ИСТИНА

The paper provides an overview of the ceramoplastic architectural décor of the Late Byzantine churches of Epirus and of areas influenced by Epirus architectural tradition. The wide specific and iconographic vocabulary of the Epirus décor includes a variety of ornaments made of simple bricks and of specially-cut bricks, inscriptions, facing masonry, immured glazed vessels, polychorimy tiles, relief icons. Some of these elements are influenced by the artistic tradition of Italy. In the last decades of the 13th century, the Epirus architectural tradition due to the migration of building crews spread to other centers of Palaeologan architecture, particularly in Macedonia – in Thessaloniki, Veria, Kastoria, Ohrid and Prilep. In each of these centers the set of decorative elements used is different, which makes it possible to trace the peculiarities of the assimilation of the architectural tradition of Epirus in Macedonia.