Church on Gradina, Jelsa

The church on Gradina is located on the peninsula of the same name northeast of Jelsa, in Split-Dalmatia County. Visitors can see here a combination of the remains of a late antique fortress, the outlines of a monastery and a Baroque edifice.

In 1605 an Augustinian monastery was founded on Gradina, abolished in the 18th century and demolished at the beginning of the 19th century, when the site began to serve as a cemetery. The outlines of the monastery can still be seen today, and of the whole complex only the Baroque church has been preserved, which is a cemetery chapel. It has a rectangular ground plan, built of stone in courses of unequal height. On the axis of the main façade is a Baroque portal with a smaller oculus above. At the northeast corner stands a bell tower of the closed type, its floors marked by simple dividing cornices, with a masonry loggia and a four-sided roof.

The church is a protected cultural good, entered in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia under the code RST-0027-1962.

Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author, 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: DGU (centre of the settlement).