SPLITSKA
Island of Brac
Description. The small, gentle cove, surrounded by the cultivated wood of
coastal pine, set on the road from Supetar to Postira. It is partly exposed to
the northern wind so that the houses are piled together on the sunny hill side
exposing their picturesque fronts to the sun. The floor of the cove was left
uninhabited in order to preserve the fertile soil and to let in the current of
the refreshing evening breeze that comes from the interior of the island to cool
the heat. The houses are gathered round the church and the forts. Splitska is a
valuable monument of the local architecture. The Croats wanted to settle there
as early as the 13th century but the pirates often forced them back to the
hills.
The houses on the coast are of smooth, stone walls, with one-eaved to four-eaved
roofs and with their facades or side fronts turned toward the coast. They seem
somehow monumental in this quiet cove with the backround of grey stone and
evergreen manquis. The houses surrounded by high-walled yards appear like an
unbroken chain of strongholds.
From the upper sides of the houses, where the walls are shorter we find the
entraces to the rooms. With their neatly arranged windows they are open to the
sun coming from the southern side. The roofs are mainly covered with
stone-slabs. The wall-ends under the eaves are framed with the stone
gutter-pipes that appear like a decorative wreath laid on stone nails.
The other face of Splitska is formed out of the peasant houses. The rustic yards
are surrounded by dry-walls and small huts for various purposes: they serve
either as dwelling of cellars or sites or the baking oven or as stone seats in
the shadow of some thick clump of trees. All these are interwoven in the karst
as its inseparable elements.
History. For almost two millenniums endured the marked division between the
patricians and the nobles on one side and the slaves and the feudal serf on the
other.
With the beauty, position, the usefulness of its harbour, vicinity of Skrip (q.q.)
and the abundance of good quarries, Splitska was very important to the Roman
builders, especially in connection with the building of Diocletian’s palace in
Split. That many stone-blocks were picked up here, that they were manufactured
and freighted here for the magnificient house of Diocletian’s was proved by
chemical analysis and by the formation of the stone blocks that were found and
displayed here and by the doorways glittering from the sea bottom like
undisturbed, thousand-year-old exibits when the sea is calm.
In the nearby quarries of Plata, Zastrazisce and Rasoh, between Skrip (q.v.) and
Splitska, there worked hundreds of Roman slaves sentenced to hard labour in the
quarries (servi poenae et calcaria). For years slaves cut the stone under the
close supervision of Roman veterans. This is found inscribed in stones.
About the origin of this mass of the quarries’ slaves we know nothing.
According to the sacrificial posts and inscriptions raised to honour the gods,
we learn that they paid homage to the Oriental god Mitra, the supreme Toman
deity Jupiter, Heracles the victorius, the wine god Liber and the merchants god
Mercury. This is further confirmed by the coins discovered, of Phoenician,
Greek, Illyrian and Roman origin.
The gods and the slaves! The gods we know from the inscriptions on the
sacrificial posts while of the sacrified slaves nothing but a trace is left in
the piles of cut stone.
The choice of the divinity to worship was not a result of a mere liking but it
was conditioned by the warrior and economic acivity of the powerful men in
Splitska’s surroundings.
The coming centuries left no trace behind. But the ruined Early Chrstian church
of St. Andrew (from the 6th to the 7th century, with the side door in the left
wall, points to a connection with probably auxillary buildings. This hypothesis
encourages us to presume the unbroken continuity of living there, up to the
arrival of the Croats.
The Croats tried to settle in the harbour at the beginning of the 13th century.
They restored the brotherhood of B.D.M. Stomorena (from Lat. Sancta Maria). This
little church, in view of the linguistic data, was probably there from an
earlier date. In 1228 the seven families from Skrip renovated the little church
of St. Maria, built three common graves and with it the permission of the Brac
Prince Drazina summoned an assembly on the 18th of March in 1228. This can be
read in the marble memorial-tablet affixed to the wall on the coast in front of
the church, raised in 1928 by the Brothers of the Croatian Dragon.
Priates from omis soon prevented the establishing of the settlement. The
Splitskas moved to the fortified Skrip, while their dwellings built with
dry-walls, were gradually destroyed by the long centuries of silence.
Modern Splitska, similiar to the other coastal places on Brac, developed only in
the 16th century. Then the Brac noble family of Cerinic erected a fortified
castle to resist the Turkish attacks. The little church of St. Mary was
renovated. The place developed fairly quickly because Christofo da Canal, a Brac
Prince, chose it for its seat (Splisca nostra residenzza)
Name. It is erroneously thought that Splitska’s name originated from the time when Diocletian’s palace was built: it was completed in the year 303. In the 4th century Split was at the beginning of its development and without a fixed name. Splitska could have come into being only when Split became an influential mercantile center and when Brac became too populated so that the necessity for mutual connections was inevitable. This could have happened only in the 7th or in the 9th century. Splitska is derived from Split and the ending ska means harbour of Split.
Monuments. In the epigraph from Splitska and in the name from Veselia
Feli(c)etas (dedicated to the god Libero, the only Illyrian name on the island
is preserved. In the Roman quarry of Rasoha, some 800 m up the valley, there can
still be seen on the cliff, the rustic figure of Heracles, the most important
character from Roman times on Brac. Near the fence of M. Babarovic in Plati
there is a Roman sarcophagus. A few stone-blocks were taken out from the sea in
the harbour. They were either picked there or brought down from other places to
be shaped. Some of them are now walled up on the western foot of the bay marking
the beginning of future lapidary work.
Early Christian art left a valuable monument in the now destroyed church of St.
Andrew from the 6th to 7th century, set on the way to Skrip. The apse is still
preserved. It is oval in the interior and flat from the exterior resembling that
of the basilica of Povlja. From the outer walls lesens (the semi-columns) are
visible. A side opening probably points to some addition, possibly the priest’s
quarters.
A part from the Early Christian relief with the little sheep, under the cross,
A. Vulic walled in his yard’s fence.
In modern times in Splitska we find the castle of Cerinic, which consists of
three mutually connected buildings round a high defence tower with loop-holes
and consoles erected in 1577, as we read over the entrance. In this yard,
various store-rooms are set in order. The baroque walled staircase leads to the
house. The little defence wall which had hidden the window, protected the
entrance to the house. The entire complex is the most harmonious fortified
object on the island
The parish church probably kept the unbroken tradition of the sacred place of
the B.D. Maria Stomorena. It is remarkable for the late Renaissance polychrome
altar which presents Madonna with the Saints.
A bad road, for the present, branches off from the Splitska to Skrip which is by
history and its monumental value closely connected to this settlement.