The Cathedral of St. James () in Šibenik, Croatia, is a triple-nave Catholic basilica with three apses and a dome (32 m high inside). It is the episcopal seat of the Šibenik diocese. It is also the most important architectural monument of the Renaissance in the entire country. Since 2000, the cathedral has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It is often known as "St. Jacob's", because Croatian, like many other languages, uses the same name for both "James" and "Jacob". It is dedicated to Saint James the Greater. Construction First masters The building of the church was initiated in 1402, though plans on its construction had already begun in 1298, when Šibenik became a municipality. The actual work to transform the older Romanesque cathedral began in 1431. Built entirely of stone (limestone from a nearby stone quarry and marble from the island of Brač), it was completed in three phases, from 1433 to 1441, when the Grand City Council entrusted the work to local and Italian masters Francesco di Giacomo, Lorenzo Pincino, Pier Paolo Bussato, Bonino da Milano, and Giorgio da Sebenico (Juraj Dalmatinac) and to Croatian ones Andrija Budčić and Grubiš Šlafčić. Giorgio da Sebenico Initially, it was conceived as a simple church. In the period between 1441 and 1473 the construction was directed by Giorgio, who was invited to come from Venice as the investors were not satisfied with the beginning of the work. His first contract in 1441 was concluded for a period of 6 years to build just a simple church, but another contract of 10 years followed the first one in 1446. The investors considered that too little for the money spent, so Giorgio altered the plan: he enlarged the cathedral with a side nave and apses, so that the ground plan of the cathedral was in the shape of a cross, and prepared it for the dome, built the presbytery, sanctuary and his masterpiece, the baptistery. With tremendous skill, Giorgio da Sebenico combined architectural and decorative elements to create a unified entity. Giorgio combined several artistic elements in the ground plan: the Lion Gate was inspired by the abbey of San Leonardo di Siponto, the central nave by Trogir cathedral, an eagle over the main entrance as the John the Evangelist's symbol, the San Marco cathedral in Venice as one side nave and the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople as the other side