Croatia · 14th century
Saint John's Fortress ranks #5,040 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #42 of the 79 mapped in Croatia. Founded 1346, it is older than 57% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 758 atlas entries founded in the 14th century. 4 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Nikšić, 70 km away. It is one of the 32 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Dalmatia. It is stop 19 of 21 on the Dalmatian fortress coast, Zadar to Dubrovnik. See how Croatia compares in the castle statistics.
Saint John's Fortress (Croatian: tvrđava Sveti Ivan or Svetog Ivana) is a fort-tower in the eastern corner of the town walls of Dubrovnik. It consists of a fort on a semicircular plan joined to a tower on the plan of an irregular quadrilateral. It stands on a promontory closing off from the south the bay of the old port (Stara luka), opposite the fort of Revelin. Its function was the defence of the port.
On the promontory, which on the port side is one of the quays (Croatian: mul), there originally stood a small fort on a quadrilateral plan, called first the Gundulić fort (Gundulićeva tvrđava), and later the fort of Saint John, after the church of St John standing beside it. Between this fort and the tower of Saint Luke on the opposite side of the port a chain was stretched to block the port. In 1346, in the neighbourhood of the Gundulić fort, a tower called "on the quay" (tvrđava od mula) was raised in the line of the town walls, adjoining the port gate (vrata od mula). At the beginning of the 15th century a low semicircular bastion was laid out in front of the Gundulić fort.
In the years 1500–1552 a new, great fort was raised on the promontory, incorporating into it entirely the former fort and the bastion. In the years 1552–1557 the new fort was joined to the tower "on the quay", also enlarged. The new building housed a powder magazine.
At present the fort of St John houses the Maritime Museum, an aquarium and the Institute for the Sea and Coast. Theatrical performances are held on the terrace.
Machine-translated from “Fort Świętego Jana” on the Polish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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