SKRIP Island of Brac
Description. Skrip is the oldest settlement on the island. Set on the top of the hill, with its belfry, church facade and huge towers it appears like a town strangly lost in this karst. It is a monument in which three ethnic layers have deposited (Illyrian, Roman and Croatian) the evidence of their presence. the old Illyrian walls, sarcophagi, towers and churches, all are sqeezed on this hill into some subtle entity which gives to this neglected rural village an atmosphere filled with some dramatic heroism. (C. Fiskovic). With the passing of time from the Roman town the life came out as from a shell but the memory of its great history remained. They call it Veli Skrip (The Big Skrip). There, in the ruins of the town, history dwells while here, in the present, in younger Skrip, there is just the naked soul of the Brac peasant on the bare karst.
History. Skrip is much older than can be seen in any of the preserved written documents. It is the whole of Brac in itself. The older chroniclers mention a Greek town on Brac, from the time of the Greek colonisation of this coast in times before Christ. According to tradition, this town should be that of Skrip. Science denies such stories because the Greeks, being the most merchant-spirited of the Mediterranean peoples, built their trading colonies along the sea and not so high in the hills, away from the coast. The huge ruins in Skrip follow the Greek style but they were raised by the local Illyrian populace probably to resist, in physical sense, the Greek penetration of the island. History often refers to the fact that in the time of the Greek colonisation of Korcula (Korcys), Stari Grad (Pharos, Vis (Issa, Brac was left uncolonised on their way to the mainland colonies to Trogir (Tragurion) and Stobrec (Epetion). And so Brac came to be one of the few of our islands to be left without a town, turned deep into its interior. The old chroniclers state that the Illyrians resisted the Greek colonisation. They had therefore a good reason to raise towers like the one in Skrip, to defend and succeed in defending the freedom of Skrip and to preserve its economic independence until Roman times. The Romans were not seamen like the Greeks and their conquering apetites were much greater than the Illyrian longing for freedom. Archeological monuments in the surroundings of Skrip, stand as a witness that the Romans, even before the building of the Diocletian palace, exploited its quarries. In the quarries of Rasohe, Plate and Zastrazisce, between Skrip and Splitska there worked hundreds of Roman slaves. There must have also been many of the Roman nobles who built luxurious monuments. The pagan sacrificial posts and the stone sarcophagi from the Early Christian times are still preserved. During the long period of their stay there, the Romans did not need to raise any towers to defend themselves. many of the Illyrian fortified walls were then destroyed and replaced by Roman monuments. In the 7th century Roman refugees from the ruined Solin came to Brac. the chronicler noted that in the 9th century the Croats from Neretva surrounded and defeated Skrip while the Roman populace fled towards Bol under the fortified Kostilo, where in 872 they were attacked by the Saracens. From this point they spread to the whole of the island and were gradual assimilated by the Croats. Had Skrip been a Greek colony and were it built on the coast, it would certainly have continued the tradition of a town. After the Slavs had arrived in Skrip, they somewhat reluctantly entered the deserted ruins. The settled in its suburbs, as cattle-breeders and peasants. Unused to the huge buildings they continued to live in the modest, dry-wall ground-floor houses. Spring-water in Humac and Sabacev dolac, natural or dug-out pools and cultivated surroundings lands, all these offered the advantages favorable to life. In the 13th century they tried to settle in the harbor of Slitska but succeeded in it only in the 15th century. During the Venetian-Turkish wars, strongholds were erected, but along-side some other prominent church buildings.
Name. it was quite customary with the old chroniclers to find a more respected origin for their people. And so they said that Antenor, upon the destruction of Troy, landed on Brac where he left a few Greeks from Ambracia, from which the name Brattia (Brac) is derived. Accordingly it was thought that the name Skrip is of Greek origin, from skirphai (lime), which was wrong, because the Greeks did not reach the interior of the island. the name Skrip originates from the Latin name scrupus, which denotes huge stones, which were to be found in those times at the back of big Roman quarries. Of the same origin is also Skrip in Praznica which refers to the crevice-filled rise in the western part of the village. Roman names were wide spread on the island while Greek one were found practically nowhere. Had there been any at all, they would not have been in the interior but on the coast.
