MY GUIDED TOUR TO VISOVAC

Welcome back. Then you will continue to Roski Slap, passing through a canyon which entrance
can be seen from here. Maybe you can see wild goats. You will stop in Roski Slap for one and a
half hours. I recommend you to visit the cave, that you can reach by climbing 500 stairs. From
here you can see a gorgeous panorama of the small waterfalls of Roski Slap, called „necklaces“
by the local people. From that point you can also see a beautiful panorama of the canyon that
goes to the Orthodox monastery and the medieval Croatian fortresses. Here in Visovac I am
going to show you the church and the monastery. Once we will have finished, you will have
enough time to go to the souvenir shop and the toilet, that are behind me. Now we will go to
the museum and I will tell you some information about Visovac in front of there.

This tree is called Bonbon and comes from India and China. It is said that it is called Bonbon
because 100 years ago a frenchman, while he was in India, tasted a fruit of the tree and he
liked it so much that he said in French „c'est bon, bon“, that means „it's good, good!“.

This cypress (čempres) (before the museum, to the right side) is the oldest tree of the island. It
is around 300 years old and we know it because there is a 250-years-old picture of the island
and this was one of the few trees that appear there.

I guess you know that here live some Franciscan monks, because this is a Franciscan
monastery. Now there are 3 priests and 4 young novices, who will be priests. Once they finish
a specialized high school to become Franciscan monks (in Sinj) they come to Visovac, where
they spend a cloistered year and take the vows. After this year they study theology in Split and
then they can become priests. If they don't want to study they become deacons. In this way,
they belong to the order and they are not priests but Franciscan monks. They can't celebrate
masses nor confess people.

As for the history, Augustinian monks were the first who arrived to the island in the middle of
the fourteenth century. They run away in the middle of the fifteenth century because of the
Turkish invasion and 5 years later the Bosnian Franciscan monks arrived. In the seventeenth
century they had to leave the island due to the Ottoman-Venetian wars and they spent 25
years exiled in Šibenik. They came back to the island with the permission of the Turkish sultan
Mehmed IV. I will show you the written document in the museum later.

The distinctive feature of Visovac is that until the fourteenth century it wasn't an island but a
big deserted white rock called Lapis Albus (White Rock). Augustinian and Franciscan monks
brought soil and stones from the coast in order to extend the island. Franciscan carried on
extending it for 300 years and now it is 160 metres long and 100 metres wide. The priests, the
novices and two labourers take care of the island. Inland on the left bank of the Krka River
Franciscan monks have a big garden with 250 olive trees used for the olive oil production. They
eat the products grown by themselves and buy some other products they need in Drniš, that is
17 kilometres away, or in Šibenik.

MUSEUM
Now I am going to speak about the document I've mentioned in front of the museum, the so-
called Ferman of Mehmed IV, that allowed the Franciscan in the seventeenth century to come
back to the island after an exile in the Saint Laurence's Monastery in Šibenik due to the Turkish
occupation. This document also guaranteed them freedom and other rights. It is an Arabic
letter and is written right-to-left.

(In the same wall where the Ferman document is). This is a sixteenth-century document from
the Pope Innocent XI where he forgives all the sins of the people who go to the island to pray
and confess on the 2nd of August.

The priests used this baton to make the population literate. It can be also called abecedary
because the numbers and the letters (big and small ones) are written on it. So the priests used
to take it with them when they were going to visit and teach to the nearby villages.

These amphoras were found in the Adriatic Sea and they date back the early centuries of the
Roman Empire.

BIG SHOWCASE

In the other side of the room there are some objects dating back the prehistoric and Roman
era of this region. The oldest objects are from the mid-neolithic (around 3000 bC). There are
some ceramic tile pieces found in Mratovo, near St. Martin's church. Most of these objects
have been identified as candelabrums and pans, probably used during the religious rites
(rhytoni).

Here there is a light blue glass jar from the first or second century after Christ. It was used to
keep precious liquids, aromatic oils, balsamic oils (balzamarije).

These two bottles (two in light blue, two in light green) are from the same period. They were
deformed by high temperatures and used to keep aromatic liquids or the tears of the people
who had lost a beloved one. As we can see from the soot marks on the glass and their
deformation, these bottles were placed in the pyre close to the deceased person during the
cremation and then they were put close to the body's ashes.

These ceramic lanterns (lucerne) are from the first and second centuries.

This is a small bronze statue that represents a stylized horse. It can date back to the early
Christianism, the Ostrogoth (fifth century a.C.) or the Byzantin era (sixth or first half of the
seventh century a.C.).

These are the remains of some Roman aqueduct's pipes that brought water to Skradin.

These three small light green containers were used to keep the deceased's ashes and the tears
of those closest to him. These containers were placed at home in memory of the deceased
person.

Near here there is an urn with an in relieve image that represents the pagan god Pan.

Over the urn there is a white calcareous stone capital where we can see a high quality in
relieve design. It was found in Lepuri and dates back to the early Christianism.
The visit continues to the paintings and the books.

As for the paintings, most of them were painted by Venetian artists during the baroque period
(seventeenth and eighteenth centuries). This painting from the Renaissance (fifteenth century)
represents Saint Mary who is brestfeeding Jesus Christ and was painted by a Croatian artist,
Juraj Čulinović. The special feature of this painting is the representation of Saint Mary's breast.

This original painting represents Our Lady of Visovac and it was brought from Kraljeva Sutjeska
in the sixteenth century. It is a bad restoration so it has a dark colour now.

