated the following year. Hrvoje died in 1416. His books and Jajce foundation survive from a career shaped by agreements and conflicts with kings, coastal towns and rival nobles.

• Museum of the Bosnian Kingdom · Hrvoje Vukčić

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