Ragusa
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city of Dalmatia; on the E. shore of the Adriatic, 100 miles S. E. of Spalato and opposite the Gulf of Manfredonia in Italy. It is surrounded with strong walls, and contains several striking and interesting buildings, chief among them being the palace of the rectors in the Gothic and Classic Renaissance styles between 1435 and 1464; the custom house and mint, dating from before 1312; the Dominican church (1306) and monastery (1348), the former containing a picture by Titian, the Franciscan church and monastery (1317); the Church of St. Biagio (Blaise), the patron saint of the town, built in 1348- 1352, rebuilt in 1715; and the churches of San Salvatore and Alle Dancé. The city seems to have been colonized by refugees from Epidaurus, Salona, and other Græco-Roman towns destroyed by the Slav invaders of the Balkan peninsula. For some centuries Ragusa was Roman outpost on the edge of the Slav states, and flourished greatly under the suzerain protection of Byzantium. Toward the end of the 12th century Ragusa was made to acknowledge the supremacy of Venice. In 1358 Venice ceded her Dalmatian possessions to Hungary, and from that time down to the era of the Napoleonic wars Ragusa was generally accustomed to look to Hungary (i. e., the German empire) for help against her enemies, though from the beginning of the 15th century she was a free and independent republic. Ragusa took a prominent place among the trading states of the Mediterranean, due to her and the empire of the Turks, and the RAY. privileges she enjoyed of trading freely with the subjects of the Sultan. Her Her "argosies" (i. e., "vessels of Ragusa": see ARGOSY) traded as far as the Baltic. Ragusa was the home from the middle of the 15th century of a remarkable literary movement, stimulated by the Renaissance (see SERBIA). During the course of the Napoleonic wars the French entered the city in 1805; this led the Russians to bombard the place. But in 1808 Napoleon declared the republic of Ragusa to be at an end, and in the following year incorporated it in the kingdom of Illyria. Since 1814, like the rest of the Dalmatian seaboard, it has belonged to Austria. Ragusa had, however, long before this declined from her former greatness. Pop. about 15,000.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's ended its account with "since 1814, like the rest of the Dalmatian seaboard, it has belonged to Austria" — already out of date when it went to press in 1921, for Austria-Hungary had collapsed in 1918 and the city had passed to the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia. With that change the Italian name Ragusa gave way officially to the Slavic Dubrovnik, which is what the place has been called ever since; it is now in Croatia, independent from 1991 and in the European Union since 2013. The walls and the buildings Collier's lists — the Rector's Palace, the Dominican and Franciscan houses, St Blaise — survived to be made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979, then were shelled during the siege of 1991–92 by Yugoslav federal forces and painstakingly repaired. The old town of about 15,000 people is now a city of some 40,000 that receives well over a million visitors a year, its ramparts familiar worldwide as King's Landing in Game of Thrones.
Written for this edition, 2026.