Church of St Roch, Vrboska

The church of St Roch stands at the southwest entrance to Vrboska, on a slope above a narrow cove, beside the path to the Starigrad field. It is interesting as the youngest of Vrboska's churches.

It was built in 1577 with the features of folk Baroque. It is single-nave, with a pointed masonry vault and a square apse in the west, and its entrance is in the east. The unusual orientation results from its position: the main façade faces the centre of the settlement. It is built of roughly dressed stone, the roof is gabled, of stone slabs, and above the façade rises a Baroque bell gable decorated with volutes and a plant ornament. On the south wall is an elongated window of late Gothic shape. In the sanctuary is a three-part wooden Baroque altar with statues of Saints Roch, Fabian and Sebastian, attributed to the Bavarian master Urban de Surgge; the mensa is of stone with polychrome inlay.

The church is a protected cultural good and is entered in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia under the code Z-6281.

Photo: Argo Navis, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Data: Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia (Ministry of Culture and Media), Open Licence; coordinates: Wikidata (CC0).