Split Personality

 

I had been looking forward to this coastal city in Croatia for ages. Like a lot of travellers, I go for the history and stay for the palm trees. I'm usually urged to consider the gelato but it hasn't become a go-to. So Split, the home town of our erudite and personable guide Vanya, was my happy place, with its medieval and Roman structures literally grown together over the centuries, the scars of their uncomfortable fusion hardly visible. Of course, Vanya added layers of his own, sharing stories of the mischief he and his teenage friends got up to down the narrow medieval alleys, once the passageways of Diocletian's palace..

Split started out as Spalatum, the Roman name for this town that grew up around the massive (about 7 acres) retirement palace and fortress complex of the Emperor Diocletian, built over 10 years around 300AD. This photo from Wikipedia helps to visualize the build and the scale. 

In the day, the Adriatic washed up right to the base of the complex, and a sea gate provided access as at the Traitor's Gate at the Tower of London. So the gardens and parking in the photo above weren't there yet.

You can see the Roman arches of the massive wall, which has stood all this time, standing tall above the parking. Can you say 'gob-smacked'?

Given the astonishing history of conquest and ownership over the centuries since Diocletian, it's not surprising that Split's architecture is multilayered, fascinating, bewildering. But I don't intend to let historic fact-seeking to spoil the fun. I was in awe the entire day I wandered inside its walls, seeing marble raised by a Roman Emperor's people, and razed by indignant Christians later, who had suffered terribly at his hands.

 I read somewhere that in the process of smashing down all he'd built (although a lot of the dismantling may have been that ever-sensible Medieval reuse of ancient stone) some wise head suggested they keep a few spots and reuse them. How better to flip the bird in the face of this tyrant. So Diocletian's mausoleum became St. Domnius church in the 7th century, and a Temple to Jupiter became a Christian baptistery in the 6th. 

Roman walls and gates, modified over centuries

North Gate

Substructure, originally storage, sewers by medieval era

Oculus in the Vestibule, a ceremonial entrance hall

View fit for an Emperor from the Grand Hall

People and Peristyle - granite colums from Egypt

The central peristyle, once the ceremonial centre of Diocletian's residence, buzzes with tourists but there is always a quiet corner from which to observe Romanesque stonework, a 5th century BC granite sphinx (brought from Luxor to decorate the new pad), the Emperor's actual palace steps and colonnades or just do that thing we do, musing on history and change.

original portico surrounding Diocletian's mausoleum

Romanesque carved doors(1214)

the original Roman dome, columns and capitals of the mausoleum

Romanesque lectern

original basalt Roman columns

And if you want more, I recommend  Jet-Setting Fools, an outstanding travel site, thanks Sarah and Kris. Should their fabulous photos not be quite enough, here are a couple of great videos to tour you about.

 Through no fault of the creators, there are hilarious  errors made by the automatic captioning, which struggled with peristyle and did its best with "peristal,"  "Paris style," "pair style" and "hairstyle"    

If you, like me, want to wander more around the city, here are a couple of YouTubers whose photos likely say more than all my words, enthusiastic as they are: Andy's Awesome Adventures (ads) or Scenic Routes to the Past (kudos historian Garrett Ryan) with its phenomenal drone shots. Thanks folks.