Hagia Paraskevi

Department Archive
Collection Byzantine Research Fund
Reference No. BRF/02/01/03/025
Level Item
Place Chalkis
Dates 1909?
Donor/Creator Traquair, Mr Ramsay
Scope and Content Central church: Column outside west end. The capital in the nave have been reused from an early-Byzantine basilica and date to the 5th century. Further annotation in pencil survives at the back of the photograph.
Further information Hagia Paraskevi, the central church in the city of Chalkis, Euboea, is a three-aisled wooden-roofed basilica which was extensively rebuilt in the late 13th c. when Chalkis was captured by the Venetians. The building, one of the key monuments of Gothic architecture in Greece, underwent four major phases of construction during the early Byzantine, the Byzantine, the Frankish and the Modern period. The alternations which were made to it during the 13th c. include the addition of a rectangular cross-vaulted holy bema and of two rib-vaulted side-chapels. What distinguishes the church from other Frankish monuments of the Greek mainland is its extraordinarily rich sculpture: mainly the Gothic capitals, the corbels and the rib keystones in the two chapels.
Reference 1924. Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects. 31 (2): 44, fig.14a.