Together with the little harbour of Bobovisca, Milna is the only settlement on Brac’s western coast. Set at the end of the biggest harbour on Brac, Milna is sheltered from the winds and exposed to the sun. Unlike other places on the island, Milna has preserved to a high degree, the harmony of civic buildings and fisherman houses on the coast and on the rural architecture on the hill from where the snake-like footpaths wind down to the vineyards and olive-groves. This settlement more than all the others, looks to the sea-to a maritime and fishing economy. Milna is the busyiest, the most sheltered and the most beautiful harbour on Brac. It forks into two channels, the two sunken valleys that descend from the interior. They bring the fertile alluvium and the refreshing breeze from the Brac upper valleys during hot summer nights. Between these two channels, Zalo and Pantera, a wide, blunt cape protrudes on whose clearing round the church and the old fort, the houses are gathered together. Their stone fronts are turned to the sun like those on Racic, a slope on the northern side of the harbour, creating thus a wonderful local atmosphere valuable for tis being so typical in the Mediterranean environs.
The little boats along the coast, nets and traps near the sea, fish scales from the fisherman’s hand rubbed off on the column, barrels of salted sardellas, the ever-present chapel of St. Nicholas the Traveller who once upon a time used to see the sailing-vessels to far-away seas, a ship-yard with a centuries long tradition, palm-trees, pires and benches along the coast, reflection of the empty sardine-tin from the bottom of the sea.
The fishing boats with lights, set off from the coast at twilight and glide through the Gate of Split (Splitska vrata) to reach numerous fishing-grounds. The catch is awaited on the shore in the early mornings, the fish sorted out and the nets spread on the ground and mended... The mornings are judged good depending on the fisherman’s luck in their catch during the long, sleepless nights spent in the fishing-grounds.
The long, wide and beautifully arranged coast, garlands the whole of the settlement. Striking to the eye are a fewhouse fronts, inadequate for their size appear as superflous scenery hiding the authentic style and genuine ranges of the folk architecture. The nearer the houses to the sea, the greater the increase in their size and luxury, showing the wealth of their past owners. The walls off their yards are high and the halls are wide enough to let in and close after the luxury that came in with the various objects of art originating from the remote coasts along which the sails of Milna’s big sailing-vessels, swelled, filled by wind.
The real folk, miniature town-planning of an irregularly built settlement is presented in the interesting blocks of houses on the Blataska riva ( The Coast of Blaca, q.v. Blaca). There, the variety of facades, picturesque roofs, various arrangements of windows, tiny narrow lanes protruding among the fisherman;s vaults, create the vivacious play of light and shade against the greyness of the lime backround in which the olive-trees crouch and cypresses stand upright. Hardly anywhere else was the imagination of the folk architect so imebed with vividness and hardly anywhere else were architectural elements so unostentiously in accord with the wide balconies set on the decorative consoles with the profiles window-sills with large windows, four-eaved roofs, stone channels and the imaginatively shaped chimnery-ends. Strolls along the coast, chats upon the shore, rests on the pavement or on the church staircase, walking under the palms or under the pine trees on Pantera and Laterna, all these are indispensable elements of this local atmosphere. The picture in complete only when we enter the little narrow lanes coming from the coast and all leading up to the rural parts. There we perceive the life of Milna’s farmers, but the traces of a former shepherds’ gathering place from which Milna has sprung, are no longer visible.
History. Milna was a much favoured gathering place of the shepherds from Nerezisca. The climate is mild and the pasture-grounds near the sea rarely become white with snow. In the Studenac (The Well) there has always been a fresh water spring. During the winter, the shepherds would drive their flocks from the Brac plateau to these glades. In the first Croatian travel-record Ribanje I Ribarsko prigovaranje (Fishing and the fishermans discourses) written by Petar Hektorovic in 1556, the author says that he arrived at the spot on the coast of Brac where with Suleta (Solta) Brac yet almost meets and sent a fisherman to the island to buy some food. This one met only shepherds there and got only the food they had with them. There was no settlement yet.
Milna developed towards the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century mostly from the settlers from Nerezisca and is, actually, set on their boundaries. There the noble Cerinic family raised a little church, known from historic sources as ecclesia Ste Mariae Milnavi, and a fort, like those on Skrip (q.v.) and Splitska (q.v.) This was the nucleus from which the settlement spread As the populace increased in number and the parish of Nerezisca was far away, at the beginning of the 17th century the Milnarans, together with the Boboviscans decided to separate from Nerezisca. This little chapel in Milna was chosen to be the parish church in 1646. A century later Milna has about 500 inhabitants. Next to the little private church that became the sacristy, a new baroque church, which now dominates the settlement, was raised in 1783, on the beautiful, elevated site, reached by the stone stairs.
From then on, Milna’s history was linked to the sea. in the middle of the 19th century, Milna’s shipyards in Pantera and in Vlaska produced 16 ships of a total of 1328 tons dead wight which was 253 tons more than the collective production of Split’s shipyards and the shipyards in Hvar, Komiza and Trogir of that time.
During the Napoleonic period in 1806, the sea-battle between the Russian reconnaissance ship Aleksander and the French, who had their fort (baterija, battery) on the Zaglav, in the Gate of Split, took place in front of Milna. The region is now called Baterija. being informed of the presence of the Russian ship in the gate of Split, Marshall Marmont ordered his artillery to attack and capture the Russian ship. The Splicans informed the Russian navy officers of his intention, while the Bracans, when the French left the port, lit five fires on the hills to warn the Russians of the number of the enemy ships. When the Russian ship defeated the French squadron and took over the French battery on Zaglav, she entered Milna and together wih the more distinguished Bracans established the new authority on the island.
For one whole year, Milna was the island capital under the supremecy of the Russian Tsar.
Name. Alluvial soil, brought by the water currents through the valleys into the Pantera and Zalo, created heaps of mud and fine gravel which the old Bracans put under the collective name of mil. Such a milna (muddy, sandy) harbour differed from other neighbouring harbours. With the passing of time, the noun harbour became superflous and so only the adjective Milna was left. many of Milna’s noble families, which were through business connected to Venice, regarded the Venetian dialect as the language of prestige and therefore they transmitted the pronunciation habits to the cakavski dialect of Brac.
Monuments. Milna is a young settlement so that the cultural monuments are not of a great age. The oldest is the Cerinic castle, whose origin the populace did not know and so the legend was created giving it the name of Angliscina. Next to it the baroque church whose decorative wreath goes around the walls and separates the gable from the front with a profiled door above which, in the middle, stands the staue of Mary’s Ascension. The interior of the church is divided by the round columns, into three naves. On the ceiling, in the stucco technique, are St. Clement the martyr and the patron of the place, God the Father and the motif of the Annunciation. The interior gets light unobtrusively, through the tall windows above the walls of the central nave. The belfry on the right side, with small decorative pyramids around the lodge, fits among the typical belfries of the Dalmatian coast.
The painting of the Annunciation with the youthful Gabriel and the humble figure of Mary clad in simple vesture, is among the most beautiful of the altar paintings on Brac and belongs to Ricci, a Venetian painter of the first half of the 18th century. From that time are also two more altar paintings The Madonna with St. Joseph, St. John, St. Peter and St. Paul and Our Lady of Rosary with the sacraments of the rosary.
In the sacristy, where it should be remembered that we are on the site of the first church in Milna, there are some valuable works of Venetian painter, Obeisance of the Kings and St John the Baptist, and others. Here also worked the sculptor I. Rendic (q.v. Supetar), who left here the stone staue of St. Joseph on the main altar and other monuments in the cemetery.
If we set out for the picturesque bays of the south-west Brac coast via Zaglav, we should visit the inlet Osibova (Josipova-Joseph’s) and the ruined Gothic chapel there as well as see in the present one, (from 1836) the Venetian painting of St. Joseph
Some visitors, tempted by the humorous tales connected to the island of Mrdulja, might wish to row off to the little island. There one can see the remains of a fortified church with a tower, generally thought to originate from the 17th century. Such a fortified church is quite a rarity in the architecture of these parts.
To MIlna also belongs the land and cattle-breeding hamlet of Pothume from the 17th century, set on the sunny side of the hill of Humi. Until recent times, this hamlet was completetly deserted. Its agriculture and cattle sheds, yards, cattle-enclusures, cisterns, wine-cellars, ovens, rough stone paths and gardens are all untouched and left to slow decay. They are all a exceptionally interesting object for studying the authentic Brac architecture. Here we can observe in peace and in detail.
Let us mention at the end that Milna’s harbours are suitable for fishing and that the exceptionally favourable climate in this long and sheltered harbour creates extraordinary conditions for the developement of winter-tourism as well as offering a winter home for sporting-boats and yachts.