TOWERS AND FORTRESSES - VRBOSKA

Vrboska, the fortified church of St. Mary of Mercy, later than the year 1571 Vrboska developed at the bottom of a deep and narrow bay of the northern coast of the island of Hvar. It came to be the port for the older villages that were situated at a distance from the coast, particularly of Vrbanja. The centre of Vrboska is located near the very end of the bay, while on an elevated position above the settlement the church of St. Mary was built in the late Middle Ages. In the 16th century, at the time of the greatest Ottoman expansion in our lands, Dalmatian islands, too, were exposed to Turkish attacks. One of such piratical, plundering raids upon Hvar took place in 1571 and on this occasion, along with some other places, Vrboska also suffered damage. Only the inhabitants of Jelsa somehow managed to protect themselves owing, among other things, to the fact that their church of St. Fabian and St. Sebastian was fortified. Advised by this experience, the inhabitants of Vrboska started fortifying their church: the building located out-of-the-way above the settlement was turned into an imposing monument, the outstanding example of a fortified sacral building on our coast. The rectangular sanctuary was turned into a rounded tower owing to an attached construction, in the same way as the sacristy on the southern side, in whose tower a staircase was built. The staircase was necessary because it would serve in case of danger to make quick access to the top of the church possible. On the top of the church, along the roof protective passages with cresting were built. On the two corners bay windows were constructed, projecting oriels for the surveillance of the foot of the building, and it seems that a corresponding protective gallery used to stretch above the whole of the western facade, i.e. above the entrance to the church. At some later time, the church had probably had a low and rather peaked, elongated bastion, logically directed toward the way of approach. The ground-plan is pentagonal and the typical details like the lean-to lower part of the crown above it. The bastion was skilfully exploited as a cistern – the water reservoir that could be crucial in the case of a protracted, exhausting siege. Inside it is a customary single-nave church with a simple sanctuary. Having been turned into a fortress, St. Mary’s church became an impressive monument which, with its narrow and high, particularly shaped body, dominates above the whole of Vrboska.