| At the highest point of Novo Mesto, at the top of the Kapitelj hill, stands a large Gothic church. It is dedicated to St. Nicholas, or Miklavž. This dominating provost church was first mentioned in 1428, although the history of the building is older.
On the west side there is a multi-angular bell tower, wider at the bottom and more slender at the top. It was set up in the 19th century in the shell of the older one. Then follows the nave area, arranged in 1621, perhaps under the influence of the Stična monastery. The three-pole Gothic presbytery with its quintuple axis ending has been preserved. Its axis brakes unusually, as the nave was probably adapted to the terrain at the construction. The stone building, with its partially preserved old roughcasts and the brick roof, outwardly reveals mainly Gothic elements, especially the exterior pillars of the presbytery.
The interior is divided into an oblong barrel vaulted nave with side chapels and a wide fragmented presbytery, built in the beginning of the 16th century, according to some suspicions, even after 1576. Under the altar area a crypt was built because of a drop in the terrain. In it is a copy of the tombstone of kinsman and the first Bishop of Vienna, Jurij Sladkonja, with a typical coat-of-arms plaque with a golden horse. On the main altar there is a picture of the patron of the church, St. Nicholas (sv. Miklavž) with St. Mohorjem and Fortunatus in a neo-Gothic frame. The oil painting was done in 1582 by Jacopo Robusti, known as Tintoretto, the Venetian mannerist painter. This is probably the most valuable altar painting in our territory. On the side altars there are paintings by Valentin Metzinger (1733).
The church, the seat of the vicarage and the provost's house, which stands in the immediate vicinity, is regularly maintained. |