Monuments. 1. Illyrian buildings. The walls, composed of layers of bigger stones, created the stories about the Greeks. We have already said that thay were Illyrian and Greek only in style. Their remains are visable near the western base of the high tower of Radojkovic. From here they stretch some 25 meters to the north where the huge doors were set. There they turn, passing through the gardens of p. Jericevic and P. Radojkovic, to the east, where there was a small door, the memory of which is still kept in the name Vroca (vratca, the small door). The remains of the walls further stretch from here to the south along the village path up to the cliff Kuka (the hook, the steep cliff). On the southern side is the cliff like a natural sheltering screen. These huge cliffs can also be seen elsewhere but the entire locality is practically unexplored.
2. Roman monuments. Roman monuments were found there in abundance. Let us mention lokva (the pond) dug into the living stone (7x3x2,5 meters) next to the entrance to the cemetery with a stone staircase and a little water-vessel on the south-western side. There were other pools in the nearer and further surroundings of Skrip, as well as some spring-water wells. It is all quite explicable if we bear in mind the hundreds of slaves that were working in the nearby quarries. Their supervisors and other nobles in Roman Skrip, erected the shrines to the pagan dieties Jupiter, Heracles, Mitra, Mercury and Liber and in Skrip they raised stone sarcophagi and other tombs for their families and for themselves. Skrip is the largest preserved Roman cemetery on the island. On the site of the former rich life, the monuments of death are the most frequent ones.
A few sarcophagi are set near the southern wall of the fortified castle of Cerinic. The cover of a sarcophagus is next to the eastern wall of the castle and the second sarcophagus is built into the wall of the garden, on the right side of the way that runs along the northern wall of the castle. Still another one is set across the footpath in the garden. A few graves are dug in the living stone, like the one in the garden on the southern side of the square, where next to the grave of a grown up man is a smaller one for a child. Another similiar grave is on the estate of Vukovic, with the oblique sides sides of the interior. The covers of the sarcophagi are oblique with acroterion on their corners. One of them has a barrel-vaul and a cross like the one on cemetery of Supetar. All the Roman sarcpphagi belong to the pagan and Early Christian period on the island. Many of the sarcophagi were completely destroyed. People used their interiors to store oil and the covers were used as water-buckets. Many a one they destroyed, and, without their bottom side, used them to frame their doors like, for example, on the little church of St. Michael above Dol which can be seen on the neighboring hill, south-east of Skrip. The biggest and the most magnificent grave is sqeezed above the massive base of the Illyrian walls, at the bottom of the Croatian tower of Radojkovic. It is, probably, the mausoleum of some Roman nobleman. It is of square form, built of dressed, reguraly arranged stones. Over the crypt are two huge stone arches. In 1971 this monument was still in the process of being examined so that the final opinions have not yet been stated.
3. The tower of Radojkovic. Above the Roman building is the prominent, high tower of Radojkovic raised in the 16th century, during the Venetian-Turkish wars. We discern there three building layers that demonstrate three different ethnic layers. Its bottom is built if irregularly cut stone until the crown, and then in the rustic style of little stones until the top. In all the sides, towards the top of the tower, are built-in windows standing on protecting consoles. All over the walls are loop-holes. The use of the little stones that were probably found in abundance in the surroundings, encourages us to think that the tower was built fairly quickly because of approaching danger. In later centuries, as if looking for shelter, the little cottages were erected. It is encircled with a walled yard whose walls seem to tell us that it was inhabited for fear of danger than because of wealth and luxury.
4. The castle of Cerinic. The biggest fortified castle on the island remained isolated from the little houses near by. Together with the church on the gentle elevation, it forms a picturesque square in which we find the damaged column for the flag-pole. The castle was raised in 1618 by the same Cerinic who owned the castle-fort at Splitska . On the fortified walls are two towers. The one on the north-west now has a damaged ending while the one on the south-east has ends with holes. The massive walls of the castle with the loop-holes hide a modest estate yard in which near the southern and the western walls were the quarters of the master, while next to the northern wall were the quarters of the master, while next to the northern wall were the various estate rooms, arched, with a huge terrace. Ther the northern wall of the castle is penetrated and decorated with biforium which seems to be the eyes of the castle enjoying the view of Brac’s channel. In the western part was the garden with an orchard. The note on its maintenance is left over the western entrance to the castle.
