Events category: City guide

The Perhondia Church (Pendarhondia) is sh. XI, ie, was built around 1050, which is older than the ones that are standing in tons of the country, rebuilt on the foundations of a Paleochristian (ie, the first Christianity, up to the VIth of our century) and presents interesting architectural features , with the introduction of Gothic and Byzantine elements. She was studied by ing. architect, prof. Alexander Meksi, and was carefully restored as a monument to the importance of culture. The church is named after Saint Nicholas and was once inside the monastery with the same name, which – according to some limited surveys, which we can make, seems to have been burned in sh. XVI for unknown and remaining reasons to be explored. According to a document drawn up in October 1399, Manastir had a rich and luxurious library. This document, quoted by K. Papadopoulos, in 1884 in Odessa, in the Archaeological VI Cloister, was compiled here by Danielle, Priest Jeromeak and Igumen of Manastir, in the presence of Prince Teodor Muzak III (Muzaka twice heroically and killed in the battle of Kosovo, 10 years ago, in 1389), and of a number of senior religious principals. It is a rich and interesting inventory of the valuable book that would be brought up and secured at the fortress of Beligrad (Berat) in the Shengjergj Monastery, fearing the close intervention of the Turks.

Kuçova was the early Illyrian settlement of the Desaret tribe. From the excavations made on the outskirts of the city of Kuçova (in the municipality of Perondi where is today the old Church of St. Nicholas) it turns out that this area was an ancient settlement with a developed culture, which is proven by the way of building houses and the promenade for its residents. This promenade is the size of a real boulevard (10 m wide and 50 m long) paved with cobbled and beautifully carved stones. Likewise on the hill of Omur in the northeast of the city were found Illyrian protective works and above all a torch (exhibited in the Berat Museum), which served to signal enemy danger from one fortress to another and across the area . From the excavations made in the 40s and 50s of the last century, the amphora, sword and shield of the Illyrian times were excavated.
Prior to the 1990s, Kuçova was part of the Berat district.

It rises at the bottom of the Mangalem neighborhood. She served the rooftop of the bachelors, of the various guilds of the city who, as a union of unmarried craftsmen, carried out the service of guarding the order and night watchman in Pazar. According to the inscription, the mosque was painted in 1827-28 (1243 h).

The mosque is built on sloping ground and therefore results in half-roofs. It consists of two volumes under the same roof, the main volume on the south side, which has a three arcade portico, three gallery at the bottom, and an arcade on the north side. The floor consists of a prayer room and an open porch or porch. In the prayer room, he enters the portico from a street to a lower level than the porch’s floor. It is located inside an engraved portal that has a rectangular window on the gate, 11-11.25 x 9.63-10.0 m. The hall, after restoration interventions, is covered with a reformed ceiling. The hall was divided into two parts through a trio arcade on two wooden pillars. On the south side there is a semicircle like a semi-circular niche.

The prayer room is paved with stone slabs. It is illuminated by windows in two rows, on all four sides. All the lower row windows are rectangular and covered with wooden archers, while the upper windows are covered with a semi-circular bow on the outside and with flat lined interior louvers. Two windowsill pairs on the south side on both sides of the mihrab, from three pairs to the eastern and western sides and four north windows on both sides of the entrance gate to the prayer room.

The portico on the north side extends beyond the northern wall of the prayer room, the phenomenon that we have seen and the King Mosque in Berat, where an additional environment for the forgiveness of believers is created. That is why a second mihrab was created on the side of the north wall of the prayer room. Thus, the hajj is framed with full arches from the south, eastern and western sides, and with special arches on the south side, in the sections where the volume of the prayer room with the arcades is related.

Berat
Berat belongs to the rare cities where life begins from the ancient antiquity and continues without interruption to date. Two stone hammers date the beginning of life in the first Bronze Age (2600-1800 BC). Archaeological evidence shows that in the nineteenth century. VII-VI p. Here is a prominent settlement, with its pottery workshops and with a differentiated social life. At the borders of legend and history, this settlement is said to have been the ancient Orestiada, so named because there was a tribe of Pelasgians, the Orestes, the first of whom was Oresti, the son of Agamemnon. The genuine city was founded on 313-310 BC. as the castle city of Dasaretia, called Antipatrea by King Cassandra in remembrance of the Vicar General of Lekë e Madhe. This is the first name of the city. After the Roman invasion in the nineteenth century. II P. Kr. he was called the Albanorum Oppidum (Fortress of the Arberites). In the nineteenth century. V, under the Byzantine Empire, was reinforced and changed its name to Pulheriopolis (Beautiful City). Occupied by the Bulgarians in the 20th century. IX, was renamed Belgrade (White City) – today’s Berat.

In 1961 Berat was officially declared a museum city. It is a museum city with significant monuments of rich and diverse genres, which constitute a testimony of the cultural, historical and artistic heritage of life and work, crafted neatly from generation to generation by its inhabitants. By zoning and determining the category of monuments, the city is divided into three areas: museum area, protected area and free zone.

Today Berat inherits 210 museum objects, of which 150 are standing facilities. Of these, 60 are monuments of the first category and the others of the second category.

Among these values, the most prominent ones are.

The ceiling of King Mosque, Berat.
The King Mosque or the Sultan Mosque is one of the main mosques in the city of Berat, which was proclaimed a cultural monument since 1948. It is part of the Islamic Center complex and was built by Sultan Bajaziti II at the end of the 15th century. It is composed of the prayer room, the porch and the minaret.

In the prayer room the painted massive ceiling, the two-storey mahogany supported on two wooden pillars, the mihrab at the bottom wall and the mimic on the right side of the mihrab, form its decorative structure. In the center of the ceiling there are rosettes with inscriptions of various Qur’anic sayings. A slit underneath the ceiling contains 99 beautiful god names.

The prayer room is preceded by an open portico. The porch has its own ceiling and in its northern wall there is another mihrab so that many believers can be praised in the porch. The porch is younger than the mosque and was built at the end of the XVIII century by Usta Dush Barka. He is hanged from a stone-backed arch.

The upper part of the minaret has been reconstructed in recent years, while its base is constructed with clausonage technique and is one of the architectural elements that belong to the first construction of the mosque in the 15th century. From outside the mosque is completely plastered and plastered is painted to imitate its masonry.

Church of the Holy Trinity BERAT
The church is of the cross type with a dome. It is made up of ours, narthex and altar shelves.
Many features of Byzantine architecture have been used in the church, such as the organization of interior volume, decoration and illumination. These features together and pyramid-shaped, shape and size give it a picturesque look. The Byzantine architectural elements in the church are interwoven with Western architectural elements of the same period.
Inside there are two columns of reused capitals, which are thought to have been taken from the ancient ruins of the city.
In an inscription of the church’s fresco it is written the name of Andronik Paleologu, governor of the province of Belgrade (Berat) during the years 1302-1326. According to this article, the church should be built at the beginning of the 14th century with the financial support of Andrian Paleolog Asan.