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Trogir (in Italian and Dalmatian Traù, in Latin Tragurium, in Greek Tragurion, in Hungarian Trau) is a port and historical city on the Adriatic coast, in the Split-Dalmatia region, Croatia, where 10,907 inhabitants reside (2001) , 13,322 in the municipality (2001). Trogir is located 27 km west of Split. The city is built on a small island (about 1 km²) located between the mainland and the island of Ciovo. The center of the city is considered a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1997.
Trogir is a historic Croatian city located in Split-Dalmatia County on the shores of the Adriatic Sea. It was initially found by the Greek colonists who liked the this well defended and well suitable harbor. Greeks also gave the city its name after a Greek tragos that means male goat. The city was demolished by the Saracen invasion in 1123. Its reconstruction was carried out by the Genoese and Venetians who fought over possession of the strategic harbor. In the late 18th century Trogir became part of the Habsburg Empire, after World War I it became part of Yugoslavia. Upon the break up Trogir went into possession of Croatia.
Croatian town of Trogir was first mentioned in the 3rd century BC. It rose to prominence by playing an important role as a trading post between Greek colonists and local tribes. Over time Trogir was overshadowed by much larger town of Split. However coming of Dark Ages to the Roman Empire along with hordes of barbarians became a mixed blessing for Trogir. Its strategic island position made sure that even small military garrison could defend residents of the town. Unlike nearby cities Trogir wasn't sacked by the barbarians. The old historic part of the town is added to a UNESCO World Heritage due to its unique architecture.
The beginnings of tourism date back to the 1930s, when
tourists from Czechoslovakia and other Central European
countries began to arrive. It is often visited by prominent
world figures from culture and politics, such as George
Bernard Shaw, and King Edward VIII of England. accompanied
by Wallis Simpson. Prominent Croatian and foreign painters
often come to Trogir. The first tourist guide to the city's
sights was published in 1936. After the Second World War,
tourism revived, especially from the mid-1960s, when
significant accommodation facilities began to be built.
It is characteristic of Trogir that it is not a classic
tourist resort where guests come because of the sun and the
sea, but because of getting to know its historical and
cultural heritage. Therefore, its accommodation capacities
were limited, and tourists located in the wider region.
Until the 1990s, there was no aspiration to build large
tourist capacities, because the economic development of the
City primarily depended on the shipbuilding industry. Hotel
Medena with 1300 beds, apartments and a camp is the only
hotel with significant accommodation capacities. Next to it
there are a dozen smaller hotels, with a capacity of 20 to
50 beds. A significant number of accommodation capacities
fall on private accommodation. There are also three
auto-camps, with a capacity of 3000 seats.
Due to the
rapid expansion of nautical tourism, two modern marinas have
been built in the Trogir area, with the possibility of
accepting up to 500 boats. ACI Trogir is located on Ciovo,
right next to the shipyard, and opposite the city
waterfront, which provides special benefits. The marina has
the possibility of accommodating boats throughout the year,
and repairs and maintenance of ships. ACI marina Trogir also
has its own fleet of sailboats from 7 to 15 meters, which is
rented throughout the year. Adventure tourism is on the
rise, so in addition to the classic forms of renting sports
boats, parachutes, fishing with huts and one-day cruises,
there is also a diving school known throughout Europe.
Ornithological tourism in the area of the Pantan
Nature Park is still in its infancy and is poorly promoted
and visited.
Kamerlengo Castle (Gradina
Kamerlengo) stands on the southwestern edge of Trogir's historic island, a
15th-century Venetian fortress built between 1420 and 1437
after the Republic of Venice seized the town following a
two-month siege. It incorporated the older polygonal Veriga
Tower (Kula Veriga) from around 1380, which had once
controlled the harbor with a chain stretched toward Čiovo
island. Designed with advice from engineer Lorenzo Pincino
and built by local master Marin Radoj, the irregular
trapezoidal stronghold with corner towers housed the
Venetian kamerlengo (chamberlain-governor) and mercenary
garrison, separated from the town by a moat and outer wall.
