From DECLINE OF HVAR by Arthur A. Baer

Hvar Town, nowadays a popular island resort in the summer and the little fishing village the rest of the year, charming with its weather-beaten honey- colored ruins of Venetian palaces and its red-brown fishing nets spread for drying on the white marble quays - was once a city. Once the streets were crowded with artisans and merchants and officials, the warehouses were packed to the doors with goods in transit from East to West and from West to East, and the great harbour, protected from storms by the Islands of Hell, could barely contain the hosts of ships from all over the known Mediterranean world.

Hvar, 16th cent. (click to enlarge)

GOLDEN AGE OF HVAR TOWN

In 1420, the island passed without a struggle back to the Venetians and finally became part and parcel of the dominions of the Republic and entered that Golden Age which had so intrigued our imaginations.

The power of Venice was obvious to her many rivals at the opening of the 15th century, Hungary had withdrawn, the Slavic pirates had been cowed, the Turks were not yet a serious threat and the Republic was in full control of the Dalmatian coast. Hvar began to assume its importance as an outpost of the mother city.

The well-protected harbour was filled with the naval and commercial galleys of Venice and of her allies and friends. It was a provisioning point for vessels on their way to and from Corfu, which was the Venetian base for traffic into Mediterranean waters and for cargo ships headed for Levant. In addition, because of its mild climate, Hvar was designated the winter harbour of the main Venetian fleet.

Records of the day indicate that the war galley which Hvar agreed, by treaty, to furnish to the Venetian naval forces, was manned with one hundred oarsmen and several hundred armed sailors. When divisions of the fleet were in port, thousands of sea-faring men filled the steep streets of Hvar. The forges blazed night and day. The Arsenal resounded with the ring of mallets on iron straps. Hundreds of fishermen brought into the market huge desirable catches, for the stony sea-floor about the island, with its abundant flora, had always been a productive fishing-ground. Since salt drying was an old trade on the island, tons of fish were salted and packed for shipment to the towns of Italy.

The prosperous island had good grazing areas for sheep and there developed important exporting of wool and sheep and goat cheese. In the terraced vineyards was grown a particularly rich and luscious grape. Every house had huge bunches of the grapes hanging from the ceiling for drying, and, when half dried, the grapes were taken down and each grape showing the least evidence of mold or decay was rejected. The resultant untainted juice was, naturally, sweeter and of an unusually clean flavor. The wine, called prosecco, was like a liqueur in character and had a wide market.

The ground floor of every palace was a warehouse packed to the ceiling with bales and cases and barrels waiting for cargo space to Venice and Bari and Naples, and the streets rang with the cries of porters pushing, pulling and carrying their heavy cumbersome loads to and form the overcrowded quays.

Artisans and stone-cutters from Venice and her dominions filled the city. Endless lines of oxen dragged blocks of stone and marble from the quarries. Scaffolds were everywhere as the churches and palaces and bell-towers rose in splendor throughout the city.

The colorful pageantry of Venetian social and civic life had its full reflection in Hvar. The great religious holidays were celebrated with pomp and ceremony. The banners of San Marco flew proudly from the marble-based pillory on the quay.

In this propitious atmosphere, a Renaissance culture developed, principally Venetian in character, but with important Slavic outcroppings. Poetry and drama developed. The city established a humanistic school, offering training in mathematics, grammar and rhetoric, and both the Franciscan and Dominican monasteries assembled significant libraries. A record of 1444 indicates that there was a physician in Hvar, who naturally also served as surgeon, dentist and pharmacist.

Italian masters were imported to fill the churches and monasteries with paintings, and the sacristies bulged with silver and gold reliquaries, with chalices and bishops' staffs fashioned by the most skilled artisans of the time. The Venetian traders brought from the Levant and sold to the rich families and congregations of Hvar costly and precious silks, brocades and velvets.

The diplomatic and naval power of the Republic protected Hvar in its Golden Age. Unfortunately, the Doges made enemies as well as friends, and as the decades passed the Turk became the most dangerous threat to her wide-spread trading empire. Defensive alliances were not always successful. By the middle of the 16th century, Serbia and Bosnia were completely under Turkish domination, and even Dalmatia itself, except for the coastal cities and some of the islands.

The imperialistic sultans, hungering for Italy in their "drang nach Western," needed full control of the east Adriatic coast. Early in 1571, the renegade Uliz-Ali, King of Algiers, invaded the Adriatic with a large Turkish fleet, attacked Korcula, but failed to take it, and loosed his forces on the city and island of Hvar. When the savage invasion was over, the island had been desolated and the city burned to the ground. It was the greatest catastrophe in Hvar's post-Roman history.

But 1571 was also the date of the battle of Lepanto, when Turkish sea power was completely annihilated by the combined fleets of Venice and Charles V. In this memorable battle, the Hvar war galley participated with glory, commanded by one Pietro Vidali, and the prow of that vessel, a ferocious snarling dragon Zvir, is still preserved and on display in the art gallery above the Arsenal.

The Turkish defeat produced a refluorescence of Venetian prosperity, and this was reflected again in Hvar with a complete restoration of its churches, monasteries, public buildings and palaces, all in the rich Renaissance style of the period.

Hvar's prosperity was dependent on the fortunes of the Republic, and when they began to decline, Hvar began to deteriorate. Moreover, when the steam engine replaced the oarsman and vessels began to go more swiftly and for longer distances, a halfway station on the eastern Adriatic shore lost its importance. Dalmatia was ceded to Napoleon in 1805, and French forces defending Hvar had fallen under Austrian domination, and the Austrians, during the following hundred years, encouraged it to fall into decay.