Franciscan Monastery Audio Guide

Franciscan Monastery: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Franciscan Monastery

   Welcome to the Franciscan Monastery, right on Stradun, the main street of Dubrovnik. You are at the western end of the Old Town, a short walk from the Pile Gate, and the complex is easy to find because it faces the very start of the street, which locals call the Placa. This is a large complex that belongs to the Order of the Friars Minor. It holds a church, a friary, a library, a museum and a pharmacy, all in one place. In the next few minutes we will look at how the Franciscans arrived in Dubrovnik, why so little of the original building survives, and why a small shop at the entrance has earned a reputation among the oldest pharmacies in the world. So take a moment on the street. Look for the carved stone doorway at the church front. It is the oldest piece of the story, and we will come back to it.

2. 02

   From Outside the Walls to Stradun

   The Franciscans have a long history in Dubrovnik. The first document to mention them dates from 1235. It speaks of their monastery of Saint Thomas, which stood in the Pile suburb, outside the city walls. That placement turned out to matter. The friars did not stay outside. The tourist board's account tells us that the early monastery was demolished when war was announced with King Uroš the Second Milutin of Serbia, and the community moved inside the walls to the site where you are standing now. A building outside a city's defenses was simply too exposed when an army might arrive. So the story of this place begins with a practical decision, made in a tense moment. The community that settled on the spot beside the main street has stayed here ever since, and the pharmacy that grew up with it is traditionally dated to 1317.

3. 03

   The Doorway That Survived 1667

   Dubrovnik's great earthquake of 1667 changed the city, and it hit the Franciscan complex hard. The church, once counted among the richest in the city, was largely destroyed. Over the centuries a series of disasters and wars took more, so that very little of the medieval monastery remains. What did survive is the decorated portal that overlooks the beginning of the Placa. It was carved in 1498, in the Gothic style, by the workshop of the brothers Leonard and Petar Petrović. Take a good look at it. It is the main original feature you can still see from the street, and it is more than 500 years old. After the earthquake the complex was rebuilt in the Baroque period, in the seventeenth century. A large library was added to the monastery at that time. So the building you see is layered: a Gothic doorway at the front, and Baroque rebuilding behind it.

4. 04

   The Cloister and the Pharmacy

   Inside, the monastery's treasure is its cloister, described by the Dubrovnik tourist board as the finest Romanesque-Gothic cloister, full of valuable works of art. Cloisters were designed for quiet. If you step into this one, you will see how a courtyard framed by arcades can feel like a pause from the street outside. The museum and library hold more than 1200 old manuscripts, along with liturgical objects such as a gilt-silver crucifix from the fifteenth century and paintings by old masters. Then there is the pharmacy. It is traditionally dated to 1317, which makes it one of the oldest continuously working pharmacies in Europe. It served both the friars and the wider public. Today it still sells products made to historic Franciscan recipes, including rose water and herb creams, and a pharmacy museum shows mortars, glass and ceramic vessels and medicine chests. The garden behind the monastery has long supplied herbs such as sage and mint, along with roses and orange trees.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   There is a name for these friars that locals use: Mala braća, meaning the Friars Minor, the little brothers. A local legend explains the name with a story of four brothers, sons of a ship's captain, though it remains a tale rather than a documented fact. You may enjoy deciding what you make of it. Before you go, look back at the doorway from the street, then at the pharmacy beside it, and ask yourself which has seen more of the city. The doorway has watched Stradun since 1498. The pharmacy's own tradition reaches back even further, to 1317. If you have time, step into the cloister and notice how quickly the noise of the street fades. Every arcade and every carved detail is a reason to linger a little longer.