Gundulićeva poljana

This guide to Gundulićeva poljana in Dubrovnik centers on a daily near-noon ritual: a city worker scattering fistfuls of corn across the market square, drawing hundreds of pigeons off the ledges by the twelfth chime of the bell tower, while locals shopping for lavender and dried figs barely look up. It also turns to the bronze statue watching over it all, poet Ivan Gundulić, who died in sixteen thirty-eight, and to sculptor Ivan Rendić's relief panels depicting scenes from Gundulić's epic poem Osman, including the abduction of a young woman named Sunčanica. Gundulić described his own home as caught between a lion and a dragon, squeezed between two much larger appetites. Stand here at noon and watch how little the birds care about any of it.