The moat was later filled and most city walls demolished in
the 19th century, yet the castle survived demolition plans;
today its courtyard hosts summer concerts and open-air
cinema, and visitors can climb the keep for views over the
UNESCO old town and the channel.
Cathedral of St. Lawrence
(Katedrala sv. Lovre), also known locally as St. John's
Cathedral after Trogir's first bishop, dominates John Paul
II Square as the town's chief monument and a highlight of
the UNESCO Historic City of Trogir. Construction began
around 1200-1213 on the site of an earlier church destroyed
in the 12th century and stretched into the 17th century, so
the three-nave Romanesque-Gothic basilica displays
successive styles: Radovan's famous west portal of 1240 with
Adam and Eve on lions, a 15th-century Gothic vault, the
richly decorated Chapel of Blessed Ivan Orsini by Andrija
Aleši and Niccolò di Giovanni, a baptistery of 1464, and a
47-meter bell tower whose stories mix Gothic and Renaissance
forms. The treasury holds silver reliquaries and an ivory
triptych; climbing the tower rewards visitors with rooftop
views of the compact medieval island.
Cipiko Palace (Grand Cipiko
Palace) occupies the western side of the same main square
opposite the cathedral, the most imposing noble residence in
Trogir and a prime example of late-Gothic and
early-Renaissance domestic architecture. In the 15th century
father and son Petar and Koriolan Cipiko united earlier
Romanesque houses into a palatial block, covering it with
family coats of arms and commissioning work from leading
Dalmatian and Italian masters: Niccolò di Giovanni carved
the southern portal around 1470 with angels and the motto
"Nosce te ipsum," while Ivan Duknović created the northern
portal facing the cathedral. After later division and damage
when Venetian troops used it as barracks, parts of the
complex now serve civic and cultural uses including a music
school; the carved windows, portals, and courtyard remain
among the finest secular façades in the old town.
Rector's Palace (the former Town
Hall or Vijećnica) stands on the eastern side of John Paul
II Square as the civic counterpart to the cathedral and
Cipiko Palace. Begun in the 13th century and remodeled
through the Gothic and Renaissance periods, it features a
courtyard with a monumental staircase, a well carved with
the city's arms, and later openings that reflect Venetian
rule. For centuries it housed the rector (knez) and communal
government of Trogir; today it still functions as a
municipal building while its arcaded spaces and coats of
arms illustrate how public power, noble display, and
religious architecture were concentrated around this single
compact square at the heart of the UNESCO-listed town.
Garagnin-Fanfogna Palace is a complex consisting of two blocks of Romanesque and Gothic houses, created in the second half of the 18th century on that occasion, united according to the project of Ignacij Macanović. The southern one-storey building with an external staircase had an economic purpose, and today it serves as a city lapidary in which the walls of the Hellenistic Traguri are presented. Upstairs is the Cate Dujšin-Ribar gallery. The main entrance to the palace with a vestibule and staircase was on the east side of the block, in the main city street, and was decorated with components of late Baroque Macanović decoration. The interior has preserved a salon with ceiling stucco from the 18th century. There is also a rich library of Ivan L. Garagnin (1722-1783), a collector of archaeological monuments and numismatics, decorated with a wall painting with portraits of philosophers and writers. A collection of paintings and etchings from the 17th and 18th centuries has also been preserved. The palace houses the Museum of the City of Trogir.
Trogir City Museum
The Trogir City Museum was opened to
the public in 1966. It is located in the Garagnin Palace (or
Garagnin-Fanfogna; also a protected cultural property). The
permanent exhibition of the Museum shows historical
movements, artistic styles and everyday life of the city
from the Middle Ages to the present day. The protected
museum holdings of the Trogir City Museum include the Zlata
Radej Ceramics Collection, the Cate Dujšin-Ribar Gallery
Collection, the Ethnographic Collection, the Lapidary
Archaeological Collection, the Medieval Cultural History
Collection, the Modern Cultural History Collection, the
Contemporary History Collection, the Contemporary Art
Collection, and the Contemporary Art Collection. Maritime
collection.