5. The cemetery. In the cemetery is the ancient chapel of the Holy Spirit built in the shape of a three naved basilica. Its originality is visable on the main facade, in the barrel-vault and the lesens in the upper part of the walls. The side naves were added in the 16th century and the square chapel, a century later. Among the graves inside it, the most prominent is that of Cerinic. In front of the church are a few old Croatian graves on whose covers are carved rudders, mowers, axes, hoes, swords and shields. These are probably the symbols that show profession of the dead men.
6. Monasteries. In the parish archives, there are mentioned three smaller nunneries in Skrip. The ruins of one of them are seen from the southern side of the village, near the chapel of St. Anthony, which is barrel-vault and lighted through Gothic windows. The other two nunneris were probably set in the yards of Mihojevic and Radojkovic.
7. The church. The parish church of St. Helena, whom the folk tradition believes to be from Brac and who is a bone of centention between several villages ( Selca, Skrip), has the most harmonious baroque facade on Brac. The building was started in 1768 and completeted at the beginning of the 19th century. The line of its gable expressed a twisting, ricking movement together with valutes and decorative vases and it gets narrower towards the top where stands the prominent statue of Christ. from him goes the imaginery line of symmetry, over the octofoil windows up the ray-like rosette, retained from the medieval architecture, over the rustic statue of the Madonna up to the profiled portal. The volutes, niches, transens set at asymmetrical intervals all reveal the provincial spirit of over-decoration and the tendency towards tradition, but in spite of all this, we cannot deny the harmony and unobtrusiveness of this religious monument next to the huge wall of the fort in Skrip’s square. The interior of the church that divides the walls of this huge dark stone, appears very calm and harmonious. The ceiling is flat with transversal wooden beams above the elegant cornice. In the semicircular chapel is the prominent main altar with the statues of Moses and John and behind the altar as the wooden choir. The thickness of the wall is proved by the stairs that cut across the interior of the wall to the pulpti. The massive size and thickness of the walls is not even noticed in the baroque movement of the lines on the building which was built over a long period but following a single plan. The belfry was the only exception. Its lower part has Gothic windows while the upper one has a lodge with the ending pyramid, typical of the majority of the belfries in Dalmatia.
8. Altar paintings of Palma the Younger. In the church are the four altar paintings of the prominent Venetian mannerist, Palma the Younger, pupil of Titian and Tintoretto. The rich activity of Palma in the whole of Dalmatia, cannot be properly appreciated without these paintings from Skrip. The Baptism of Christ, St. Rocchus and St. Clara, St Jerome and St. Augustine, and Mary with the Saints. In these paintings the huge firgures of the saints are set in the foreground creating thus the impression of dynamism in the mutual relation of the figures and the relation s of the figures with the landscape, in the fluid colorful details, especially in the rich draperies of Mary and Augustine. Much of the artist’s freedom we see in the tratment of the female figures of Mary and Clara. The expressive softness is seen in the painting of the complexion of the woman-like roundness of Christ’s body. His figures are set in diagonal or triangular compositions (St. Rocchus and St. Clara). In all the paintings there is a subtle gradation of alternating light and shade (St. Jerome), and especially so in some seemingly less important parts of the picture like the bluish greenish landscape in the backround (The Baptism of Christ) in which the depth of the space is gained through the gradation of the planes in the rhythm of the bluish strokes of through the atmosphere of the humid Venetian sky (St. Jerome and St. Clara).
9. The regional Museum of the island. Now, in 1971 it is only a wish that it be set in the complex of the tower of Radojkovic. It would consist of a lapidary, ethnographical collection with numerous tools and other items of the material and spiritual culture of the Bracans, and a few permenent exhibitions in which the development of stone-masonry, tourism and voluminous material on the revolutionary island during the liberation war from 1941 to 1945 could be displayed. Skrip is the best possible site for such a museum. And for what it already has, Skrip has been an exhibition itself for a long time.