Saints and Vines in the Village of the Trentini: Stained Glass for Štivor

Near Prnjavor there is a village founded by families from a valley in the Italian Alps. Its church now has 13 windows of coloured light, and the largest of them is full of grapes.

The village of the Trentini

Štivor lies near Prnjavor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the end of the 19th century, after severe floods in the Valsugana valley of Trentino, families from villages such as Roncegno and Levico came here under Austria Hungary and founded the village. They brought their Trentino dialect with them, and together with the Czechs, Poles and Ukrainians around them they helped give Prnjavor its name, Little Europe.

The village church is dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. It is a small, warm church with a wooden ceiling, a choir loft, and tall round arched windows along both walls.

The commission

Štivor belongs to the same parish as the Church of Saint Anthony in Prnjavor. On 30 May 2013, the same day as the agreement for the 11 windows in Prnjavor, the pastor, Monsignor Vlado Lukenda, received our offer for 13 new windows for Štivor, about 250 square feet of glass in all.

The studio first drew 3 sketches, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Saint Joseph and Saint Anne, to set the style for the whole church. The larger nave windows are about 2 ft 8 in wide and 9 ft 2 in high in 3 parts, the smaller ones about 2 ft 4 in wide and 5 ft 11 in high, and every one is crowned with a half round top light. The glass was cut, painted with iron oxide paints, fired in the kiln, leaded and sealed in our studio in Sombor.

Several of the windows were given by local families, and their names, many of them Italian, are written at the foot of the glass.

Saints Peter and Paul, and Saint Anthony The Baptism of Christ, and the Madonna

The saints

Every window shares one frame: a red and blue border with golden scrolls, a top light of red arcs and blue and yellow diamonds, and a landscape of green hills and blue sky behind each figure.

Saint Anthony of Padua holds the Child Jesus and his lily, and Saint Joseph carries the Child and a lily as well.

Saint Anthony of Padua Saint Joseph

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, crowned, holds the Child and the brown scapular. Saint Anne sits with a book and teaches the young Mary to read.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Saint Anne and Mary

Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, the Little Flower, carries her roses and crucifix, and a guardian angel watches over a boy and a girl on a path among flowers.

Saint Thérèse, the Little Flower The guardian angel

Saint Bonaventure, the Franciscan bishop and teacher, stands in his mitre with his crozier.

Up close you can see the painting: the soft shading of the faces, the folds of the veils, the light in the halos.

Saint Anne and Mary, detail Saint Bonaventure, detail

Saint Cecilia, the patron of music, keeps company with Our Lady of Mount Carmel near the choir.

A rose of grapes

Above the choir loft, the round window has no saint at all. Its 8 segments are filled with grape vines, green leaves and purple clusters on bright blue glass, a symbol of the Eucharist, and a fitting one in a region where the Italian settlers are remembered for bringing new grape varieties.

See more of our stained glass commissions and sacred art.

Church: Church of Saint John the Baptist, Štivor, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Pastor: Monsignor Vlado Lukenda
Work: 13 new stained glass windows, including a grape vine rose window, about 250 sq ft
Fabrication: Stanisic Studio, Sombor, Republic of Serbia
Offer: 30 May 2013