Urban Development of Pazin from the early 16th to the end of 19th centuries

Abstract

It is assumed that the beginnings of population within the area of the town of Pazin, spatially speaking, commenced at the very edge of the Karst Pazin ponor when a Histrian fortified borough was built. However, it was only in the 10th century that the fortified point of Pazin (Castrum Pisinum) started to develop as a town. During the Middle Ages this small area saw the development of a fortified feudal residence – ‘Kaštel’ (castle), viz. the western part of the modern-day town. Scarce data on the urban development of the town until the 16th century is limited to the area surrounded and protected by walls of the Castle and to the changes made on the Castle. During the 16th century a town suburb – Buraj started to develop on the eastern side of the Castle, with an assumed development around the Pazin parish church in the north-east. The once walled western part of the town was being abandoned over the 17th and 18th centuries with new parts being built around the Franciscan Monastery in the east and the St. Nicholas’s parish church in the north-east. The final shaping was given to the town by the development which occurred in the 19th century when the previously distant focuses – the Castle and the suburbs in the west and the parish church in the north-east were linked and development of new town quarters took place.