DRACEVICA
Island of Brac
History. Dracevica was found late, by refugees from Poljica who settled on
Brac by the Venetian ducal order of the 31st December 1574. The former
settlement was a few kilometers further to the west, in Nerezine where we can
still see today the remains of the houses. Dracevica was under the parish of
Nerezisca which was far away. That is why at the beginning of the 17th century
the Dracevljans moved to the present site, near the old pools with the natural
alluviums next to the hills, towards the south and in front of Bunjas, one of
the most spacious and most fertile karst fields on the island.
By their exceptional diligence the Dracevljans tilled the soil and sorted out
stone to cultivate vineyards and olive-groves and thus made the place very
prosperous in the 18th and the 19th century which lasted until phylloxera
destroyed the vineyards. At the beginning of the 19th century Dracevica had 450
inhabitants: then after the First World War, emigration began and now it has 137
inhabitants, exactly the same as two centuries ago
Description. Dracevica is built harmoniously, following some intuitive scheme
of space planning. From the large square with the well in its centre the wide
footpaths start off spreading like beams of light. The square is girdled by high
one-storey and two-storey houses that are encircled by yard-walls with the
cisterns in front or in the houses and with the gardens with almonds behind the
houses. At the beginning of the 20th century, Dracevica was the best maintained
settlement on the island.
We can find there, however, some remains of ancient dwellings in deserted hovels
with a kind of screen or without any partition at all, with earthen floors and
small openings in the walls, with a fire-place in the middle and without any
chimney, similiar to the kind we find in almost all of the Brac settlements.
There we also find a few cone-shaped little houses in the yards that serve as
sties, store-rooms, kitchens or winecellars. Almost every house has its own
well, apart from those numerous arched ones in vineyards and fields. So many
walls cannot be found in any other place on the island.
Dracevica is open towards the western Brac coast with a large valley. From in it
Maestral brings the breath of the sea and the freshness of the afternoons.
Research has shown that Dracevica is on the best possible site regarding the
mingling and influence of sea and mountain air.
Monuments. It is not by mere chance that we find here the remains of Roman
life. On the two-peaked hill of Trscenik there is a Kostirna (Lat. cisterna dug
out in living stone, a cover of a sarcophagus that now serves as a cattle
water-trough and a stone seat. Some Roman coins were found on krkanje brdo.
(Lat. circinatus, circled), on the hrma glavica, on the site of the older church
of St. Cusma and Damian, while Roman steles are built into the walls of the
houses.
When the Dracevljans from Nerezine moved over to this place at the beginning of
the 17th century they dug out Kostirna on the krkanja brdo (The Hill of Krkanj).
In 1674 they raised a church dedicated to the holy physicians, Cusma and Damian.
The cemetery was raised next to the church. At the beginning of the 18th
century, (in 1705) Dracevica became a curacy and in 1738 the present parish
church was raised with a triangular gable, in the quiet and simple lines of the
pre-Romanesque style. There is an interesting wooden altar with the painting of
the Immaculate Conception which is strongly reminiscent of Tironi’s painting
in the church in Supetar.
The walls of the biggest windmill on Brac, set on Glavica, dominate the village.
According to historical sources, on this island always in want of flour, there
were hundreds of mills. It is quite possible that the majority of mills referred
to grindstones which are also numerous here in Dracevica.
The impression of the slow destruction of this beautiful village is still more
reinforced with the burnt-out remains of the biggest houses round the square,
which have been left from the war time to remind us to the occupier’s revenge.