Now I want to talk about the biggest painting of the museum. It is called „Coronation of Our
Lady“ and it is so interesting because at the top there is a coat of arms of one of the
represented characters (probably it is an angel). The name „Jahve“ is written in Hebrew. The
most religious Hebrews cannot say this name aloud and instead of that they can say „Adonai“
(Our Lord), „Elokim“(that means „omnipotent“) or „Hašem“, that literally means „the name“.

As for literature, we have some examples of the glagolitic and the Old Bosnian Cyrillic
alphabets (bosančica). There is also a trilingual Croatian grammar (Croatian-Italian-Latin) and a
herbarium written in Italian.

I would like to highlight this Aesop's fable that is an inculable from the fifteenth century. This
one is Judita, a book written by Marko Marulić. It is the fifth original edition from 1627 (it's
interesting for Croatian visitors because the author was Croatian and he's not well-known in
other countries).

Now I am going to talk about some ex-votos. Those are reproductions, but in the past they
were silver and gold objects. Women gave their jewels to the church as a donation to thank
God for his mercy and those objects were casted and turned into new valuable ones. In the
seventeenth century there was a great famine and the Franciscan monks sold the ex-votos to
the Turkish to buy food for the people and for themselves.

Now I am going to show you some objects that were used during the religious rituals. Most of
them are made in silver or silver plated in gold. Here we can find ciboriums, crucifixes,
chasubles, etc.

I want to show you this crucifix made in ebory and ivony that was brought by missionaries
from Africa at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This is one of the most valuable
objects of the museum.

The big crucifix in the showcase is plated in gold and dates back to the fourteenth or fifteenth
century so it is the oldest object of the island.

In the showcase there are three nacre shells, so-called pearl mussels.

We can also see togas embroidered in gold threaten.

These churches were destroyed during the last war (in the 1990s) during the serbio-yugoslav
attacks in Croatia.

During the war, Visovac was attacked with grenades by the Serbian army, but there were only
material damages and nobody was injured. In that moment there were only 3 priests because
the novices had moved to Brač island between 1991 and 1992 for safety reasons. One of the
front lines was only 7 kilometres east from Visovac, in Miljevci, and the other one was around
5/6km northwest from Visovac, in Rupe. Occasionally, Croatian soldiers went to visit the
priests and give them some logistic support.

Around 60/70 years ago there were 20 priests and 30 novices in the island. There were also
some nuns 15 years ago. Now there are two workers who prepare the food and do cleaning
tasks.

In front of the church

From the church we can see the organs from the eighteenth century that were built by one of
the priest Petar Nakić's students. Petar Nakić was one of the most important organ
manufacturers and he was considered the „Stradivarius“ of the organs. They are placed above
the high altar.

The church:

The church is called Our Lady of Saint Angel and it was buit in the seventeenth century. The
presence of two high altars makes this church different from the other ones, as usually there is
only one high altar. Is it thought that it is the only church in Europe that has two altars. That
decision was taken for reasons of symmetry: near the monastery there was a small church
(fifteenth century) with just one high altar, the altar of Our Lady of Visovac. The northern part
was extended in the seventeenth century and another altar was added close to the old one in
order to make the church symmetrical (altar of the Saint Crucifix). For this reason the church,
builded in a gothic style, has two abses in Baroque style (this is so rare).

In order to allow priest to celebrate masses at the same time, the church was also extended
and four altars were added (there are four, Saint Joseph and Saint Pascal on the right, Saint
Anthony and Saint Francis on the left). Until 1965, at the end of the Second Vatican Council, it
could be only one priest in the altar during the celebration of the mass. In the church of
Visovac there were six altars (two high altars and four supplementary ones), so six priests
could celebrate masses simultaneously.

In addition, priests celebrated the mass with their back to the audience and looking to the
saints, just to respect their figure. They said mass using only the official languages (Latin,
Ancient Greek, Aramaic and Old Slavonic), so people couldn't understand what they were
saying.

Only in Northern Syria people could understand the mass because it was celebrated in
Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus Christ that it is still alive. Since 1965, masses are
celebrated using the local languages all around the world.

I would like to show you a wooden crucifix placed above the altar and made by an unknown
Venetian artist (eighteenth century) and a painting of Saint Francis (seventeenth century)
painted in the Bernardo Strozzi's studio and considered to be the most beautiful painting in the
island.

Every Sunday, Franciscan priests say mass for local people. The park provides boats to reach
the island to go to mass. The most important celebration in Visovac takes place on the 2nd of
August in honour of Saint Mary and around 7000/8000 pilgrims come to the island.

The monastery near the entry to the cloistered area

This is the oldest part of the monastery and was built in the fourteenth century by the
Augustinian monks. There are some remains of that period, as the flooring, the small columns
in the cloistered area (north and west parts), the old cistern inside the building and also the
current sacristy that has been restored and in these times was used as a chapel.

Cistern

I want to speak just a little bit about the cistern. It was built in the eighteenth century to
collect the rainwater from the roof of the monastery. Then, this water goes through the
underground pipes. The monks prefered rainwater to drink and wash the clothes because the
water from the river is so calcareous. Now they have a hydraulic system that collects water
from the river Čikola.

The disctintive feature of the cistern is that in the beginning the rainwater went through its
walls and it didn't accumulate. The Franciscan monks covered the interior of the deposit with a
mix of egg white that was used as an adhesive instead of cement. The mix consisted of egg's
white, sand, lime and water. The same technique was used to build other buildings in Europe.
It is thought that they used 20.000 or 25.000 eggs and probably they also used yolks, as we can
see on the wall.

Lapidarium and museum of stones

Here there are some remains of stones from this area and those of the Lapis Albus. In the
lapidarium there is an original sculpture by Meštrović, „Our Lady“ that was damaged in 1942
by the Chetniks in Biskupija, near Knin.