Tower of St. Mark in Trogir
Tower of St. Marka is located
in the northwest of the old part of Trogir. The round tower
adapted for defense against cannon shots was built by the
Venetian Republic during the 15th century, at the time of
the Turkish invasions. The tower is exposed towards the
mainland, and was originally connected by the city walls
with the Kamerlengo fortress.
Not far from the tower,
more precisely on the promenade between the Kamerlengo tower
and the tower itself, and next to the football field stands
Gloriette (classicist pavilion) - a circular colonnade of
classicist shapes. It was built in 1809. during the
short-lived French rule, and in honor of Marshal Marmont. It
is important to emphasize that Gloriette is one of the few
monuments of French rule in Dalmatia.
The Church of St. Peter belonged to the Benedictine nunnery,
which according to tradition was founded in 1242 by the wife
of the Hungarian-Croatian King Bela IV. On the main façade
is a baroque portal in which the lunette with the bust of
St. Petra, the work of Nicholas of Florence. In the second
half of the 17th century, the interior was baroqued. A
wooden ceiling was made divided into oval, semi-oval and
hexagonal fields framed by richly profiled frames with
twisted ribbon. Two side marble altars dedicated to the
Mother of God and St. Ignatius of Loyola. Monumental statues
of St. Peter and Paul from the middle of the 17th century
have been preserved from the wooden main altar. In the
sidewalk of the church, the decorated tombstones of the
Andreis and Cipiko families from Trogir stand out.
The Church of St. Sebastian was built in 1476 as a vow of
the citizens of Trogir to St. Sebastian for salvation from
the plague. The facade of this Renaissance building, made by
Nikola Firentinac, is decorated with sculptures of St.
Sebastian, the coats of arms of Bishop Jacob Turlon and the
city prince Malipier, and above them a sculpture of Christ
the Savior. Above the façade rises a two-story city clock
tower. In the part of the eastern wall, two conches of the
six-leafed Church of St. Mary, which stood on the eastern
side, have been preserved to the top. Along the side walls
inside the church, three sarcophagi used for burials under
the pavement of the porch of the Church of St. Mary are
presented. A stone plaque with the names of veterans from
the Trogir area who died in the Homeland War has been placed
on the west wall.
The Trogir town lodge was first
mentioned in the 13th century. It originally served as an
open space for public gatherings, and on certain days and
hours it was intended for organized communal legal service,
concluding contracts, publishing laws, as well as the trial
itself. On the east wall in 1471, a retable of Justice was
depicted depicting a Venetian lion and the patron saints of
the city, St. Lawrence and Blessed John of Trogir, the work
of the workshop of Nikola Firentinac. It is a monument made
in honor of the Venetian Republic. The central field
depicting a lion was removed in 1932. On the south wall is a
relief depicting Ban Petar Berislavić on horseback, the work
of Ivan Meštrović. The lodge was renovated in 1892.
Rotonda All Marija na Poljani belongs to the typology of
six-leafed churches of the first half of the 9th century.
The church is a building surmounted by a central dome and
surrounded by six apses, modeled on the Carolingian chapels.
Her four altars are mentioned: the main one dedicated to the
Assumption of Mary, the second, the Renaissance altar of St.
Jerolim erected in 1463, st. Mary of Loreto and St. Lucia.
It was demolished in the middle of the 19th century, and the
appearance has been preserved on a 19th-century graphic made
by the French artist Ch. L. Clerisseau. The apses outside
had three niches separated by ledges, and the tambour of the
dome was rhythmic with niches with windows. To the west of
the church there is a mention of a porch that was used as a
courtroom, and in front of it a city street closed in the
15th century by the construction of a city clock tower.
Prehistory and the Illyrian setting
The immediate
hinterland was occupied long before any town existed. Stone
tools used by Neanderthals about 45,000 years ago have been
found near Trogir. Ceramic remains and other finds point to
settlement from the Early Eneolithic, around 2000 BC. An
Illyrian settlement already stood on or near the site when
Greek colonists arrived. The small islet that now holds the
old town was originally part of the mainland; later human
work separated it.
Greek Tragurion (late 3rd–2nd
century BC)
Greek settlers from Issa (modern Vis), itself
a Syracusan colony, founded a trading settlement they called
Tragurion (or Tragourion) at the end of the 3rd or beginning
of the 2nd century BC. Some popular accounts give a date
around 380 BC, but the archaeological and literary consensus
places the colony later. The name is usually derived from
Greek tragos (he-goat) and oros (hill), linked to the nearby
Kozjak hill, which was said to be rich in goats. The
neighbouring island of Čiovo (ancient Bua) takes its name
from a word for a herd of cattle.
The Greeks chose a
defensible islet with sheltered water and access to fertile
fields and inland routes. They enclosed the settlement with
a megalithic wall and laid out streets on a regular grid.
That grid - the cardo maximus and decumanus - is still the
backbone of the old town. Tragurion remained closely tied to
its mother-city Issa. In the mid-2nd century BC the Dalmatae
attacked the Greek towns; Issa and Tragurion turned to Rome
for help.
Roman Tragurium
Rome gradually absorbed
the eastern Adriatic. By the 1st century BC Tragurion had
become the Roman municipality Tragurium, an oppidum civium
Romanorum. Pliny the Elder noted that it was famous for its
marble. Nearby limestone quarries supplied high-quality
stone that remained important for centuries. The town never
rivalled Salona, the provincial capital a short distance
east; Salona’s rise actually reduced Trogir’s relative
importance. Roman villas and rural estates appeared in the
hinterland. Late antique Christianity took root in the 6th
century; churches dedicated to martyrs began to appear.
Late Antiquity, Slavs, and Byzantine Dalmatia
After
the collapse of Roman authority and the Avar-Slav raids of
the 6th–7th centuries, Salona was destroyed. Many of its
inhabitants fled to Trogir and other coastal towns that had
kept a measure of independence. From the 6th to the 11th
century Trogir belonged to the reduced Byzantine theme of
Dalmatia, a string of coastal cities whose capital was
Zadar. Life continued on the old urban site. The oval
outline of the historic centre was already defined in
prehistoric and ancient times; medieval growth later filled
it more densely.
Early Croatian period and the
diocese
From the 9th century Trogir paid tribute both to
Croatian rulers and to Byzantium. Croatian prince Trpimir I
appears to have conducted a successful campaign against
Trogir and Split in the mid-9th century; from the 870s the
town paid tribute to Croatian princes in return for peaceful
enjoyment of its lands. A bishopric is attested by the 10th
or 11th century (it was suppressed in 1828). In 1000 the
inhabitants submitted to Venetian Doge Pietro II Orseolo,
opening a long commercial relationship with the Italian
peninsula.
Hungarian-Croatian kingdom and communal
autonomy
Hungarian-Croatian kingdom and communal autonomy
In 1105–1107 Trogir recognized the authority of Coloman,
king of Hungary, Croatia and Dalmatia. In 1107 (or 1108)
Coloman granted the town a charter of privileges - the
Trogir Diploma - that confirmed municipal autonomy. For the
next three centuries Trogir oscillated between
Hungarian-Croatian and Venetian overlordship while
developing a strong communal identity. A statute already
existed by 1322. The town minted its own copper bagattino
bearing the image of its patron, St Lawrence (Sv. Lovre). A
saltworks operated nearby, though malaria from the marshes
was a constant problem.
