Former Convent of St Mary de Taurello, Split

In the centre of Split, in Obrov street, the tall tower of the former convent of St Mary de Taurello can still be seen today. For centuries the largest Benedictine convent for women in the city stood here, and the remains of the complex give visitors a valuable insight into the sacred life of medieval and early modern Split.

The nuns settled in the 11th century, beside the western city walls, which then ran along today's Obrov. Construction dragged on until the 14th century, and from that period the southern Gothic portal in Kraj sv. Marije street has survived. A century later the church received a main entrance in the Renaissance spirit. That portal was removed before the Second World War and kept in the City Museum of Split, and today it is once again in its original place in Domaldova street. The French administration abolished the convent in 1807 and 1808, and in 1937 most of it was demolished to make way for the never-completed Orthodox church of St Sava. The porticoes of the convent courtyard survived.

The former convent is a protected cultural good, entered in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia under the code Z-5953.

Photo: Sandi BUlimbašić, CC BY-SA 3.0 hr, Wikimedia Commons.
Data: Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia (Ministry of Culture and Media), Open Licence; coordinates: Wikidata (CC0).