Zadar's Heritage


The one-nave Gothic church (from 1283) has undergone several reconstructions, especially in the 18th century. Behind the main altar are the richly ornamented choir stalls (work by Giacomo da Borgo Sansepolcro, 1394). Next to the choir is the sacristy; in 1358 a peace treaty was reached here by which Venice renounced Dalmatia. A painted Gothic polyptych is also kept here (work by Dujam Vuskovic of Split, 15th c.), originally from the Ugljan Franciscan monastery. Next to the sacristy is the treasury (a large painted Romanesque crucifix from the 12th c., a painting by Leandro Bassano, old liturgical vessels, documents, incunabula, etc.). The Renaissance cloister was built in 1556.

Fabijaniceva and Zanotijeva Streets lead to the church of St. Elias, built in the Middle Ages; the church was reconstructed in the Baroque style in 1793, when a bell tower was erected. The church owns a considerable number of icons from the 16th-18th century. It offers a view on the Roman Forum (90 by 45 m) with cloisters. The ancient Decumanus has been partly preserved, and under it the town's main cesspools once run.

In the Forum is the 14-m high preserved ancient pillar to which from the Middle Ages to the year of 1840 persons were tied and exposed to public scorn or ridicule. Above the buried Forum the most monumental structure of the Croatian early Middle Ages was built, the 27-m high church of the Holy Trinity, later called the church of St. Donat after Bishop Donat, on whose orders, a legend has it, the church was built in the 9th century. The church has a circular ground-plan, three apses and a loft - matroneum on the upper floor. In the church walls numerous ancient fragments had been built (inscriptions, pilasters, sacrificial altars, etc.). Next to the church of St. Donat is the Bishop's Palace, a very old structure, reconstructed in the Romanesque and Gothic periods as well as in the Renaissance; the present-day façade dates from 1830.


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