Valamar Blog

The Dubrovnik Sponza Palace ist the oldest multimedia building in Dubrovnik. It was built in 1520, and since it had been mainly used as customs office, it was named Divona. Valuation office, storage house, and the mint were situated on the ground floor, and on the first floor conference room and literary academy. Before the Dubrovnik masters Pasko Milicevic and brothers Andrijici built the Sponza in 1520, the place where the palace now stands was used for various purposes (e.g. as a hospitum for foreigners in 1347). In the second half of the 16th century on the same spot, in the building that already then had its present-day appearance, the palace began its cultural life.

Namely, at that time a group of Dubrovnik poets founded the “Academy of the unanimous” (“Akademija složnih”), the first literary institution on this territory. Within the framework of the Academy many Dubrovnik poets, writers and philosophers were active (Marin Kaboga, Miho Monaldi, Sabo Bobaljevi? and others). As one interesting feature from this period we should single out the sonnet that was written by Bobaljevi?. Namely, it was written in Italian and has been fully preserved up to the present date. In it, the poet addresses the academics from Sponza as people whose names “will be known all round the world” because even “Apolon himself is inclined to them”.

Today, Sponza houses one of the most important cultural institutions in Dubrovnik, that is, the state record office that has completely been moved here. In this record office all new archival materials of the 19th and 20th century are collected, whereas the Dubrovnik record office is the best kept and richest Croatian archive without which the modern historical research of Dubrovnik would be unimaginable. The oldest independent document from this record office dates from 1022, whereas the records have been kept since 1278.

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