The Katedrala was the seat of an archbishop who, according to the law of the republic, had to be a foreigner in order to keep church and state apart. Recent archaeological finds indicate that there has been a cathedral on the current site since the 7th century. The last one, sponsored in part by King Richard the Lionheart of England after surviving a shipwreck of the Island of Lokrum in 1192, was destroyed in the great Earthquake of 1667. Local boy Stjepan Gradiæ, who was working in Rome as custodian of the Vatican Library at the time, immediately set about raising funds for the repairs and hired Andrea Buffalini of Urbino to rebuild the cathedral in a Roman-Baroque style.
 
Construction work on the new cathedral, with its three isles and large cupola, began in 1671 and it was opened for Christmas, 1713, with a procession that carried the holy relics from Crkva Sv Vlaha to their new home in the cathedral’s treasury. The interior is light and airy, while the main altar featuring Titian’s polyptych Mary’s Assumption hung unframed looks surprisingly modern. Side altars include the violet marble, Northern-Baroque Altar of St. John of Nepomuk, and the simple memorial to Abbott Gradiæ.

In contrast to this the treasury, which can be viewed for a small fee, is an ostentatious feast of gilt (and blatant lack of guilt) featuring reliquaries containing the head, right hand, left hand, right foot, and throat of St. Blaise. Only a few more pieces are required for the custodians to be able to rebuild the former Bishop of Sebaste, who was martyred in AD316 during one of the purges of Emperor Diocletian. St. Blaise was made patron of the city in 972AD after appearing in a dream to Strojko, the cathedral’s rector, to warn of a night time attack by the Venetian fleet anchored off of Lokrum. The saint’s image appears on all the public buildings, coins, and standards of the republic and his feast day on February 3rd is a major holiday, and the city’s main church is dedicated to him. The current Baroque Crkva Sv Vlaha was designed by Venetian architect Marino Gropelli, based on St. Mauritus in Venice, and built in 1715 as a replacement for its predecessor, which was damaged in the earthquake of 1667 and burnt to the ground in 1706. The main altar features a 15th-century Gothic-gilt silver statue of St. Blaise, holding a model of the city before the earthquake; that was the only thing to survive the destruction of the earlier church.

Individually these buildings are fascinating, but taken together they provide a unique look at Baroque ecclesiastical architecture. The cathedral’s treasury is a true spectacle; and if you happen to have any parts of St. Blaise lying around at home, I urge you to donate them.