The modern visitor to the Croatian coastal city of Split marvels at the towering walls of Emperor Diocletian’s Palace, which were later woven into the fabric of the medieval old town. Located on the Dalmatian coast, the history of Split consists of periods under Byzantine, Hungarian, Venetian, French, and Austrian rule. Incorporated into Yugoslavia after WWI and experiencing brief Italian and German occupation during WWII, Split emerged relatively unscathed out of the Yugoslav Wars and is now a popular tourist destination.
The Emperor’s Palace
The history of Split begins around the 3rd century BCE with the foundation of a small Greek colony known as Aspalathos. When the Romans arrived at the end of the century, the settlement came to be known as Spalatum in Latin.
For several centuries, Split was overshadowed by nearby Salona, which would become one of the largest cities in the Roman world. In 244 CE, the future Emperor Diocletian was born in Salona. After being proclaimed emperor in 284, Diocletian spent the next decade campaigning against his rivals for the throne. His experiences made him recognize that a single person could not rule the empire on their own. In 293, he set up the tetrarchy, dividing the empire between East and West, with a senior and junior emperor for each.
With the empire at peace, Diocletian relinquished his power as emperor in 305 and retired to a palace he built at Spalatum. He had chosen the site because it was close to his native Salona and had direct access to the sea. The vast complex covers an area between three and four hectares and, at the time, consisted of a military camp as well as the emperor’s private quarters.
More than a century and a half after his death in 312, Diocletian’s Palace may have been used by Julius Nepos, who held imperial power in Rome for just over a year before he was forced to flee to Dalmatia in 475. He plotted to retake the throne but was assassinated in 480.
A Refuge From War
After the Fall of Rome, Dalmatia remained part of the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire, but by the early 7th century, the area was subject to frequent raids by Avars and Slavs, most of whom were Croats. The inhabitants from Salona escaped to the islands off the Dalmatian coast and established a temporary refuge.
By the middle of the 7th century, the refugees decided to move back to the mainland. Rather than reoccupying the site of Salona, they chose to live within Diocletian’s Palace, whose formidable walls protected them from further incursions by the Croats, who were by now well-established in the hinterland. The city’s economy began to thrive as a result of fishing and maritime trade. As the population increased over the centuries, a new district was built to the west of Diocletian’s Palace.
Christianity had already taken root in Salona a few centuries earlier, and Roman structures were quickly converted into churches for the local community. In a historical irony, the Christians converted Diocletian’s Mausoleum into the Cathedral of Saint Domnius (Sveti Duje), named after a bishop of Salona who had been martyred during Diocletian’s persecution of Christians at the beginning of the 4th century.
An Autonomous City State
Alongside several other cities on the Dalmatian coast, Split remained nominally part of the Byzantine Empire. However, as the city was surrounded by the independent Duchy of Croatia, it enjoyed a considerable level of autonomy with a self-governing council and a mayor known by the Italian title of Podestà.
While the Croatians were unable to establish political control over Split, the city found itself at the center of a religious dispute in the early 10th century. Bishop Gregory of Nin’s efforts to promote the Old Slavonic language in church services were vehemently opposed by the pope and the archbishop of Split.
As a result of decisions made at the first and second Councils of Split in 925 and 928, Latin was confirmed as the official liturgical language and the Croatian dioceses were made subordinate to Split.
Among the attendees at the church councils was Tomislav I, the first king of Croatia. In 1069, the kingdom of Croatia took over the Dalmatian coasts and islands, but Split continued to enjoy its previous autonomy. Following a decade-long succession crisis in Croatia at the end of the 11th century, King Coloman of Hungary emerged triumphant in 1102 and added king of Croatia to his titles. During the 12th century, the Byzantines, Venetians, and Hungarians continued to fight over the Dalmatian coast.
A Venetian Trading Post
Split retained most of its political rights under Hungarian rule, which lasted until the early 15th century. In 1409, after failing in his efforts to lay claim to the Hungarian crown, King Ladislaus of Naples sold his nominal rights to Split to the Venetian Republic, who used the sale as a pretext to take control of the city in 1420.
Known by its Italian name, Spalato, the city’s population was predominantly Croatian by the 15th century. The Venetians abolished the city’s autonomous government and put in place a new administration that promoted a Venetian dialect for administration and trade. Nevertheless, the majority of the population continued to speak Croatian, and the city was home to Marko Marulić, one of the most accomplished Renaissance poets. Celebrated by contemporaries for his Latin works, Marulić’s epic poem Judita, based on the biblical tale of Judith and Holofernes, was the first long poem written in Croatian.
During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottoman Empire conquered much of the Balkan peninsula, leaving Venice with a strip of territory along the Dalmatian coast. While other Christian powers were alarmed by the success of the Muslim Turks in taking over southeastern Europe, the commercially-minded Venetians soon established trade relations with the Ottomans. As a result, Split became an important trading post for the Ottoman-Venetian trade, though it was also subject to several Ottoman invasions when the two parties were at war with each other.