In 1123 Saracen (Arab) raiders
conquered and almost completely demolished Trogir. Recovery
was rapid. The 12th and 13th centuries became the town’s
economic and artistic peak. Construction of the Cathedral of
St Lawrence began around 1200 on the site of an earlier
basilica. The south portal was finished in 1213; Master
Radovan completed the great west portal in 1240. That portal
is the outstanding work of Romanesque-Gothic sculpture on
the eastern Adriatic. The cathedral itself was built over
three centuries and therefore mixes Romanesque, Gothic and
later Renaissance elements. The bell tower was added in the
late 16th century.
In March 1242 King Béla IV of Hungary
and his family took refuge in Trogir while fleeing the
Mongols. The island town could not be stormed. In gratitude
Béla enlarged Trogir’s territory. Local tradition associates
a small islet, Kraljevac (“King’s islet”), with the king’s
hiding place. In 1271 a pharmacy opened in the town centre;
it is often described as one of the earliest in Europe.
Members of the powerful Šubić family were frequently elected
dukes by the citizens; Mladen III Šubić (d. 1348) is
remembered on his tomb slab in the cathedral as “the shield
of the Croats.” Artists active in Trogir in this period
include Radovan, Andrija Aleši, Blaž Jurjev Trogiranin and
Ivan Duknović (Giovanni Dalmata).
Late medieval
instability and Venetian conquest
The late 14th and early
15th centuries were turbulent. Trogir recognized Bosnian
kings (1390–94), Sigismund of Luxembourg, Ladislaus of
Naples (1402–08), and Sigismund again. After the War of
Chioggia it briefly allied with Genoa and Zadar against
Venice. In 1420 Trogir was the last of the major Dalmatian
cities to accept Venetian rule. The Italian name Traù became
common. Venetian administration lasted until 1797.
Four centuries of Venetian rule (1420–1797)
Venice
treated Trogir as a fortified outpost on the edge of its
Stato da Mar, facing the Ottoman advance inland. The massive
Kamerlengo Fortress at the western end of the island was
built in the mid-15th century (incorporating an earlier
Genoese tower of 1380). St Mark’s Tower and the remaining
city walls and gates also date from this period. The
official language was Italian, but Croatian continued in
daily use. Renaissance and Baroque palaces rose on
Romanesque and Gothic foundations: the Cipiko (Ćipiko)
palaces, the Rector’s Palace, the Town Loggia (with a 1471
relief of Justice by Niccolò di Giovanni Fiorentino), and
numerous family houses of the Cega, Vitturi, Lucić,
Garagnin-Fanfogna and other lineages. Around 1650 a
manuscript of Petronius’s Satyricon containing the Cena
Trimalchionis was discovered in Trogir - the longest
surviving portion of the work.
Napoleonic interlude
and Habsburg Dalmatia
Venice fell in 1797. Trogir passed
to the Habsburgs, then to Napoleon (1806–1814) as part of
the Kingdom of Italy and the Illyrian Provinces. French
authorities demolished sections of the city walls. After
1814 Austria ruled until 1918. The old noble families
declined; the bishopric was abolished in 1828. A Croatian
national revival produced a reading room and a folk-music
society. Agriculture and modest shipbuilding continued.
Twentieth century to the present
After World War I
Trogir became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes (later Yugoslavia). Most of the remaining Dalmatian
Italian community left. In 1939 it was included in the
Banovina of Croatia. During World War II Italy annexed it
(1941–43) as part of the Governorate of Dalmatia. After a
brief partisan interlude it fell under the Independent State
of Croatia and German supervision (1943–44). Yugoslav
Partisans liberated the town on 27 October 1944. It remained
in socialist Yugoslavia until Croatian independence in 1991.
Under Yugoslavia the town developed agriculture,
shipbuilding and, increasingly, tourism. In 1997 UNESCO
listed the historic core. Today Trogir is a living town of
about 10,000 inhabitants in the old island settlement, with
the wider municipality reaching roughly 12,400. The stone
streets still follow the Greek grid; the cathedral portal of
1240 still faces the main square; Kamerlengo still guards
the western tip of the islet. The layers of 23 centuries
remain visible in a compact, walkable historic centre.