TROGIR (TRAÙ). - A small town in Dalmatia to the north-west of Split, on a small island between the mainland and the island of Bua (Čiovo).
It was founded by Syracusan colonists coming from Issa, probably in the course of the 3rd century B.C. under the name of Tragurion; fine marbles and epigraphic texts of high artistic and historical value remain from that era. With the conquest of the territory by the Romans, T. became an "oppidum Romanum", of the province of Dalmatia, noted especially for its stone quarries ("Tragurium marmore notum", says Pliny). It is in this city that the famous Coena Trimalchionis was discovered in the 17th century, a precious fragment of the Satires of Petronius, believed until then to be lost.
In the early Middle Ages the city did not suffer the fate of nearby Salona; following the Avar-Slav incursions, it formed part of the Byzantine theme of Dalmatia, then passed under the protection and jurisdiction of the kings of Croatia, and in the course of the 10th century became part of that Kingdom. Once the Croatian dynasty died out and Croatia passed under Hungary, as a consequence of the so-called Pacta conventa (1102), T. often changed sovereignty. Before its submission to Coloman, T. was for a brief period under Venice, and this situation was repeated several times thereafter. In 1242 Bela IV of Hungary, defeated by the Mongols, found safe asylum in the city. T. submitted definitively to Venice in 1420. After the fall of the Republic (1797), two Austrian occupations followed (1797-1805 and 1813-1918), interspersed with seven years of French sovereignty, that is, as a city annexed first to the Kingdom of Italy and afterwards to the Illyrian Provinces. Since the end of the First World War T. has formed part of the Yugoslav national State.
It is not known, however, when T. became the seat of a diocese, which in the Middle Ages meant at the same time a city. A bishop of T. is first mentioned in the documents around the year 1000, on the occasion of the arrival in this city of the doge Pietro II Orseolo. T. was included in the territory of the metropolis of Split. From 1224 it had Šibenik under its jurisdiction and in 1285 other territories of the hinterland. But when Boniface VIII created the diocese of Šibenik, the territory of T. was again reduced. With the bull Locum beati Petri of Leo XII of 1828 the diocese of T. was suppressed and almost entirely incorporated into the diocese of Split, which then ceased to be a metropolis, in order to be included in that of Zara; the smaller part, on the other hand, was associated with the diocese of Šibenik. The cathedral church of T. then became a collegiate church and in 1880 an abbatial one. One of the first and most celebrated bishops of T. was Giovanni Orsini ([v.] 1062-1111), venerated as blessed already in the 12th century. Under the bishop Treguano (1206-64), the present Cathedral dedicated to St. Lawrence was for the most part built, with the famous portal by the Croatian master Radovan. Besides this magnificent monument, which preserves most precious art objects (true art jewels are also, besides the portal, the bell tower built in various styles, with a predominance of flamboyant Gothic, the baptistery, the chapel of St. John Orsini, etc.), there existed at T. no fewer than 32 other churches, of which only a few are still in use. Worthy of mention are the tiny church of St. Barbara (10th century), the abbatial church of St. John the Baptist, that of St. Nicholas with the convent of the Benedictines (where a magnificent Greek relief representing Kairos is preserved), etc.
T. was the birthplace of many illustrious men, among them the blessed Agostino Kažotić (Casotti), Pietro Beislavić, the historian Giovanni Lucić (Lucio). The city possesses important archival collections, such as that at the Chapter and another belonging to the old diocese, while the very important municipal one was destroyed by fire in the Second World War. There is also a rich Library (Fanfogna-Garagnin) and a small lapidary Museum in the convent of St. Dominic. - See plate XLVI.
Bibliography6 works
Vinko Brajević