St Blaise's Church
The city's patron saint stands on the altar holding a tiny model of the church the 1667 earthquake destroyed — a city keeping its own memory in silver.
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Built in 1349 using estates of Black Death victims, rebuilt in 1715 by Venetian Marino Gropelli after the medieval replacement burned down. The current Baroque design is modeled on Sansovino's San Maurizio in Venice, yet serves as Dubrovnik's most civic religious site — the former patron church of the independent Republic of Ragusa.
What to look for
- On the main altar: a 15th-century gilt silver Gothic statue of St Blaise, left hand holding a scale model of the Romanesque church lost to the 1667 earthquake
- The facade balustrade above the Corinthian columns, where Gropelli carved three statues — St Blaise in the center flanked by Faith and Hope
- The barrel-vaulted interior with blind cupolas at the nave corners and a polychrome marble altar combining white and colored stone
Step inside to reach the altar statue — the interior is compact and takes only a few minutes to take in fully.
St Blaise's Church is one of 12 sights worth the detour in Dubrovnik, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Dubrovnik pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Dubrovnik
- Walls of DubrovnikWalk an unbroken 1,940-metre circuit of medieval stone — up to 25 metres above the old city — that held Ragusa independent for centuries.
- Rector's PalaceFour disasters over two centuries — fire, a gunpowder explosion, and two earthquakes — rebuilt this palace each time in a different style and left the evidence in plain sight.
- Dubrovnik CathedralA Baroque church rebuilt from the rubble of Dubrovnik's 1667 earthquake — its foundations partly funded by Richard the Lionheart, who owed a votive for surviving a shipwreck off Lokrum on his way home from the Third Crusade.
- StradunEvery building on this 300-metre limestone street was rebuilt to a government blueprint after the 1667 earthquake — and it shows.
- Sponza PalaceA stone arch inside warns every merchant: "When I measure goods, God measures with me."
- Franciscan Church & MonasteryThe 1667 earthquake flattened the church. One portal from 1498 made it through — and carved into it is a miniature of everything that didn't.