Sponza Palace, Orlando’s Column and Luža Square

Sponza Palace was built in the early 16th century as the customs house and administrative centre of the Republic of Ragusa, combining Gothic and Renaissance forms in a building organised around an internal courtyard with an open ground-floor loggia and an upper arcade. It was associated with the customs and trade that funded the republic, and with the meeting of the learned societies of the city. Unlike much of the Old City, Sponza Palace survived the great 1667 earthquake that levelled so many of Dubrovnik’s Gothic and Renaissance buildings, which is why it retains its original form. Today it is associated with Dubrovnik’s archival heritage, housing the State Archives of Dubrovnik, one of the most important collections of medieval and Renaissance records in the Mediterranean; interior access to the archive and its reading rooms is not guaranteed to casual visitors and depends on current arrangements. Orlando’s Column, erected in the medieval period in the square, carries the figure of the medieval knight Orlando (Roland), and it was long connected with the liberty of the city: the length of the knight’s forearm is traditionally said to have been the standard measure known as the Dubrovnik cubit, used in the republic’s trade and cloth measurement. Public ceremonies, the announcement of laws and the flying of the flag of Saint Blaise took place around the column. Luža Square, the open space around the column and the Bell Tower, has been the civic centre of Dubrovnik since the medieval period, the place where the republic gathered its citizens.