page_title: Lazarica Church
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Lazarica Church / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Crkva (church) Lazarica in Kruševac fortress in Kruševac, Serbia.
context_page_description: Church of the Holy First Martyr Stephen, better known as the Lazarica Church, is a Serbian Orthodox church in Kruševac, Serbia. It was built in 1375-1378 as an endowment of prince Lazar of Serbia. Lazarica, as an outstanding achievement of the Serbian medieval architecture, was declared a Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1979, and it is protected by the Republic of Serbia. Lazarica was built as a prototype of the Morava school of architecture, as a palace church associated with the Kruševac Fortress, the capital of Prince Lazar. Today, only Lazarica and parts of the keep remain from the vast fortress complex.
context_section_description: The church is in the form of a trefoil, a variant of the cruciform plan, with three bays in length, a dome over the central area and narthex, originally with open side passages. It has a semicircular apse on the inside, which is five-sided on the outside, with attached colonettes. The church is oriented five degrees from a perfect west–east orientation. The foundation of Lazarica is at an elevation of 159 metres (522 ft). Internal length, from the top of the altar apse to the west wall of the narthex, is 15.65 feet (4.77 m). The western width of the nave is from 5.15 to 5.20 metres (16.9 to 17.1 ft) and the radius of the apse ranges from 1.61 to 1.65 metres (5 ft 3 in to 5 ft 5 in). Internal height to the apex of the semicalotte main dome is 17.25 metres (56.6 ft). Wall thickness ranges from 1 to 1.75 metres (3 ft 3 in to 5 ft 9 in). The foundations were laid at a depth of 0.60 metres (2 ft 0 in).
  Lazarica's masonry is basically Byzantine style: continuity of horizontal rows of dressed white sandstone with three rows of brick joints associated with thick plaster, without insisting on randomly placed bricks. A peculiar process was used to draw thick mortar joints out from the wall.
caption: Front of the palace church with details of the rosettes (1375-1378).
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A620", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2009:07:12 18:51:51", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5004", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:07:12 18:51:51", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:07:12 18:51:51", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "245/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "88", "EXIF FocalLength": "73/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2304", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3072", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2304", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "3072", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2206", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "768000/71", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "768000/71", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}