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Of all the
settlements on Brac that are mentioned at the beginning of the 15th century,
Dol was the nearest to the sea. It is sheltered in a deep valley
and it is only two kilometers by road from Postire. Dol is crowded together
up the eastern slope. It built its houses out of living stone by digging
its eastern slopes into the hill. The fronts facing west are more spacious
and more beautiful. It is all crowded together so that it could defend itself
easier. It raised one and two-story houses in the direction of the extension
of the valley. As if by agreement the houses are built one on top of the
other, detached, in order not to throw a shadow over one another. The sun
visits the valley late in the morning and sets behind the hill early in
the evening. The house roofs are of the two or four-eaved kind, mostly covered
with slabs. On the wide, stony house sides, there are one or two lines of
smaller windows edged with stony window-sills and with green shutters. The
big wine-cellars’ doors are on the western side. They are arched with a
porch set on the top of a stony staircase.
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From the porch
one enters the house, usually the sitting-room, because the central room of
Brac’s village households was transferred to the loft. That is why we see
many masarde roofs of various shapes and purposes. These old, stone houses
detached or set in rows, preserved the mark of the genuine folk architecture.
They stand as witnesses of the existence of the wealthier families, their
former owners. The Doljans knew how to make use of the vicinity of the sea
and the woods in the backround from where they led out many mules loaded with
the finest quality of ilex. On the slopes of porous, fertile earth, they cultivate
vines and olive-trees. Throughout their large community from Postira on the
sea up to the Vidova gora (The Vidova Mountain), there are flocks of sheep
grazing in a few sheperds’ places on the Brac plateau.
History. Dol has been a Croatian settlement since its origin. It is first
mentioned in 1137 and 1345 in connection with the agrarian contract between
the Split archbishopric and the Doljans, regarding the tilling of the land
in Postira.
Monuments. Dol is surrounded by old Croatian chapels set on the nearby peaks,
the most important among them being that of St Michael set on Miholja rat
(Cape of Mihalj). The door of the chapel is made from a Roman sarcophagus
from which the bottom side has been taken off. Above the door is the penetrated
semicircular lunette with the radially laid sides. In the environs of the
chapel there were some tombs which by aspect and by the way of burial belong
to the old Croatian tombs from the 9th to the 11th century, A sarcophagus
on the hill of St. Michael, the warrior with the balance of good and evil
leads us to conclude that the homage paid to this peak the dominates Dol and
Skrip is much older then the church raised, probably in the 12th century.
Of a similiar kind is the case of the chapel of St. Vid from the 13th to the
14th century set on the neighboring hill. This saint is probably a personified
Slav deity Svevid (q.v. Vidova gora). In default of a special reason for paying
homage to St. Vid, both the chapels were neglected and then destroyed, which
is much unlike the destiny of other chapels on Brac. Deep in the interior,
along the old footpath leading from Nerezisca to Praznica in the region of
Sutvara (from Latin sancta Barbara), there is also the old Croatian chapel
of St. Barbara. The linguistic data suggest its being older than the rest
of the chapels mentioned. Nearest to the village, the cemetery chapel of St.
Peter, with the Dalmatian belfry, in which in the oldest bell on island originating
from the 14th or the 15th century. The present parish church with a semicircular
gable with baroque ornamentation was raised in 1866. It is, probably, the
last derivative of such forms on Brac. On one side in its interior there is
a baroque cross, better known to the worshippers as the dolski skrts (The
Dol’s Cross). Of the secular architecture we should mention the fortified
homestead of the Gospodnetic family with decorative elements belonging to
the late Renaissance, with profiled door with a coat of arms and high walls.
Above Dol, there is an opening of a tunnel which will, through the ever thirsty
entrails of Brac, bring over the water of the river of Cetina to the south
of the island.
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