The paper provides an overview of the ceramoplastic architectural décor of the Late Byzantine churches of Epirus
and areas influenced by Epirote architectural tradition. The wide
specific and iconographic vocabulary of the Epirote decoration
includes a variety of ornaments made of simple bricks and of
specially cut bricks, inscriptions, facing masonry, immured
glazed vessels, polychrome tiles, and relief icons. Some of these
elements are influenced by the artistic tradition of Italy.
In the last decades of the 13th century, due to the migration of
building workshops, the architectural tradition of Epirus spread
to other centers of Palaeologan architecture, particularly to
Aegean Macedonia – Thessaloniki, Veria, Kastoria, and present–day North Macedonia – Ohrid and Prilep. In each of these
centers, the set of decorative elements used is different, which
makes it possible to trace the peculiarities of the assimilation of
the architectural tradition of Epirus in neighboring regions.