The Middle Street

THE MAIN TOWN STREET WITH MANOR HOUSES DOMINATING IT

The Middle Street was the main and the largest street in the town, that is, a decumanus maximus. It represented a dynamic centre of the town equipped with merchant and other public facilities since the Antiquity. Manor houses built in the second half of the 15th century, frequently reconstructed inherited older buildings and complexes, dominate the Middle Street. The Marinellis, Spalatin and Benedeti palaces towering over other buildings on the picturesque streets, leaning on semicircular arches, are worth mentioning. (The Middle Street has become the main town street only in the 15th c.).

THE MIDDLE STREET WAS ON THE SEAFRONT AND BASEMENT ROOMS OF THE MARNELLIS PALACE WERE EASILY REACHED BY BOAT

The vaulted basement of the Marinellis Palace in Srednja ulica (Middle Street) descended below the sea level and the spaciousness and the depth of the basement were adequate for the construction of large vessels. The medieval shipbuilding tradition in the family was beyond doubt. Before the 14th century, Donja ulica (Lower Street) was actually a shoreline and was therefore possible to reach the basement rooms of what was to be the Marinellis Palace by boat.

DOMINIS PALACE – ONE OF THE LARGEST BUILDINGS OF THE GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE PERIOD IN DALMATIA

The Dominis Family Palace located on the edge of the town is a particularly valuable and the most preserved buildings among the Gothic and Renaissance period ones in Dalmatia at that time, with an interesting courtyard, as well as Gothic and Renaissance period decorations on the windows and gates.

MARKANTUN (MARCO ANTONIO) DE DOMINIS – A WORLD-FAMOUS THEOLOGIST AND THE ORIGINATOR OF ECUMENISM

The birth home of the great Marco Antonio (Markantun), the Bishop of Senj, the Archbishop of Split, a physicist, a writer and a church reformer from the 16th and 17th century. The most prominent members of the largest noble family from Rab worth mentioning are: Ivan, the captain of the galley (sopracomito) of Rab participating in the Battle of Lepanto, whose heroism was recognised by the Venetian captain of Kulf (the Adriatic); Jeronim, a jurist and poet who wrote satirical quips about the ugly side of legal work in Venetian language and was praised by Francesco Sansovino for being quick-witted; Antun, the Bishop of Senj, who died at the foot of the Klis Hill with Uskok troops of the Captain Ivan Lenković in 1558, and another prominent member of the Dominis Family, John Owen Dominis, who was the Prince of the Islands of Hawaii in the 2nd half of the 19th c., the husband of the last Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani.