Dol Island of Brac
Description. Of all the settlements on Brac that are mentioned at the beginning of the 15th century, Dol was the nearest to the sea. It is sheltered in a deep valley and it is only two kilometers by road from Postire. Dol is crowded together up the eastern slope. It built its houses out of living stone by digging its eastern slopes into the hill. The fronts facing west are more spacious and more beautiful. It is all crowded together so that it could defend itself easier. It raised one and two-story houses in the direction of the extension of the valley. As if by agreement the houses are built one on top of the other, detached, in order not to throw a shadow over one another. The sun visits the valley late in the morning and sets behind the hill early in the evening. The house roofs are of the two or four-eaved kind, mostly covered with slabs. On the wide, stony house sides, there are one or two lines of smaller windows edged with stony window-sills and with green shutters. The big wine-cellars’ doors are on the western side. They are arched with a porch set on the top of a stony staircase. From the porch one enters the house, usually the sitting-room, because the central room of Brac’s village households was transferred to the loft. That is why we see many masarde roofs of various shapes and purposes. These old, stone houses detached or set in rows, preserved the mark of the genuine folk architecture. They stand as witnesses of the existence of the wealthier families, their former owners. The Doljans knew how to make use of the vicinity of the sea and the woods in the backround from where they led out many mules loaded with the finest quality of ilex. On the slopes of porous, fertile earth, they cultivate vines and olive-trees. Throughout their large community from Postira on the sea up to the Vidova gora (The Vidova Mountain), there are flocks of sheep grazing in a few sheperds’ places on the Brac plateau.
History. Dol has been a Croatian settlement since its origin. It is first mentioned in 1137 and 1345 in connection with the agrarian contract between the Split archbishopric and the Doljans, regarding the tilling of the land in Postira.
Monuments. Dol is surrounded by old Croatian chapels set on the nearby peaks, the most important among them being that of St Michael set on Miholja rat (Cape of Mihalj). The door of the chapel is made from a Roman sarcophagus from which the bottom side has been taken off. Above the door is the penetrated semicircular lunette with the radially laid sides. In the environs of the chapel there were some tombs which by aspect and by the way of burial belong to the old Croatian tombs from the 9th to the 11th century, A sarcophagus on the hill of St. Michael, the warrior with the balance of good and evil leads us to conclude that the homage paid to this peak the dominates Dol and Skrip is much older then the church raised, probably in the 12th century. Of a similiar kind is the case of the chapel of St. Vid from the 13th to the 14th century set on the neighboring hill. This saint is probably a personified Slav deity Svevid (q.v. Vidova gora). In default of a special reason for paying homage to St. Vid, both the chapels were neglected and then destroyed, which is much unlike the destiny of other chapels on Brac. Deep in the interior, along the old footpath leading from Nerezisca to Praznica in the region of Sutvara (from Latin sancta Barbara), there is also the old Croatian chapel of St. Barbara. The linguistic data suggest its being older than the rest of the chapels mentioned. Nearest to the village, the cemetery chapel of St. Peter, with the Dalmatian belfry, in which in the oldest bell on island originating from the 14th or the 15th century. The present parish church with a semicircular gable with baroque ornamentation was raised in 1866. It is, probably, the last derivative of such forms on Brac. On one side in its interior there is a baroque cross, better known to the worshippers as the dolski skrts (The Dol’s Cross). Of the secular architecture we should mention the fortified homestead of the Gospodnetic family with decorative elements belonging to the late Renaissance, with profiled door with a coat of arms and high walls. Above Dol, there is an opening of a tunnel which will, through the ever thirsty entrails of Brac, bring over the water of the river of Cetina to the south of the island.