CULTURAL HERITAGE
Selca, renowned for its numerous monuments, currently has 14 monuments and 21 engraved plaques, which make Selca the village with the highest number of monuments per capita in the world. We dare you to do the math and prove us wrong 😊
The first ever monument dedicated to Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy in the world was erected in Selca immediately after the writer’s death. A monument to Pope John Paul II erected next to the Church of Christ the King is the first life-size statue honouring this Pope in Europe.
The town square features the Wall of Poetry which is lined with stone slabs of poets laureate crowned every year at the poetry evening "Ča, kaj, što".
CHURCH OF CHRIST THE KING (BRAČ CATHEDRAL)
This 45 m high colossal, Neo-Romanesque church dominates the square and is thus also rightfully called Brač Cathedral. The church is home to the statue of the Sacred Heart of the Jesus Christ which was erected by the most famous Croatian sculptor Ivan M
eštrović. The statue pays homage to world peace as it was cast from ammunition i.e. shell casings left behind in the World War Two battles that took place in the surrounding area.
CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF CARMEL
The Church of Our Lady of Carmel is the first parish church of Selca built in the lower part of the town square in the 18th century in the place of the old church mentioned in the first half of the 17th century (1633) as Our Lady of Selca. It was completed in 1850 i.e. 1871 when the construction of the bell tower was finished.
MARTIN KUKUČIN
Martin Kukučin, real name Matej Bencur, was born on May 17, 1860 in Jasenová, a village in the Dolný Kubín district of the Žilina regionin northern Slovakia, where he worked as a teacher. However, he went to study medicine in Prague, where during his studies he socialized with many Croats, and when he graduated at the persuasion of the Brač winemaker Petar Didolić in 1894, he accepted a position as a doctor in Selca on the island of Brač. In Selca, he met Perica Didolić, whom he married in 1904, and three years later they moved to Punta Arenas, Chile, where Kukučin worked as a doctor and was active in the Croatian emigrant community. In 1922, he returned to Prague, and then a year later came to Croatia, where he remained until his death in 1928. Kukučin's remains were transferred to Turčiansky Sveti Martin in Slovakia. Martin Kukučin is considered one of the most significant founders and representatives of realism in Slovak literature. He started writing while he was a village teacher in Slovakia, before leaving that job to study medicine. During his stay in Croatia, Kukučin continued to write and this is how the novel "House on the hillside" was created, which is considered the best realistic novel in Slovak literature.
CHURCH OF ST NICHOLAS
The early Christian church from the 10th century is located on a hill between Sumartin and Selca. During the World War Two, this hill was an important stronghold of occupying forces where fierce fighting took place.
PARISH CHURCH OF ST MARTIN AND THE FRANCISCAN MONASTERY IN SUMARTIN
The monastery is best known for the legendary poet and Franciscan monk Andrija Kačić-Miošić, and today it is home to a private museum where you can learn more about the history of the island. Valuable Venetian Baroque canvases, the monastery archive with parish registers in Bosnian Cyrillic from the 17th and 18th century as well as a rich library are kept in the monastery.
A plaque “The foot of Saint Martin of Tours” is placed next to the church.
The people of Sumartin are extremely proud of their long tradition in fishing and naval architecture. The most prominent representative of this tradition is Mario Puratić, who invented the Puretic Power Block which, in the 1950s, revolutionized fishing worldwide.
LUČICA SANCTUARY
This natural cave provided shelter to the people of Sumartin during the World War Two and today it features an altar to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
PARISH CHURCH OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST AND EARLY CHRISTIAN BASILICA IN POVLJA
The parish church is dedicated to St John the Baptist. The sanctuary and the south chapel of the church were built almost 1500 years ago when they served as a baptistery with a foyer of an early Christian basilica from the 6th century. The central nave and the side naves were built in 1973 and 1925 respectively.
The apses, some walls, the lintel above the main entrance, three capitals, the foyer of the baptistery and the baptistery itself, which today serves as the sanctuary of the parish church, have been preserved from the early Christian basilica.
POVLJA CHARTER
( author: Zoran Alajbeg)
Drafted on 01 December 1250, the Povlja Charter is the oldest preserved document written in Croatian Cyrillic. The document is also the oldest preserved document on the island of Brač. As its name implies, it was discovered in the village of Povlja by accident when a bystander noticed unusual signs on an item that a housewife used for building a fire in a hearth!
Today it is kept at the Parish Office in Pučišća on Brač.
PARISH CHURCH OF THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY IN NOVO SELO
The church is located in the very heart of the village. From its layout and the arrangement of architectural elements, it is evident that the construction was not completed at once.
Novo Selo is a small, quite village located on a hill between Selca and Povlja. The first thing you would notice approaching Novo Selo is an open-air exhibition just next to the road. The exhibition features impressive stone works of art by a self-taught artist and mason Frane Antonijević.