Napoleonic Interlude
Venetian rule in Split continued until 1797 when Napoleon Bonaparte conquered and abolished the Venetian republic following his First Italian Campaign. Under the Treaty of Campo Formio, the young French general transferred the Venetian territories to the Austrian Habsburg Empire in return for recognition of republican administrations in northern Italy.
Split remained under Austrian rule until 1805, when Napoleon defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Austerlitz. Dalmatia then became part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, ruled by Napoleon’s stepson Eugene de Beauharnais. In 1806, Napoleon appointed General Auguste de Marmont as governor-general of Dalmatia. Marmont was charmed by Split’s Roman ruins and modernized the city’s infrastructure by establishing new schools and hospitals, tearing down most of the Venetian walls, and building new paved roads.
Upon resumption of hostilities with Austria in 1809, Marmont led the Army of Dalmatia and was appointed Marshal of the Empire during the campaign. Dalmatia was incorporated into the Illyrian Provinces, which formally became part of France. Although Marmont’s actions leading up to Napoleon’s abdication in April 1814 would sully his reputation in France, Split continues to honor him with a major thoroughfare to the west of the Old Town named ulica Marmontova.
The Austrians reoccupied Dalmatia in 1813 following Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Leipzig, and Split remained under Austrian rule for more than a century as part of the Kingdom of Dalmatia.
Split Identities
Four centuries of Venetian rule gave Split a large Italian minority that dominated the city’s political and economic life. Over the course of the 19th century, Split and Dalmatia faced an identity crisis amid competing Italian and Slavic nationalisms.
Two factions emerged in Dalmatian politics during the second half of the 19th century. The People’s Party, largely representing Croatian Dalmatians, favored union with the neighboring Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, which officially became part of the Hungarian crown after 1867. The Autonomist Party, representing the Italian Dalmatian elite, wanted to maintain the autonomy of the Kingdom of Dalmatia under the Austrian crown but was accused of secretly wanting unification with Italy.
One of the most prominent Dalmatian politicians in the second half of the 19th century was Antonio Bajamonti, a leader of the Autonomist Party who served as mayor of Split between 1860 and 1880. Bajmonti had a transformational impact on the city. He built a public theater and a palace on the site of the Venetian fortifications that had been torn down by the French. Although the theater later burned down, these structures would form part of an architectural complex known as the Prokurative, inspired by the Procuratie in St. Mark’s Square in Venice. He introduced gas lighting and restored the Roman aqueduct that brought water into the city, which he commemorated with the construction of a monumental fountain. The Bajamonti Fountain was completed in 1880 but demolished in 1947 as a symbol of Italian nationalism.
Yugoslavia
After the end of World War I and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Split and Dalmatia became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929. Since the Dalmatian capital of Zadar had been annexed by Italy during the war, Split’s political and economic significance increased, and it became the most important port in the new kingdom.
During World War II, Split was occupied by Fascist Italy between 1941 and 1943. The city was one of the centers of partisan resistance to the fascist occupation. The Yugoslav Partisans briefly took control of the city in September 1943 but were soon driven out by the Germans and did not return until October 1944.
In late 1945, Yugoslavia became a socialist republic led by Josip Broz Tito. Tito united Croatia and Dalmatia, which became one of the six constituent republics of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. The Dalmatians welcomed socialist reforms, and Split reassumed its role as the most important port in Yugoslavia. The port became the headquarters of the Yugoslav Navy and fostered an internationally renowned shipbuilding industry. Its population expanded rapidly and the city came to occupy much of the Split peninsula.
Decline and Revival
In the wake of the fall of communism in Europe, Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. As the headquarters of the Yugoslav Navy with a large army garrison, Split found itself in the middle of a stand-off between the Croatian National Guard and the Yugoslav military. The violent clashes reached their peak in November when the Yugoslav Navy ship Split lightly shelled the city. In January 1992, the Yugoslav military evacuated its forces from Split.
While Split largely escaped the bloodshed of the Croatian War of Independence, which ended in November 1995, the economy went into sharp decline as much of Croatia’s industrial capacity had been destroyed during the war.
Split has experienced a revival in its fortunes in the 21st century as a popular tourist destination. With a population of 160,000, Split is Croatia’s second-largest city and boasts 900,000 visitors a year. Despite its rich Roman history, labyrinthine Old Town, and attractive Italianate architecture, most holidaymakers visit Split in search of sun, sea, and cheap alcohol.
While Split’s thriving tourism industry has had a positive impact on the redevelopment of Diocletian’s Palace and the Old Town, the city’s inhabitants have blamed tourists for driving up the cost of living, and local authorities have considered measures to restrict visitor numbers. Like the even more crowded Dubrovnik further along the Dalmatian coast, Split’s experience in recent years illustrates how tourism can often be a double-edged sword.
