Down there by the coast, in the already mentioned Renaissance palace, one of the greatest Croatian writers Vladimir Nazor (1876-1949) was born, the creator of the rebellious farmer Veli Joza and the tailed, goat-like Brac satyr and partisan messenger Loda, also a great poet of Renaissance harmony and splendour. “I was born in a little town on the coast of a sea-channel. In front of it, the sea with the sailing-boats that pass and, mostly, do not
even enter the harbour: on the other side across the water, the violet
mainland with the long mountain range: behind the little town the karst region, scrawled all over with the greeness of vineyards and olive-groves...” (VI. Nazor, Andeo u zvoniku, (The Angel in the Belfry), Mladost, 1926)

Nazor was right. Rarely did the pirates ships or traditional ships touch those shores. Postira set out to sea rather late.

From there we climb up the steep high-street into the heart of Postira. At the sides are set the luxurious houses of the former Brac landlords, erected mainly in the 18th century. The large yard and house entances, guest-roomskitchens in the lofts with large hearths, paved floors, cisterns in the yards...These houses with large cellars, high storeys and luxurious furniture interrupted the continuity of the traditional folk architecture.

The most beautiful architectural harmony with the locality of the
Mediterranean little town, we percieve in the little picturesque square in front of the church. The pebbles, polished by farmers’ feet and washed by rains are pressed into the hard soil of the street and the square. The walls of the houses that encircle the square appear picturesque and harmonious in the reflection of the sun. This closed square in front of the church, with its interesting set of facades built of dressed stone, with gates that open from the square with its stone seats for rest and talk, was for a long time the centre of life, its meeting and market place.

The village church turned its shrine into a fort with loop-holes. This is the only monument to serve a double purpose in the turbulent history of the island. Both the buildings witness that the centre and the nucleus of Postira were up on Glavica and not in the harbour. Glavica appears as a separate entity in economy and style.

Above the church, on Glavica, there was the first and genuine abode of Postira’s peasants, set in a typical rural setting of yards with the cottages covered with slabs. Next to them are the kitchens, cellars built out of rough stone or covered with thick mortar. In the yards we find the baking ovens: cellars with vine presses in deep stone oil-vessels and stone seats. this rural locality offers a valuable insight into the older Brac architecture.

From Glavica, there is a beautiful view of the Channel of Brac, of the settlement and the harbour, of the coast and the boats tied to the quays and of the picturesque yards the through their entrance gates join the village foothpaths.

In the eastern harbour of Zastivanje, the fisherman raised their houses right on the limestone cracks. used to the murmuring of the sea waves that whiten the little caves and lap against the walls, to the northern wind that sweeps dust of the sea carrying it to the lofts and rooms, they draw their green shutters to the sea when it becomes hostile.
During the star-lit nights, the dreamers walking under the tamarix trees would hear the voices of the sea and the singing of the cicades from the village gardens, mistaking them for chanting nymphs: or up on the Glavica they would think they heard the pipes of Nazor’s satyrs coming from the Brac Arcadia, while it would be just a melancholy Dalmatian song sung under some balcony in the tiny lane.

In all their time, the dwellers of Postira knew nothing of such daydreaming because to the Glavica peasants or to the Zastivanje fisherman oars and hoes in their hardened hands were the things that created a harder and grimmer history.

The Postirans will eagerly tell you the legends about the name Postira. On Vrilo in the harbour, the women from Dol used to wash and to stretch (prostirale) their clothes on the coast to dry, so that the name P(r)ostira came up. Science, of course, seeks the origin of the name in the Latin word pastura, meaning the pasture-ground. The plural form of the name comprises some formerly separated parts Glavica, Podjezice, Vrilo, Piskere, Porat, Rat, Zastivanje etc. In the Middle Ages the region was a possession of the ecclesiastical chapter of the Split and was cultivated by the Brac farmers.
In 1337 the harbour (in portu Postire) was mentioned for the first time. The settlement did not exist then.

From historical sources we may suppose that there was the old chapel of St. John which has now disappeared. it is unquestionably confirmed by the name Zastivanje (za sv. Ivanom-behind St. John, from Latsanctus Johannes). The fresh water spring of Vrilo at the foot of the harbour was indispensable to the shepherds and eventually decided the site of present Postira.

Again, the name of Lovrecina, the beautiful wooded and sandy harbour to the east of Postira and Stobrec (Lat. sanctus Laurentius), tells us about an old church of which only the walls still exist. Later in the 11th century it was probably the site of a Benedictine monastery.

On Mirje (Lat murus, the wall) above Postira, there are the remains of walls built out of chiseled stone. On one spot there is a 3 meter high wall with an arch that reminds us of the arcade arches of the earliest medieval churches on Brac (D. Vrsalovic). Was it not then the site of the chapel of St. John, the record of which is kept in the name of Zastivanje? Together with the Early Christian church of St. John in Sutivan and Povlja it would be the Early Christian church of the same saint on the northern coast of Brac.

On the road to Lovrecina we enter the world of even more ancient monuments. in the harbour of trstena overlooked by a big water-tank which collects the water from the river of Cetina, through the submarine waterpipes that bring water to eternally thirsty island, there is a semi-cylindrical cover of a sarcophagus, turned over and serving now as a water-trough near the well.

Lovrecina is a place of the great Early Christian discoveries. There we find Early Christian Sacophagi and the relics of an Early Christian church. The right wall of the church is in ruins today. If we add to this large church, the Early Christian sarcophagi, the relics of the walls and of the little quay still visible is the sea, we should realise that we are on the site of a very forceful monastic shrine which continued to live during the times of the Croatian benedictins. This is confirmed by the name of the region, Benedija (Benedict) and Opatija spila (opat-the inhabitant of an abbey) in the
surroundings.

In addition to the already mentioned palace with the Renaissance gable one should visit in Postira the apse of the parish church with the enforced windows and loop-holes and the interesting putokriz from the end of the 18th century. We draw your attention to the few old graves in the church and to the graves found in cimatorij (Lat. cimeterium-cemetary) and in some surrounding gardens. They lead us to presume an even older age of the cult shrine on the site of the present church.