STOBI. – Ancient city of Paeonia, on the site of the present-day village of Pusto-Gradako. In A.D. 386 it was the capital of Macedonia II Salutaris; it was an episcopal see, and its prelate was present at the Council of Nicaea in 325. The Basilica is its most notable monument.
The earliest structures of the Christian basilica of S. were identified by Krischen in 1918. In subsequent excavation campaigns, an entire complex of ancillary buildings came to light, including certainly a baptistery. The Basilica is approximately 39 m. long, with three naves, constructed of red stone and bricks (some bearing Byzantine stamps), without a transept, with a crypt and a semi-annular apse; it was provided with a narthex of the same width as a small nave, which, however, proved to be shorter on the southern side because of a rocky escarpment that prevented its completion. It was entered through three doors corresponding to each nave; on this side the naves themselves narrow by approximately 1.30 m. in comparison with their maximum width (28.60 m.). The columns of the naves are spolia from the destroyed theatre, as is also attested by the capitals and bases found there. A stone platform discovered among the ruins of the theatre seems to have belonged to an ambo of the church; the existence of the iconostasis that enclosed the presbytery is certain, as in all Balkan churches.
The few capitals display decoration with leaves of prickly acanthus and representations of human protomes and birds, in the Theodosian manner of the fifth century. The church must have been richly ornamented. Remains of mosaics are found in the apse and especially in the small naves. The general motif of the decoration is that common to Balkan churches: a series of panels with geometric designs or animal figures, framed by friezes of arabesques. There are also remnants of ornamentation depicting imitation curtains, as in S. Maria Antiqua in Rome, and, still in situ in the narthex, panels imitating marble inlay, as in the cathedral of Parenzo. The few remains of human figures have been variously interpreted: the most plausible hypothesis holds that there were life-size figures of saints, together with smaller ones in various compositions. Some, moreover, see in a group of fragments a scene of the Annunciation.
For purposes of dating, the structural, sculptural, iconographic, and stylistic elements suggest approximately 500, that is, the pre-iconoclastic period. The basilica of S. thus joins the great churches of Constantinople and Salonico, and with its sculptures and paintings ranks among the most significant examples of the Golden Age of Giustiniano.