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Palagruža from the 12th to the 20th Centuries
Joško Kovačić
Abstract
Palagruža (Pelagosa in Italian), a tiny archipelago in the midst of Adriatic sea and the farthest part of the Republic of Croatia, from the late 12th c. to our days. It entered written history in a spectacular way, by a fortuitous visit in March 1177 by the Pope Alexander the Third, who found shelter here in a gale while on his way to Venice, where he was to negotiate peace with the Emperor Barbarossa. After that there are no written records on Palagruža till the end of the 16th c. The opinion of some authors that there were first an Early Christian and later a Benedictine monastery on this islet is not corroborated either by archaeological or by written
evidence, and a chapel dedicated to St. Michael was erected here only in the 18th c. Rebuilt in the 19th c., it was destroyed in the First World War. The archipelago belonged since ancient times to the Bishopric of Hvar and the parish of Komiža. From the 16th c. to present times Palagruža was above all important as an exceptional fishing area, mostly for the inhabitants of Komiža on the island of Vis. Up to the beginning of the 19th c. it belonged to the Commune of Hvar, which levied taxes here on the fish caught and scarce cereals sown. An interesting attempt was made in the 17th c. by the patrician family Vitaljević-Vidali of Hvar to turn Palagruža into their feudal domain, for the sake of ample income out of fishing. The paper also deals with political and administrative history of Palagruža of recent times and lists historical sources on the island, both published and unpublished.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
123719
URI
Publication date:
30.6.1997.
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